one of the famous _Salon des Refusés_, and has, in consequence, been
generally described as an "Impressionist." It is an honour he neither
desires nor deserves. The pure doctrine of Impressionism, as formulated
by Claude Monet, enjoins "scientific truth" and submission to Nature,
whereas Renoir observed one day to an astonished disciple, "Avec la
Nature on ne fait rien"; and on being asked where, then, the student
should learn his art added, without any apparent sign of shame or sense
of sin--"Au musée, parbleu!"

Renoir thus affirmed what every artist knows, that art is the creation
and not the imitation of form. In his eyes the most valuable part of an
artist's education is the intelligent study of what other artists have
done. For his own part he studied Courbet and then Delacroix, and,
assuredly, from these picked up useful hints for converting sensibility
into significant form. Sensibility he never lacked. Renoir's painting
gift may, without unpardonable silliness, be compared with the singing
gift of Mozart. His conspicuous characteristics are loveliness and ease.
No painter, I suppose, gives more delight, or gives it more frankly.
That is why his name provokes an odd, personal enthusiasm in thousands
of people who have never seen him. That is why Frenchmen, who have
sometimes a terribly intimate way of explaining themselves, have been
known to assert that they feel for Renoir the sort of grateful affection
that every sensitive man feels for a woman who has given him joy.

But Renoir's natural masters--parents one would say if a man could have
more than two--were Fragonard, Boucher, and Watteau. These, two of whom
he has surpassed, with Rubens, whom he almost equals, are responsible
for most of what is derivative in his art during his first great period
(1870-1881). That this should be the period beloved of amateurs does not
surprise me. It is the period of _Mme. Maître_ (1871), _La Loge_ (1874),