the plastic work of the Greeks and of the pictures of Jean Francois
Millet equally.

I do not think that the sovereignty and empire of women's beauty
has at all passed away, though we may no longer go to war for them
as the Greeks did for the daughter of Leda. The greatest empire
still remains for them--the empire of art. And, indeed, this
wonderful face, seen last night for the first time in America, has
filled and permeated with the pervading image of its type the whole
of our modern art in England. Last century it was the romantic
type which dominated in art, the type loved by Reynolds and
Gainsborough, of wonderful contrasts of colour, of exquisite and
varying charm of expression, but without that definite plastic
feeling which divides classic from romantic work. This type
degenerated into mere facile prettiness in the hands of lesser
masters, and, in protest against it, was created by the hands of
the Pre-Raphaelites a new type, with its rare combination of Greek
form with Florentine mysticism. But this mysticism becomes over-
strained and a burden, rather than an aid to expression, and a
desire for the pure Hellenic joy and serenity came in its place;
and in all our modern work, in the paintings of such men as Albert
Moore and Leighton and Whistler, we can trace the influence of this
single face giving fresh life and inspiration in the form of a new
artistic ideal.



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