Brooklyn Museum Quarterly . ROSES the most vital group among modern painters and of whomI shall speak presently. But, to return to mural painting. It nmst combinethe far-flung passion of the poets imagination with the ex-actitude and order of the scientist. As a matter of fact,even among our most fiery romanticists the free outpour-ings of the soul, the ^delires sacresf were always temperedby a cool power of reason which never quite it is that has given rise, through a misuse of terms, tothe saying that the French lack imagination. Xow muralpainting demands, on the contrary, a
Brooklyn Museum Quarterly . ROSES the most vital group among modern painters and of whomI shall speak presently. But, to return to mural painting. It nmst combinethe far-flung passion of the poets imagination with the ex-actitude and order of the scientist. As a matter of fact,even among our most fiery romanticists the free outpour-ings of the soul, the ^delires sacresf were always temperedby a cool power of reason which never quite it is that has given rise, through a misuse of terms, tothe saying that the French lack imagination. Xow muralpainting demands, on the contrary, a constant exercise ofinventive power; or, rather, it is invention, controlled ])y thenatural and organic laws derived from experience. Tlie 82. FRUIT great French decorators have always proceeded by selec-tion. They studied Xature before applying her. Neverhave they turned out copies of reality in the raw—retina-likereflections like the image in a camera ohscura. On the con-trary, they have humanized nature by translating it intoterms of their standard. INIoreover, they worked like thegreat Italians, and even somewhat in the manner of theEgyptians, the Greeks, and the Asiatics—what decorators,the last-named! They observed the moving forms of na-ture, absorbing them constantly, and their memories ])ecameprodigiously expert at retaining such images. Thumb-nailsketches, very rapid and A^ery concise, enabled them to seizethe instant from the ever-changing spectacle of did they permit this sort of notes to become labored;for an over-prolonged study direct from nature results in a 83 series of super-imposed varying impressions, inevitably pro-ducing that effect of uncertainty and compromise that oneexperiences on v
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