This review of the exhibit of French paintings now on display at the Fogg Museum was written by a member of the Staff of the Museum.

Last Thursday the Fogg Museum opened an exhibition of French painting of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which is of significance not only for Harvard but for all followers of art in the neighborhood. Its importance lies in the fact that approximately one hundred paintings and one hundred and twenty-five drawings and prints have been brought together, covering the range of French pictorial art from the early nineteenth century classical revival of David through the romanticism of Delacroix and Gericault, to the pleinair and impressionistic schools in their various phases as represented by Corot, Millet, Monet, Manet, and Renoir. The work of these men is well known in Boston, and the Committee has assembled only a few of their paintings to illustrate the continuity of nineteenth century development and to lead up to the less known post-impressionists--Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and others.

As art in France did not stop with the post-impressionists, the present day tendencies are represented by the work of Matisse, Picasso, Gromaire, Villon, and Braque. The exhibition is the largest of its kind shown in America up to the present time, and an interested public now has an opportunity to trace the complicated development of the nineteenth century. In this period new creative forces were stirring--new ideals arose which sought expression in new forms. The age was weary of revivals, always a sign of creative weakness. It had had enough of academic rules and formulae long since outworn and no longer able to express the contemporary point of view. That the age had something to say is very powerfully shown in such pictures as Van Gogh's "L' Arlesienne", lent by Mr. Adolph Lewisohn; the "Still Life Study of Fruit," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Walter S. Brewster; the "Street in Arles," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert E. Fuller; or the "Postman"--M. Roulin, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Treat Paine II. There is vitality of drawing and an expression of energy in every line--a certain growing quality that must be recognized whether you like it or not. The handling of color is masterly.

In the Manet "Still Life of Fish," lent by Messrs. Durand-Ruel, there is an intensity of visual effect that startles. Here is no philosophizing or sentimentality. The artist sees with eyes more widely open than most of us. In contrast to this the Gauguin Still Life--the Table with Fruit and Flowers, lent by Mr. John T. Spaulding. Here the artist is in a tender mood which is something of a surprise.

Mr. Spaulding has lent some of the very fine things in the exhibition. His pictures--eighteen in all--have a general high level of quality. His "Still Life" by Matisse is a daring picture. The artist is interested only in colour and pattern. It is subtle and defies accepted rules. On analysis it proves, like some of the most interesting music of the period, to be made up of discords of color rather than harmonies.

Mr. Bartlett has lent his well-known Still Life by Cezanne from the Birch-Bartlett Collection in the Art Institute of Chicago. In this, as in the landscape ("Tournant de Route a Auvers") lent by Mr. John Nicholas Brown, Cezanne is shown as the searcher of new paths and rhythms. The modelling is done by means of colour.

A man who is only beginning to command recognition in the United States is Vlaminck. Mr. and Mrs. Q. A. Shaw McKean have lent among other important pictures a characteristic landscape. Vlaminck depends on organization of light and shade, and his handling is always dramatic with a very free but sure technique.

President and Mrs. A. Lawrence Lowell have lent one of the interesting Monet's in the exhibition. It is an excellent example of Monet's scientific handling of color and of the artist's ability to express just what one sees at a glance