We know that the darkness of the ground in old portraits is only partly attributable to the influence of age, and that in most cases it is intentional. On studying a series of old portraits one can only regret that so much technical ability in representing the body, face, clothes, lace, jewels, etc., should have been harmonized, not with the light, airy shadows of a summer’s day as we all sufficiently know and see it, but with a thick artificial black. Undoubtedly the new school of painters will render a service to art by taking men out of the darkness of attics and cellars into the clear light of gardens. It is indisputable that the monotonous early style, which showed everything in the same light of the studio, spares the artist many difficulties and embarrassments; but in art there ought to be even less hesitation than in anything else in the face of technical difficulties. * * * * * Turning to historical pictures, we are struck by the more thoroughly intellectual and characteristic handling of the subject at the present time. History is certainly still illustrated more or less by amusing anecdotes, and artists content themselves by depicting that which science has established, instead of contributing the results of their own researches; but even now there is a very marked advance on the usual adulation and the uncritical traditions, legends, and assertions of the old school. If painters were to study history, not in a fragmentary way from this to that page, if they would understand that the imitation of dramatic exaggeration on canvas has become obsolete, they would begin to arouse the interest of society in the past quite in a different way from that which is possible by means of anecdote, picturesque costumes, and types that are for the most part fables of history. It is a fact, that hitherto the treatment of memorable events by artists has been of a nature to draw a smile from the educated. But by changing the sunny holiday of the historical picture into a more acceptable workday, truth and simplicity would certainly be the gainers. It seems superfluous to mention the extraordinary advance made at the present day in landscape painting, an advance due to very many causes, but chiefly, of course, to the development of natural science. It is not too much to say that the landscapes of the old masters are mere childish essays, as compared with the works of the leading living artists in this field. And it is really difficult to understand how and in what direction landscape painting can be brought to greater perfection. * * * * * In the so-called religious painting, imitation of the old masters is nearly as great as in portraits. But this is fully explained by the gradual disappearance of religious perception, and the consequent preference for an old ideal, rather than the creation of a new one without the strong faith of olden times.