It is frequently asserted that his drawing is not always correct, and from the point of view of the schools he would probably himself plead guilty to the charge. But those who insist upon the point do not perhaps quite comprehend his motive, which is less the actual structure of the form than the inherent significance of the figure. Let us grant at once that the two motives are not antagonistic, that Millet’s “Sower,” for example, is as structurally correct as it is full of significance. But that is to put La Farge to the test of one of the greatest masters of drawing, by comparison with whom very few can stand. By far the greatest number of draughtsmen, while approaching him in correctness, will be far behind him in expression. On the other hand, in the case of La Farge, the significance of a pose or gesture, the vital expression of a figure, is generally admirable. I have in mind, for example, his drawing of Bishop Hatto, pursued by rats. The distance from the thigh to the toes would appear to be exaggerated; but how wonderfully the long drawn out, tense arc of the figure stimulates the imagination to a realization of the agony of the crisis. There is another point. The figure, as it is, so exactly contributes to the decorative balance of the picture. It may be that the instinct of the decorator determined the length of limb, and perhaps also, not at all improbably, the influence of the Japanese. It would not be difficult, for instance, to find in Outamaro’s lovely prints of women just such an elongation to accentuate the _svelte_ grace with which he wishes to invest them. I make this suggestion with more confidence, because one can trace in the composition of this picture more than a little of the Japanese arrangement of full and empty spaces; that irregular form of composition which secures a balance by oppositions rather than by repetition of similarities. It is, indeed, the method of the nature student, as true of Velasquez and Rembrandt as of the Japanese. Not that La Farge with his choice appreciation of the old masters could be insensible to the influence of the Italians. His great altarpiece of the Ascension in the Church of the Ascension in New York is reminiscent in its structure of Raphael’s “Disputá.” The space is very similar in shape, and filled with a broad band of figures across the base, a central figure in the upper space, and flanking arcs of angels. Again the mural paintings of “Music” and the “Drama” in the music room of Mr. Whitelaw Reid’s New York house were evidently suggested by the pastoral scenes of the Venetian painters. The latter, however, were themselves, no doubt, suggested by the desire to emancipate painting from the rigidity of preconceived formulas of composition, and it is just this attempt to discover a compromise between the natural and the conventional which is so marked a characteristic of La Farge’s treatment of mural painting.