But, without going to any such lengths in demeaning his imagination, the artist may still allow it to become hypnotised by his model. I was very much struck by the remark of a painter, whose nudes are exquisitely pure and poetical in type, that it was his habit as soon as he had secured the facts of the figure to discontinue the model, since he found that otherwise he was apt to become possessed by it. And is it not a fact that in very many statues and pictures one detects the evidence of this possession? Is it absent in Macmonnies’s later work? The earlier is alive with spontaneous, creative energy, which shows itself most characteristically in works like the “Cupid on Ball,” “Boy with Heron,” and the “Diana.” The last has been criticised for being “nervous and strained” in manner. Not quite justly, perhaps, since the long, lean limbs are precisely those of one accustomed to swift movement; the movement in this case is free and elastic, and the whole gesture of the body expressive of keen and practiced energy; no antique type, it is true, but its modern antithesis, the girl whose graceful lines have been strung and whose grace of action liberated by physical activities. The figure has the buoyancy and poise of mass and charm of living lines which distinguish the work of Macmonnies as much as the actual beauty of modelling. These traits reappear in a most fascinating way in the artless grace of the “Cupid,” bounding along with head and shoulders thrown back, as he discharges an arrow behind him. The action of the body is quick with naturalness, and yet the disposition of every part, even to such a detail as the fingers, reveals the shrewd arrangement of a choicely refined taste--an instinctive taste, operating almost unconsciously, with a frank, boyish impulsiveness, high spirited and not without a spice of mischievous humour. For note the redoubtable struggle between the “Boy with Heron”; the youngster planted firmly and putting forth his strength so stubbornly, the bird thrashing the air with its wings and writhing its body angrily. How will it end? Is it only a tumble of sport, or will the young creature of the earth not let go until the creature of the air is subdued, perhaps maimed, killed? Or, again, in the “Pan of Rohallion” the boy stands upon a ball supported by miniature dolphins, which spout their streams of water and look up as if listening, while he blows the two reeds that issue at a broad angle from his impish mouth, leaning back to inflate his chest until his body describes an arc. It is the attitude of a saucy child that has taken the measure of its little self from the affectionate indulgence that surrounds it; again, not an antique type, nor rustically impish like a Puck, but with the engaging elegance and self-conscious roguery of a certain kind of modern urchin.