For in all low-relief work one will find the artist to be showing a preference either for form and the structural character of the subject, or for its colour qualities, represented by delicate variations in the planes, which produce a corresponding warmth of delicate light and shade; in a word, he feels his subject either in the round or in the flat. Which you yourself will prefer is a question of your point of view. Among brother artists who are painters there will probably be a verdict in favour of the second group, since it represents more closely what they themselves strive for, and are therefore partial to. And its pictorial quality may equally recommend it also to general approbation. For, indeed, such a portrait as that of M. Vadé is unquestionably fascinating. There is in it scarce any resort to lines, the modelling being effected almost entirely by planes, at once broad and subtle, full of a sense of colour and giving an expression of dreaminess to the face. Yet, if one compares this portrait with either of the three included in the former group, it is to find in the latter a compensating virility of expression, a greater dignity of structure and of character. It is not usual to find these two very opposite motives of technique united in one artist. But in Brenner’s case it seems to result from an absence of all artistic _parti pris_, and from the freshness of interest with which he attacks each subject, so that the latter itself reveals to him the more appropriate manner of presenting it. In the portrait shown in the accompanying illustration the two motives seem to be combined. XII THE DECORATIVE MOTIVE In all ages sculpture has been intimately allied with architecture, somewhat as the blossom with the tree, reaching often its noblest expression as an efflorescence of decoration upon the surface of a building or as separate forms within it; springing up in statue, tomb or pulpit like bursts of flowery growth in the forest. Nature in a marvellous way adapts the colour and forms of the blossoms to the character and structure of the tree and shapes of the woodland flowers; for example, the foxglove spiring up amid the tree trunks to the character of its environment. In the spirit of this example the sculptor fashions his designs in conformity with that of the architecture, whether it be for decoration of the building’s surface or for a separate contributing feature.