[Illustration: CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY. DEER IN A WOOD Size of the original etching, 6⅜ × 4⅜ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] None of the other Barbizon men has so successfully interpreted the freshness of early morning, the sparkle of sunrise on tender young leaves or dew-bespangled grass, the tranquility of the quiet pool hidden in the depth of the forest. His first plate, etched in collaboration with his friend Meissonier, is dated 1838, and all through the “forties” Daubigny continued to etch either original motives or such as were commissioned by editors for the embellishment of various publications, in many cases poems and songs of a pastoral nature. It is, however, to the following decade that his finest work belongs--a series of little masterpieces which, in their way, remain unequalled. His plates, small in size, are as carefully worked out as those of Claude but with a truer feeling for the elusive charm of still, untroubled places. Later his style grows broader and bolder. Less is actually said, more is suggested. There is a freedom in his line work which these etchings of his middle period had hardly led us to expect but for which, in truth, they were the finest preparation. He has learned to eliminate the non-essential; and in etching the _art of omission_ is the supreme virtue. One of the most suggestive plates of his middle period is _Deer in a Wood_. The treatment is perfectly simple and straightforward, truly linear, as all good etching should be, but the spirit of the scene is captured and portrayed in these few, seemingly careless, lines. _Deer Coming Down to Drink_ is another altogether delightful plate in the same series. The early morning air is vibrant with the glory of sunrise, and the little leaves clap their hands in joy. “Has it not often occurred to you, in your explorations as a tourist, to see suddenly open before you a break in the landscape, a little valley, calm, in repose, full of elegant and tranquil forms, of discreet and harmonious colors, of softened shadows and lights, bordered by hillsides with rounded and retiring forms and where no step seems to have troubled the poetic silence? A pond, placed there like a mirror, reflects the picture, and bears on its cup-like edge sheaves of rushes, coltsfoot, arrow-heads, water-strawberries and the white and yellow flowers of the water lily, amid which swarm a buzzing world of insects and gnats.... As you approach, some heron, occupied in dressing its plumage, flies off, snapping its beak; the snipe runs away, piping its little cry; then everything falls again into silence, and the valley, welcoming you as its guest, takes up under your eyes its mysterious work.”[14] All this and more Daubigny gives us by his art. [14] Count Clément de Ris. L’Artiste. June, 1853. [Illustration: CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY. DEER COMING DOWN TO DRINK Size of the original etching, 6⅛ × 4⅝ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]