While these opinions of modern critics upon anecdotal art are in our minds, it will be appropriate to mention Greuze's own views as revealed in what he called "_une note historique_" upon his painting of _La Belle-Mère_. "For a long time I had wished," he says, "to paint that character, but in each sketch the expression of the stepmother always appeared to me to be feeble and unsatisfactory. One day, however, when I was crossing the Pont-Neuf, I saw two women, who spoke to one another with much vehemence. One of them began to shed tears, and she exclaimed, 'Such a stepmother too! Yes, she gave me bread, but in giving it to me she broke my teeth.' That was a _coup de lumière_ for me; I returned to the house, and I made the sketch for my picture, which contains five figures: the step-mother, the daughter of the dead mother, the grandmother of the orphan, the daughter of the stepmother, and a child of three years. I have supposed in my picture that it is the dinner-hour, and that the poor little girl goes to take a seat at the table with the other children. Then the stepmother takes a piece of bread from the table, and, holding the orphan back by her apron, thrusts the bread roughly into her mouth. I have set myself the task of showing in that action the deliberate hate of the woman. The child seeks to evade her stepmother's violence, and seems as one {33} who would say, 'Why would you ill-use me? I have done you no harm.' The child's expression is a mixture of shyness and of fear. Her grandmother is at the other end of the table. Harrowed by grief, she lifts her eyes to heaven, and, with hands trembling, seems to say, 'Ah! my daughter, where are you? What misfortunes! what bitterness!' The daughter of the stepmother, not at all sympathetic concerning the lot of her sister, laughs to witness the despair of the poor old woman, and, in ridicule, draws her mother's attention to her gestures. The infant of the family, whose heart has not yet been corrupted, gratefully stretches out her arms towards the sister who has bestowed so much kindness upon her. I have wished to paint a woman who maltreats a child that does not belong to her, and who, by a double crime, has also corrupted the heart of her own daughter." Here, then, we see an anecdotal painting in the making. Although this rehearsal is very touching, as a revelation of the kind heart of the man, it yet seems to-day a particularly naïve exposition of the motive for a work of art. Nothing could show with greater clearness the wide gulf that, in the art world, lies between the end of the eighteenth century and the end of a century which closed with discussions of the theories of impressionists, vibrists, symbolists and pointillists, and with the theories of those who, denying that art is primarily moral, or even intellectual, have contended that it is {34} simply a means by which we are made to respond to an artist's emotion.