M. Princeteau, the designer of sporting scenes, influenced Lautrec’s style, and became his intimate friend. Forain also counts for something in his development, whilst Pissarro and Renoir were frequent visitors to and critics of the young Impressionist. Perhaps of all men Degas inspired him most, and at times he undoubtedly copied the methods of that master. With serious study he had little to do. He worked in the atelier-Bonnat in 1883, and later on in the atelier-Cormont, where he continued the study of the nude; yet it was only after he had complete liberty and was entirely free from scholastic influence that his style began to form. Then his strong individuality displayed itself, and he became Toulouse-Lautrec as we know him. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: BABY’S TOILET · MARY CASSATT ] CHAPTER IX · THE “WOMEN-PAINTERS”: BERTHE MORISOT, MARY CASSATT, MARIE RACQUEMOND, EVA GONZALÈS “TOUTE TOILE QUI NE CONTIENT PAS UN TEMPÉRAMENT, EST UNE TOILE MORTE” _ZOLA_ AMONGST the artists who contributed paintings to the eight exhibitions of the Impressionist group are four women, who were influenced by the new methods: Mdlle. Berthe Morisot, Madame Marie Bracquemond, Miss Mary Cassatt, and Mdlle. Eva Gonzalès. The story of Berthe Morisot is romantic. She was the great grand-daughter of Fragonard, a famous beauty, a pupil of Manet, then the wife of his brother Eugène. Her position in the art world of France was unique, and her death at the early age of fifty in 1895 cut short a career devoted to a most charming and delicate style. She excelled above all in two branches of her art—an exquisite draughtsmanship and a most luminous and poetic sense of colour. Technical difficulties never discouraged her. She was one of those rare and fortunate individuals who can intuitively surmount any problem and consequently hardly require a teacher. Madame Eugène Manet was an artist to her finger-tips. Her work is charged with a feminine charm sympathetic to the temperament of any painter. Her canvases are iridescent poems in paint, and she possessed many qualities in common with her illustrious ancestor. “Only one woman created a style,” wrote the novelist George Moore (who, it may be remembered, had a close acquaintanceship with many of the Impressionists), “and that woman is Madame Morisot. Her pictures are the only pictures painted by a woman that could not be destroyed without creating a blank, a hiatus in the history of art.” She was a woman of great personality and charm, and took an active part in the furtherance of the movement which was initiated by her brother-in-law. “My sister-in-law would not have existed without me,” said Manet one day in the Rue d’Amsterdam to George Moore, and the latter adds, “True, indeed,