Against a background of sea and of blue sky, a Genius with the radiant features of a child advances, holding a torch in each hand. At sight of the Genius the muses run forward and range themselves on each side. The ninth muse, still floating through the air, hastens to rejoin her companions. This whole charming group of women is deliciously painted and one is at a loss which to admire the more; the originality of the artistic conception, or the peculiarly rare delicacy of the painter's skill. The eight subordinate panels represent _Bucolic Poetry_, _Dramatic Poetry_, _Epic Poetry_, _History_, _Astronomy_, _Physics_, _Chemistry_ and _Philosophy_. All these paintings produce a decorative effect of the highest order, and many critics consider, not without reason, that this group of frescoes in the Boston Library constitutes the masterpiece of Puvis de Chavannes. However that may be, the authorities of the great American city are very proud of this absolutely unique decorative ensemble, and whenever any distinguished stranger passes through Boston he is conducted to admire it. Is not this a beautiful homage to French art, of which Puvis de Chavannes was one of the most glorious exponents? THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER There is, in the work of Puvis de Chavannes, so much harmony and balance; the place occupied by each figure is so perfectly planned to accord the unity of the whole, that one does not perceive at first, because of the wise ordering of the assembled parts, how many-sided the artist's genius was. And so it happens that the landscape painter in him does not appear excepting under analysis. Yet few artists have advanced the science of landscape so far; indeed, in all his compositions it holds a position, if not of first importance, at least one equal to that of his figures. In his eyes it was not a matter of convention, a decoration, an accessory, but an indispensable part of the picture, so indispensable indeed that, without the landscape the picture would not exist. In short, it is in his landscape that Puvis de Chavannes has always placed the local colour of his compositions, and not in his figures. The latter are generally clad in antique fashion, in order to remain representative of humanity in general, but the setting is local: his _Ave, Picardia Nutrix_, for instance, shows us the land of Picardy with its level plains and its melancholy horizons: similarly, the two frescoes in the Palace of Longchamps reproduce faithfully the sun-flooded coast of Marseilles and the animation of its quays;--and yet the hurrying crowds upon them belong to no definite race nor to any determinable epoch. It is always so in the paintings of Puvis de Chavannes: the landscape and the living figures harmonize, fit in, complete each other, and the consummate art of the landscape painter yields in no way to that of the painter of figures. [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--WAR (In the Museum, Amiens)