There are, however, more distinctive and more curious repetitions to note than these obvious evidences of a general taste for music and the dance; the repetitions of figures or groups in particular positions, and of details in _mise en scène_. The well-known “Joueur de Guitare,” in the Musée Condé, reappears _in almost exact facsimile_ in “La Surprise” (in Buckingham Palace) and also in the “Fête Galante,” or “Fête Champêtre,” in the Royal Gallery, Dresden. The couple in “La Gamme d’Amour” is simply a detail from the centre of the “Assemblée dans un Parc,” in the Royal Gallery at Berlin. The musician in “La Leçon de Musique” (Wallace collection) is repeated in “Le Concert,” also in the Wallace collection. To turn now to details of _mise en scène_, it is curious to note that the pillars seen in the last-named picture also occur in the “Bal sous une Colonnade,” in the Dulwich Gallery. The reclining statue to the right of the picture, known as “Les Champs Elysées,” in the Wallace collection, is another, presumably an earlier version of the “Jupiter and Antiope,” in the Louvre. The statuette and amorini in the “Fête d’Amour” at the Dresden Royal Gallery are variants of those in the “Embarquement pour l’Ile de Cythère”; while the terminal statue of Pan seen in the “Arlequin et Colombine,” in the Wallace collection, reappears again and again in the Italian Comedy series. [Illustration: Le Concert (_From the painting by Watteau, Wallace Collection_).] [Illustration: La Leçon de Musique (_From the painting by Watteau, Wallace Collection_).] To some, unaware, perhaps, of the influence which the stage of Watteau’s time was exerting in other directions, these comparisons may possibly seem unnecessary. But in considering the extent to which that influence may have expressed itself in the painter’s work, it is just these details which, taken in conjunction with the trend of theatrical taste at that time, are likely to be of importance. There was never an artist yet--whether in colour, sound, or spoken or written word--who created a new world out of nothing. The spirit of art can only find its expression in the manipulation of existing material. Every work of art must surely be the culmination of a long series of impulses due to external stimuli the connection of which, perhaps over a lengthy period, consciousness has failed to analyse and memory to record. Now Watteau’s work as a whole exhibits the frequent repetition of certain _motifs_, but they were never of something he can never have seen in reality. It was not automatic reiteration of some pictured or imagined type, group or material object. His earliest impressions of stage-life, it is true, may well have been those conveyed by the prints or paintings of his master Gillot. But there was _no necessity_ for him to subsist for the rest of his life for inspiration on second-hand impressions.