earlier art, showed practical progress in many of his works. There were few in French art before him who depicted the emotions of the soul with such refinement as Greuze in his "Reading of the Bible." In proportion to the understanding and character of the individual is the impression of the listener reflected on his countenance. That was something new in comparison with the laughing gods of Boucher. And that Greuze was also capable of the most highly _pictorial_ magic when he could once bring himself to lay aside the moral teacher is proved by his rosy, inspired heads of young girls. He never grew weary of painting these pretty children in every situation and attitude at that seductive age which hides the charming feet beneath the first long gown. Blonde or brunette, with a blue ribbon in the hair, a little cluster of flowers in the bodice, they gaze out upon life with their big, brown child eyes, full of curiosity and misgiving. A light gauze covers the soft lines of the neck, the shoulders are as yet hardly rounded, the pouting lips are fresh as the morning dew, and only the two rosy, budding breasts, that fight lustily against their imprisonment, and seem, like Sterne's starling, to cry, "I cannot get out," betray that the woman is already awake in the child. Greuze's name will always be associated with these girl types, just as that of Leonardo is with the dreamy, smiling sphinx-like head of Mona Lisa. In them he has given an unsurpassable expression to the ideal of innocence at the end of the eighteenth century, and provided in them a new thrill of beauty for his contemporaries. And a _blasé_ society which had indulged in every licence bathed itself with passionate delight in the unknown mystery of this surging flood. Yes, after the stimulating champagne of _rococo_, people had even come to delight in simple black bread. And so, out of _bourgeoisie_ itself, a school of painting was developed as fresh and healthy as this. [Illustration: _"Gaz. des Beaux Arts."_ CHARDIN. PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF.] _Chardin_, the carpenter's son, is at the head of this domestic art in the eighteenth century. After Greuze, the painter of refined taste, he seems, a comfortable, healthy, _bourgeois_ master in whom the Dutchman of the best period once more appears upon earth. After the king had, up to the close of the seventeenth century, been the centre round which everything turned, the solitary personality which dared to appear independent, and upon which the rest of the world formed itself; after the circles round the court had next freed themselves, and gained the right to enjoy life and art for themselves, there still remained a third step to surmount. "Society" abdicates in favour of a free and healthy _bourgeoisie_.