In these days the enthusiasm for Fortuny is no longer so glowing. The capacity to paint became so ordinary in the course of years that it was presupposed as a matter of course; it was a necessary acquirement for an artist to have before approaching his pictures in a psychological fashion. And in this later respect there is a deficiency in Fortuny. He is a _charmeur_ who dazzles the eyes, but rather creates a sense of astonishment than holds the spectator in his grip. Beneath his hands painting has become a matter of pure virtuosity, a marvellous, flaring firework that amazes and--leaves us cold after all. With enchanting delicacy he runs through the brilliant gamut of radiant colours upon the small keyboard of his little pictures painted with a pocket-lens, and everything glitters golden, like the dress of a fairy. He united to the patience of Meissonier a delicacy of colour, a wealth of pictorial point, and a crowd of delightful trifles, which combine to make him a most exquisite and fascinating juggler of the palette--an amazing colourist, a wonderful clown, an original and subtle painter with vibrating nerves, but not a truly great and moving artist. His pictures are dainties in gold frames, jewels delicately set, astonishing efforts of patience lit up by a flashing, rocket-like _esprit_; but beneath the glittering surface one is conscious of there being neither heart nor soul. His art might have been French or Italian, just as appropriately as Spanish. It is the art of virtuosi of the brush, and Fortuny himself is the initiator of a religion which found its enthusiastic followers, not in Madrid alone, but in Naples, Paris, and Rome. [Illustration: _L'Art._ FORTUNY. MOORS PLAYING WITH A VULTURE.]