free light, Impressionism, and Naturalism do not interest them in the least. A naïve, pleasant, lively, and self-complacent technique is in most cases the solitary charm of their works. One feels scarcely any inclination to search the catalogue for the painter's name, and whether the beauty--for she is not the first of her kind--who was called Ninetta last year has now become Lisa. Most of these modern Italians execute their pictures in the way in which gold pieces are minted, or in the way in which plastic works, which run through so many editions, are produced in Italy. Nowhere are more beautiful laces chiselled, and in the same manner painters render the shining splendour of satin and velvet, the glittering brilliancy of ornaments, and the starry radiance of the beautiful eyes of women. Only, as soon as one has once seen them one knows the pictures by heart, as one knows the works in marble, and this is so because the painters had them by heart first. Everywhere there are the evidences of talent, industry, ability, and spirit, but there is no soul in the spirit and no life in the colours. So many brilliant tones stand beside each other, and yet there is neither a refined tone nor the impression of truth to nature. [Illustration: SEGANTINI. MATERNITY.] In all this art of theirs there is scarcely a question of any serious landscape. Apart from the works of some of the younger men--for instance, _Belloni_, _Serra_, _Gola_, _Filippini_, and others, who display an intimacy of observation which is worthy of honour--a really close connection with the efforts made across the Alps is not achieved in these days. As a rule the landscapes are mere products of handicraft, which are striking for the moment by their technical routine, but seldom waken any finer feelings, whether the Milanese paint the dazzling Alpine effects or the Venetian lagunes steeped in light, with gondolas and gondola-poles glowing in the sunshine, or the Neapolitans set glittering upon the canvas their beautiful bay like a brilliant firework. Most of them continue to pursue with complete self-satisfaction the flagged gondola of Ziem; the conquests of the Fontainebleau painters and of the Impressionists are unnoticed by them.