The genius here referred to by Kant is well understood and his power is fully recognized, but he is not separated from his fellow craftsmen except in the degree of his knowledge and ability. He is a man of superior ability and power who, driving straight to the object of his labor, represents character in a direct and forceful way. To this end he brings to his assistance his superior technical skill, but often in the very impetuosity of his ardor, as Kant suggests, he leaves unfinished parts because he well understands that to labor over these parts would be to reduce the force or power of the whole. This impetuous manner which strives to render the character of the object or person, or of the scene, or of the ephemeral effects of nature, quickly and directly, is well understood by the painter. I recall a large sketch of Daubigny’s owned by Mesdag, probably purchased from the painter. This sketch represents a green hillside with a canal and horses in the foreground. For absolute power and truth of beautiful quality and colour it was probably never surpassed by Daubigny, but it is what the public would call an unfinished picture. In truth, force, and beauty, it might fairly be considered “inspired” as compared with Daubigny’s finished or carefully painted pictures so widely known. In this painting there are many unsatisfactory parts, such as are referred to by Kant as “deformities,” but Daubigny well understood that to remove them or to work over this sketch, which was doubtless made rapidly in the presence of nature and under the influence of the particular mood expressed by nature, would have weakened its power. I recall another painting that will illustrate this point--a study by Anton Mauve. This study was found among Mauve’s possessions after his death, and was probably never offered for sale during his lifetime because, in minor parts, it is incomplete. Rough lines of the original drawing were permitted to remain. These are the kind of blemishes to which Kant refers, but they do not detract from the supreme beauty and power of the study. Indeed, this picture is considered by many painters to be one of Mauve’s masterpieces, so true and just is it in the representation of a momentary effect in nature. Mauve doubtless recognized the importance of the study and refused to make corrections of minor defects. I have been told that he replied to Weissenbrouck, a fellow painter who urged him to finish this work: “I will leave it as God made it in nature. It is finished.” Mauve had secured the broad, essential truth of nature and with this he was content. [SN: _Maeterlinck_] Maurice Maeterlinck tersely expressed the same thought when he said: “I myself have now for a long time ceased to look for anything more beautiful in this world, or more interesting, than the truth....”