This picture betrays a mind curious, inquisitive and mordant; and that
plaid shawl is as unexpected as an adjective of Flaubert's. A portrait
by Manet hangs close by, large, permanent and mysterious as nature.
Degas is more intellectual, but how little is intellect compared with
a gift like Manet's! Yesterday I was in the Louvre, and when wearied
with examination and debate--I had gone there on a special errand--I
turned into the Salle Carree for relaxation, and there wandered about,
waiting to be attracted. Long ago the Mona Liza was my adventure, and
I remember how Titian's "Entombment" enchanted me; another year I
delighted in the smooth impartiality of a Terbourg interior; but this
year Rembrandt's portrait of his wife held me at gaze. The face tells
of her woman's life, her woman's weakness, and she seems conscious of
the burden of her sex, and of the burden of her own special lot--she
is Rembrandt's wife, a servant, a satellite, a watcher. The emotion
that this picture awakens is an almost physical emotion. It gets at
you like music, like a sudden breath of perfume. When I approach, her
eyes fade into brown shadow, but when I withdraw they begin telling
her story. The mouth is no more than a little shadow, but what wistful
tenderness there is in it! and the colour of the face is white,
faintly tinted with bitumen, and in the cheeks some rose madder comes
through the yellow.
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