The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-09-27
ALFRED STEVENS.
Painter of Fine Ladies and High Llfe'
 of Second Empire.

From Truth
 Alfred Stevens died recently in the poor little flat In which he for some years vegetated in the Avenue Tru- daine. A Belgian by birth and early education, he became by choice a thor ough bouleYardier at time when the boulevards were the literary and artls- tic salon of Europe, He caught the dandyism of the clubmen who ire quented Tortonis, the wings of the old opera house and the Sale Venta- dour. You can see them driving them. selves in mail and other phaetons in the paintings of Lami and J. l.. Brown. They are in all the Bois and Champs Elysees scenes of these artists.
 Stevens took up the feminine side of "le high lifep and sincerely painted 1t as it appeared to him. He had really fallen fin love with it, and its glamour had taken him in. Had 1t been other wise he would not have stood higher as a painter than did Arsene Houssaye as an author or that poor creature Imbert St. Armand. Imbert as writer was a cayaliere servente, and Hons- save coureur d'alcoyes without a sin gle illusion. Want of perspicaclty saved Stevens. If one could not fall in love as he did with his fine ladies one could not help admiring the man ner of the artist. Like a first-rate chef, he had often to work on bad material, which his skill rendered savory. The sauce redeemed the in gradients. There were times when he turned them into ambrosia Stevens may live as Nattier and Lami live. A Fragonard would have lent to the cocodettes whom Eugenie gathered around her too much of his esprit for them to be really of their time. The Second Empire was a period of Philis- tinism, Stevens, If man of good Bel gian family. was not exempt from snobbishness in his loves.
 admit that a portrait painter-and all the easel pictures of Stevens were portraits of femmes du monde in fancy surroundings or engaged in imaginary incidents-must hold the candle to what is low and vulgar in the originals. But there ought to be an undercurrent of protest oozing out through the work. It is allowable to hold the candle to his Satanic Majesty, if one is de- termined in so doing. to scorch his face. One finds this determination in the portraits of Latour, the greatest artist in his genre of the eighteenth century. Latour began always by tell ing the real truth, whatever 1t was. If he saw a fox or a wolf behind the countenanee of financier he set 1t down on canvas, or if Delilah or a De Tincin lurked behind the smiles
 0df fonnn nr n0nrt lady he did not pass her over. Alter the third or fourth sitting he embel- lished according to the tastes of the time and of the sitter. Stevens had not penetrating eye. It must be said that he hardly needed 1t. He only dealt with favorites of fortune. who hardly needed to mask their propensi- ties Tn the arrangement of details of the toilette he had no equal, and the task was no easy one, seeing what de- based Spanish taste prevailed. AS a colorist he must ever take high rank. I should say that in all his paintings there is not single false note or jar ring tone of color and that everywhere his coloring Is felicitous and captivat- ing It Is also to be said that in paint ing his cocodettes and their belongings he never slid down to the level of the illustrator. An illustrator may be great artist. but illustration Is low art
 The fashionable world had for many wears before his death completely for gotten Stevens. Had he been French man the government would have found for him some post in the Fine Arts Denartment Harsh things are said of Leopold. the millionaire King, for not recognizing in some handsome way the talent of the old painter.