New-York tribune., 1921-01-30
LA FEMME AUX CHRYSANTHEMES
rom the painting by Degas the Durand Rue gallery

overfiowing and partially concealing
the old bowl in which they are placed.
Did ever any flower painter, given to
flowers and to nothing else, paint such
profusion of blooms with a more
exquisite sense of their character and
OF the naturalness with which they
clustered together. The Japanese, who
are the great miracle workers in this
field, would inevitably have conven-
tionalized the flowers Co a certain ex-
tent, if, indeed, one Of their masters
had been content to accept so dense
a group. Degas takes his riot of
chrysanthemums just as it fell into
the bowl. but he achieves a unity as
fiawless as that of a Japanese print by
his positively orchestral manipulation
of values. These are poised in an equi-
llbrium to which seemingly untold
variations contribute. The flowers
scale from brilliant white to deep,
tawny reds, oranges and browns. Here
and there are glorious blues. Never
as colorst was Degas more fecund,
powerful the next. It is as though he
fingered caressingly upon refinement
after refinement, and, giving to each
blossom the minutest, most enthusiasts
tic treatment, still contrived to endue
the whole web of color with the
breadth Of work conceived In
grand sweep of artistic energy.
1t Is positively enchanting to sec
this technician of superb, swift gesture
painting flowers with the intimate ten
derness of some sort of modernized
Chardin. And it is enchanting, too, to
see how the craftsman in him cannot
be kept down, but Is manifested in the
painting of petal, painting so fine in
its appreciation of line that it trans
forms the brush into frmer point,
firmer yet with no hardness in it. Here
is proof, if ever it were needed, that,
great craftsman though he was, Degas
was also one of the greatest painters
who ever lived, veritable magician of
painted surface. You see it not in the
flowers alone, but in the bowl beneath
them, in the glass pitcher placed on
the table and in the decorative wall
paper filling the background. This man
of genius, who spent devoted years in
the Interpretation of movement, ap-
proves himself also one Of the supreme
painters Of still life. And then, to
round out our happiness in the picture,
he throws in, as it were, one of the
best portraits he ever painted. Here,
too, he is the easy master Of his me-
dunn, giving US once more perfectly
painted surface; but here he is more
particularly the craftsman. The por-
trait falls into the same category with
the one or two we cited from the Selig-
mann collection last week, and with the
one belonging to Mrs. Gardner. The
distinction of the present example is
that it discloses a slightly broader
touch in the definition of form and
structure.
The painting was executed, as we
have noted, as far back as 1865. Degas,
hence, was only thirty-one. Yet it is
rlain that in LA Femme aux Chrys-
anthemes" he had arrived at his full
stature. Many superb things were still
before him. Two years later he painted
the Gardner canvas. The magnificent
Ballet de Robert lie Diable" dates from
1872. In the next year he painted "Le
Bureau de Cotton" at New Orleans, one
Of the outstanding monuments Of his
career And 30 the glowing list goes
on. He suffered change and growth.
But on the whole he never surpassed
the glorious picture Of which we have
written.