THE WOODCUTS OF M, FELIX VALOTTON


now and then, but never in his
ideas, nor does he try to get out
of the wood the artificial qualities
that are produced naturally by cop-
per. Whether in the series of
sixty portraits to illustrate Remy
de Gourmont's "Livre des Mar-
ques," or in later things, every one
of his woodcuts bears the unmis-
takable imprint of     Vallotton's
personality. He shows himself to
be an acute psychologist, but his
sense of humor, almost always
present, prevents him from fall-
ing into the slough of macabre,
in  which, too   often, a  native
Frenchman     loves   to   tramp


about, imagining he treads in a
wine-press. This quality of humorous insight has made "The
Bad Step" anything but gloomy, although a coffin occupies the
important part of the picture.       Again in "The Denionstra-
tion" Vallotton has caught a Paris mob        in a manner only
approached by Steinlein, and there is a delightful feeling of
"before and after" in the series of portraits of Nietzsche. His
portraits invariably are likenesses, and nothing human is discarded
by him as b(eing uninteresting, though lie shows remarkable reticence
in the matter he introduces in his compositions. It is not without
interest to note that when "The Bath" was printed in a little Amer-
ican magazine, "The Chap Book," some years ago, quite a little
storm of journalistic protest came out of the west, and into it from the
east, for that matter, the critics considering it productive of an undue
                                  tax unon the blushina canacities


of the pure in heart and in Kan-
kakee. However, art has pro-
gressed  over here, and    one
never needs to hold hand before
face, peeking   through finger
chinks at M. Vallotton. In the
little picture entitled "The Ex-
ecution" note that, tiny though
they be, each of the faces of the