in shadow. This in less able hands would tend to become a mannerism, but beautiful in every way are the works of this great artist. Very different is the aim of Bosboom. He gives us interiors of churches and other buildings without any hard lines and filled with diffused light and air. All the shadows in them are full of light in deeper tones, and the more brilliant parts, that receive the direct rays of the sun, sparkle with a brilliancy that rivals the older master. In colour he is equally fine, though the general tone is lower, and there is a greater feeling of simplicity in the technical handling. This feeling of apparent simplicity permeates a great deal of the work of the whole school. Bosboom modifies the strict rules of ordinary perspective to get the higher truth of aerial perspective, and we must not look to him for correct drawing as generally understood, as that is not at all what he is aiming at, though curiously enough to some people his pictures appear too architectural. An architect, who was a great lover of art, once said to the writer, "From that point of view, Bos boom is all wrong. He does not draw correctly from the architect's standpoint, but he does something far more difficult and much finer. He gives us the effect of airy atmospheric spacious interiors. He reaches the end he sought splendidly, and produces wonderfully beautiful and poetical pictures, but not architectural drawings." In his later years, so inspired is he with this quality of space, and so intent on securing it, his brush work gets very broad, details almost vanish, and the fine colour of his earlier work becomes almost monochromatic. Perhaps his finest period is when his work is broadening and yet keeps its colour, but it is a difficult matter to decide, so much depends on individual feeling; for those masterpieces of his late years, in the Mesdag Museum at the Hague, are extremely grand and attractive, and, on the other hand, there is no question regarding the great beauty of the paintings he made about 1870 to 1880. Bosboom painted some very attractive scenes on the beach at Scheveningen, which are highly prized and much admired, and also |