for the muscular nutrition. This constant activity entails nutritional changes in the elements, necessary for the maintenance of their normal state. Their constituent

atoms are always passing away, and always being renewed; were it not so, it would be impossible for them to pass into the state of energetic action that may be evoked at any moment. These changes seem to be the nutritional counterpart of the gentle action we can discern; and both are essential for the life of the structures. Their increase within moderate degree by work involves increased nutritional change, a greater vital efficiency. A different form of mental work may thus involve the gentle activity that is conducive to better replacement of old constituents by new, and may thus promote the general well-being of the brain.

Moreover we can discern another reason for the beneficial influence of the change of work. By a wonderful mechanism, which we imperfectly comprehend, all functional activity is attended by an increased bloodsupply. The minute vessels which convey the blood dilate; and more blood passes to the acting tissue than to one that is quiescent. Hence there is a more abundant supply of the nutritive plasma, which passes from the vessels to the tissues laden with fresh material from which the nerve elements appropriate what they need. But the arrangement of the vessels which convey the blood bears only a very general relation to the functions of the brain. In the same part different layers of the brain may have different functional relations; they may be involved in very different degrees in various forms of brain activity; yet the dilatation of the vessels and the increased blood-supply involve them all alike. The increased flow of the blood, and increased access of the elements essential to replace those which are lost in action, involve an augmented supply to all the tissues in that region, to those which have been only slightly called upon as well as to those which are more or less exhausted. On the other hand, the work of the tissue! means an escape of its used-up elements, and a need for their removal, as well as for the fresh supply which the increased flow of blood affords. Thus we can understand that the old belief has a distinct and intelligible foundation. A different form of activity may leave the exhausted

elements almost at rest, and yet aid the renewal of their lost material and promote the removal of the waste products.

The same considerations apply to muscular exercise in even greater degree. Although the region of the brain chiefly employed may not be the same, all parts share such activity; and for all parts the blood supply is augmented, not only as a result of functional activity, but as the effect of the stimulation of the whole circulatory system which physical exercise involves. The heart beats faster; and the respirations, being quickened, augment the supply of oxygen which the muscles demand but which goes also to the whole system. The purer the air inspired, the greater is its beneficial influence; and hence the advantage of exercise in the open air. But, to be useful, exertion must be moderate. In excess, as we have seen, the brain is hindered by the products of its own action, as well as by those of the muscles; for all physical effort involves corresponding activity of the motor centres in the brain.

We are accustomed to talk of recreation' without discerning how much the word implies. It means 'making again' that which work has undone, or rather facilitating the marvellous recuperative power of life. Rest and recreation are the antidotes of fatigue; but recreation should be such as to deserve the name. It does not replace rest, but, properly employed, aids its influence. Its value is great in proportion as it involves a thorough change in the character of nerve activity. But it should always be remembered that no recreation is possible if that which is thus designated simply replaces one form of fatigue by another form. Many a holiday is rendered useless by such disregard of the dictates of that rare practical wisdom to which, as if in irony, we apply the designation 'common-sense.'

W. R. GoWERS.

Art. XI.-FRENCH PAINTING IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 1. Les Primitifs Français au Palais du Louvre et à la Bibliothèque Nationale. Catalogue rédigé par H. Bouchot, L. Delisle, J.-J. Guiffrey, Frantz-Marcou, H. Martin, P. Vitry. Paris: 1904.

2. Exposition des Primitifs Français. Compte rendu par Paul Vitry. Special number of Les Arts.' Paris: Manzi, Joyant, 1904.

3. De quelques travaux récents relatifs à la Peinture Française du XVe siècle. Par Paul Vitry. Paris: Rapilly, 1903.

4. L'Exposition des Primitifs Français au point de vue de l'influence des frères Van Eyck sur la Peinture Française et Provençale. Par Georges H. de Loo (G. Hulin). Paris Floury, 1904.

5. Les Euvres des Maîtres de l'École Flamand Primitifs. Par Mgr Dehaisne. Paris, 1891.

6. Gazette des Beaux Arts. Articles by le Comte de Durrieu, R. Maulde de la Clavière, B. Prost, Salomon Reinach, A. Champeaux, Benoit, Léopold Delisle.

7. La Revue de l'Art. Articles by le Comte de Durrieu and l'Abbé Réquin.

THE exhibition of French Primitives held recently in the Pavillon de Marsan of the Louvre was to some extent a result of the great success which attended the exhibition of the Primitives of the Netherlands held at Bruges in 1902. M. Georges Hulin, whose admirable critical catalogue of that exhibition gave him at once a foremost position among the critics of medieval painting, pointed to a number of works in that collection which were of French origin, and remarked on the singular indifference shown by so artistic a nation as the French to the study of their own early schools of painting. M. Bouchot took up the challenge; and no one will deny that he and his colleagues have done all in their power to make up for past neglect. In their writings the importance and interest of early French painting have been fully proclaimed. Some will even think that their repentance has been excessive, and that the measure of praise accorded to the French Primitives has been filled to overflowing. It may be admitted indeed that, after having in the past

carelessly allowed the works of their own masters to be attributed to van Eyck and Wohlgemuth, and even to be called 'œuvres grecques,' the French are now inclined to claim as part of their national inheritance a considerable share of the works of Flemish artists.

No harm, but rather much good, has come of this enthusiasm. Without some such feeling, it is doubtful whether even M. Bouchot could have overcome all the difficulties which lay in his way. Moreover, while the French origin of disputed works and the independence of the French tradition has been asserted in very positive language, neither M. Bouchot nor any of those who, like M. Paul Vitry, so ably assisted him, have shown any inclination to force the verdict of foreign critics. On the contrary, every facility was given to students; inquiry and discussion were courteously welcomed; and, if the hope was entertained that the exhibition would prove to the world the existence of a medieval French school of painting, even this cherished aim was felt to be subordinate to the search for historical truth.

In the main, then, the thesis which the exhibition was intended to illustrate, and if possible prove, was that, alongside of the great fifteenth-century traditions of the Netherlands and Germany, there was another tradition as great, as original, and as national-that of France; and, further, that the tradition of the Netherlands was itself in the nature of an offshoot from the more complete and continuous tradition of still earlier French art. As yet, no final consensus of opinion has been arrived at on these points; but the weight of authority seems to incline to a negative verdict. This statement requires some modification and explanation, which it will be the object of this essay to supply; but we may say at once that, even if we accept the negative verdict, and deny to the French school of painting in the fifteenth century the homogeneity and completeness that we find in that of the Netherlands, we must nevertheless admit that the pictures shown in Paris this year, even if we confine ourselves to those which may properly be called French, were more varied in interest and occasionally rose to a higher range of imaginative feeling than those seen two years ago at Bruges.

The very want of homogeneity in the French tradition

actually contributed to this result. We may compare the styles which thus arose on French soil with our own language, which owes its richness of poetical content to the fusion of the German and Latin tongues. Like that, the French painting of the fifteenth century was, it may be, a hybrid compounded of Latin traditions vivified by a Teutonic directness of vision; but it was a magnificent hybrid, used by French painters to express essentially French conceptions and to illustrate French manners, and coloured by the French temperament. Still it would be difficult to find any common characteristics which bind together such diverse works as those of, say, Charenton and Fouquet and Froment. In fact the very words France and French, as we employ them, are misnomers for the fifteenth century. At that period a native of Burgundy was more united by political ties with Brussels than with Paris, while a Provençal was even less of a Frenchman than he is to-day.

The organisers of the exhibition have indeed recognised this fact by distributing the pictures among the various provinces of France, creating with lavish ease schools of Lorraine, of Artois, of Picardy, of Auvergne, of Champagne, besides the better-recognised schools of Paris, Touraine, Bourges, Moulins, and Provence. That these schools were created on insufficient grounds may be seen from the fact that an interesting work (No. 94) of the so-called school of Lorraine, one which might have been expected to exemplify the essential characteristics of an important group, contained inscriptions which were unmistakably in Dutch. No less remarkable was the bold but unsuccessful annexation to French art of the Maître de Flémalle, under the convenient title of École d'Artois.

The difficulty of discussing this question of a French school is largely due to the exceedingly small number of works which have survived. When we look at the Annunciation from Aix, at the Pietà from the same town. and at the few works attributable to Fouquet, all of them masterpieces of the most diverse kinds, and certainly on a level with any works produced at the same time in the Netherlands, we can hardly doubt that what we see ar but isolated peaks of a once continuous mountain range. since submerged by the oblivious waters of political dis turbance. Such great masterpieces could not have been