If ever there was a painter to whom the old saying _celare artem est summa ars_ is applicable, surely it was Chardin! A slow, meticulously careful worker, who bestowed no end of time and trouble upon every canvas, and whom nothing but perfection would satisfy, he never attempted to gain applause by a display of cleverness or by technical fireworks. The perfection of the result conceals the labour expended upon it and the art by means of which it is achieved. And so it is with the composition. His still-life arrangements, where everything is deliberate selection, have an appearance of accidental grouping as though the artist, fascinated by the colour of some viands and utensils on a kitchen table, had yielded to an irresistible impulse, and forthwith painted the things just as they offered themselves to his delighted vision. How different it all is to the conception of still-life of his compatriots of the "grand century" and even of his own time! It was a sad misconception of the function and range of art that made the seventeenth century draw the distinction between "noble" and "ignoble" subjects. When they "stooped" to still-life it had to be ennobled--that is to say, precious stuffs, elegant furniture, bronzes and gold or silver goblets, choice specimens of hot-house flowers, and such like material were piled up in what was considered picturesque abundance--and the whole thing was as theatrical and tasteless and sham-heroic as a portrait by Lebrun, the Court favourite. Even the Dutch and Flemish still-life painters of the period, who had a far keener appreciation of Nature, catered for the taste that preferred the display of riches to simple truth. Their flowers and fruit were carefully chosen faultless specimens, accompanied generally by costly objects and stuffs; and on the whole these large decorative pieces were painted with wonderful accuracy in the rendering of each individual blossom or other detail, but with utter disregard of atmosphere. It has been rightly said that these Netherlanders gave the same _kind_ of attention to every object, whilst Chardin bestowed upon the component parts of his still-life compositions not the same kind, but the same _degree_ of attention. And above all, whilst suggesting the texture and volume and material of each individual object with faultless accuracy, Chardin never lost sight of the ensemble--that is to say, the opposition of values, the interchange that takes place between the colours of two different objects placed in close proximity, the reflections which appear not only where they would naturally be expected, as on shiny copper or other metals, but even those on comparatively dull surfaces, which would probably escape the attention of the untrained eye. Chardin looked upon everything with a true painter's vision; and his brush expressed not his knowledge of the form of things, but the visual impression produced by their ensemble. He did not think in outline, but in colour. If proof were needed, it will be found in the extreme scarcity of sketches and drawings from his hand. Only very few sketches by Chardin are known, and these few proclaim the painter rather than the draughtsman.