ABSTRACT
The forest of Fontainebleau is the great al-fresco school of art of modern France. It has the prestige of the great names. Rousseau and Millet; through the palace, its artistic history mounts as high as the days of the Renaissance; and the singular charm which it exerts upon the minds of men still leads the casual visitor to return. The fact of its great and special beauty further recommends this country to the artist. The field was chosen by men in whose blood there still raced some of the gleeful or solemn exultation of great art—Millet who loved dignity like Michelangelo, Rousseau whose modern brush was dipped in the glamour of the ancients. Thus Fontainebleau, although it is truly but a pleasure-ground, and although, in favourable weather, and in the more celebrated quarters, it literally buzzes with the tourist, yet has some of the immunities and offers some of the repose of natural forests.
