what reason their exhibition was neglected I do not know.

The paintings of Habib Srour are of precise workmanship, exact in transcription, faithful in recording nature with com-plete fidelity; but they stir in us no particular artistic feeling — they content themselves with stirring admiration for the capability of the work and the craftsmanship, nothing more.

If we pass to the living artists, we are struck by the great disparity we find between them — in general — and the dead artists. The living are at least alive: they try to free themselves from the past and to shake off the dominion of the domineering artists. So we find in their paintings the trace of the "Impressionist" and "Post-Impressionist" artists — the likes of Manet, Monet, and Cézanne. But it is a slight trace whose features have faded through blending with the other schools.

I cannot but begin with Farroukh, for he is in fact the eldest of the Lebanese artists and the connecting link between these and those who have departed. It is a link that is nec-essary, without doubt, to every successful artistic movement for which permanence and development are hoped.

He is, of the living, the most careful to preserve the precision and exactness of drawing, even if it forces him to sacrifice color. Yet he is strong, to a degree, in his psychological expression, precise in the portrayal of persons, especially the popular types who never swerve from their social struggle for life — types on whom Farroukh takes pity and whom he loves.

Farroukh is in need of depth of feeling in his choice and arrangement of colors, especially in some of his landscapes, and he fails when he attempts to execute a delicate emotional subject with the same ease with which he executes his other paintings. "My Teacher," for example (no. 86), is a very

delicate, complicated subject, difficult for anyone to carry off successfully, and I believe that Farroukh failed in this attempt of his.

But without doubt he succeeded completely in his pictures of people's heads, such as "Bedouin" (no. 95), "My Master" (no. 83), "Master Mitri" (no. 87), and others. He has a watercolor portrait of the poet Ahmad al-Safi al-Najafi (no. 103), masterly in its characterization, truthful in its telling of the life and inner nature of that resentful, pessimistic wanderer — except that the colors are weak and ordinary.

Farroukh is a local realist in his subjects, wholly faithful to this realism of his — and to his "localness."

As for Douaihy, he is enamored of bright, gay colors, which he scatters through his paintings broadcast, succeeding at times and failing at times. Among his successful paintings is "Around the Fire" (no. 73), where the colors are in complete harmony and the execution is simple, fully expressive of the artist's feeling toward these two ordinary talkers — and "A Village Woman Knitting Wool" (no. 52), "Ain Sir" (no. 67), "A Young Girl" (no. 55), and "Interior of the Lebanese House" (no. 54).

This artist is moved by the play of lights and shadows — a merry play, most like the spirit of an innocent child laughing at its games. Painting no. 52 is distinguished by the unity and simplicity of its subject (one of Douaihy's characteristic traits), and by the artist's attempt to convey to us the delicate, sincere feeling he experiences before these lights strewn over the whole canvas and those light, transparent shadows that steal in here and there, creating an atmosphere of balance that rests the nerves and delights the soul.

But Douaihy failed in some of his subjects, such as the paintings representing the cedars in the snow, and a few