3-047-058 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Meditation," by P. A. Cot, from a photograph published by Messrs. Goupil and Co., 1872. 'The main interest of the works by M. P. A. Cot, the painter of this picture, is usually to be found rather in the treatment than in the subject...With these foreign artists it matters little what is selected for depiction, and the sole test of success is the greater or less perfection with which the object selected is represented. M. Cot aims in his works at perfect finish and absolute completion, to the exclusion even of all freedom of touch. The consequence is that his works, though marvels of minute elaboration, have a rather mechanical and enamelled excess of polish. It must not be supposed, however, that works of this class are devoid of suggestiveness. On the contrary, they often have, in their simple directness, an intense expressiveness which arrests the attention and dwells in the memory. In the pensive face before us, so ably foreshortened, with the eyes set in wistful reverie, the reader's imagination may, perhaps, be tempted to follow the wanderings of, as Shakspeare has it, addressing his Virgin Queen, a "maiden's meditation, fancy free" - wanderings as romantic, it may be, as those of Spencer's Una'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.