Sunday, January 15:
In the morning R. talks about Bismarck’s statements on the responsibilities of a king, and he then continues to enlarge upon what he calls “this constitutional rubbish.” At 12 o’clock a sitting for the French painter Renoir, whom R. jokingly claims to have mistaken for Victor Noir.
This artist, belonging to the impressionists, who paint everything bright and in full sunlight, amuses R. with his excitement and his many grimaces as he works, so much so that R. tells him he is the painter from the F. Flatter. Of the very curious blue-and-pink result R. says that it makes him look like the embryo of an angel, an oyster swallowed by an epicure.
This sitting brings us to landscape painting, and from there to a discussion which becomes so heated that, when R. says, “I have been hearing the same thing for twenty years,” I leave the room. That produces a turn in the conversation which gradually restores us to the best of moods. Regarding portraits, R. declared, among other things: “What does that convey to me? The best thing a portrait artist can paint nowadays is a bloodhound!” The weather was dull, no one went out, and in the evening whist was played.