Far-ruling Bastien won a brittle fame
By modern methods and a kodak aim.
The style of Holbein taught him much of paint;
But failed to teach him a refined restraint.
The system of Lepage eclipsed his art
And bred a school of Bunglers for the Mart;
For, tho' he died so young, his bolt was hurled,
And paint of peasant low-life filled the world.
Countless disciples awful failures breed,
And a bad Bastien 's very bad indeed.

The group that France has realistic styled
Is made up of romantics running wild.
The peasant poseur that the many paint,
Portrays the creature as a peasant saint;
Mock sentiment supplies the place of style,
And puts a premium upon peasant guile.
Beauty in ugliness is nothing new,
'Tis commonplace as Turner's tawdry blue.
There be that treat of realistic art
As tho' the kodak played the leading part.
To Bastien, realism meant detail,
Meant dry statistics, obvious and stale.
No culmination crowned his static strain,
Nor touched it of a realistic vein.
The truth is that he realism lacked,
For realism is by genius backed,
And genius can reject and purge the dross,
And count as gain what dullards deem a loss.