Blind?

In Les Andelys, 60 miles down the Seine from Paris, a school of impressionistic art has thrived for nearly 100 years under such masters as Claude Monet, Pisarro and Cezanne. Once a year the village is astir with an exhibition which students hold in Balzac's old home.

According to a cable dispatch, an old gentleman of 80 recently climbed the dingy stairs to the students' salon. He carried a picture in his arm and asked to have it hung. The old gentleman was Claude Monet (TIME, March 17, Aug. 6). The picture was his reply to reports that, blind, he would never paint again.

This last Monet gives a corner of a flower garden with the sunset showing through the Summer leaves. Its breathless passion of color draws all eyes to it. Monet is master without contemporary peer. Can he be blind?