n expert
whom one esteems, may commence a process of change which afterwards seems
to go on by itself. But I remember being very much impressed by a
still-life--some fruit in a bowl--and on approaching it I saw Cezanne's
clumsy signature in the corner. From that moment the revelation was swift.
And before I had seen any Gauguins at all, I was prepared to consider
Gauguin with sympathy. The others followed naturally. I now surround
myself with large photographs of these pictures of which a dozen years ago
I was certainly quite incapable of perceiving the beauty. The best
still-life studies of Cezanne seem to me to have the grandiose quality of
epics. And that picture by Gauguin, showing the back of a Tahitian young
man with a Tahitian girl on either side of him, is an affair which I
regard with acute pleasure every morning. There are compositions by
Vuillard which equally enchant me. Naturally I cannot accept the whole
school--no more than the whole of any school. I have derived very little
pleasure from Matisse, and the later developments of Felix Vallotton leave
me in the main unmoved. But one of the very latest phenomena of the
school--the water-colours of Pierre Laprade--I have found ravishing.

* * * * *

It is in talking to several of these painters, in watching their familiar
deportment, and particularly in listening to their conversations with
others on subjects other than painting, that I have come to connect their
ideas with literature. They are not good theorizers about art; and I am
not myself a good theorizer about art; a creative artist rarely is. But
they do ultimately put their ideas into words. You may receive one word
one day and the next next week, but in the end an idea gets itself somehow
stated. Whenever I have listened to Laprade criticizing pictures,
especially students' work, I have thought about literature; I have been
forced to wonder whether I should not have to reconsider my ideals. The
fact is that some of these men are persuasive in themselves. They
disengage, in their talk, in their profound seriousness, in their sense of
humour, in the sound organization of their industry, and in their calm
assurance--they disengage a convincingness that is powerful beyond debate.
An artist who is truly original cannot comment on boot-laces without
illustrating his philosophy and consolidating his position. Noting in
myself that a regular contemplation of these pictures insp