ent and
temper, all of whom have this in common, that they have swallowed, more
or less whole, the formulas which French masters invented and which
French masters are now developing and modifying. Confronted by the
elaborate surprises of these rank-and-file men, the patriotic critic,
supposing such an anomaly to exist, will have to admit that English
painting remains where it has generally been--in a by-street. It is well
to admit this in time; for I can almost hear those queer people who can
appreciate what is vital in every age but their own, squealing
triumphantly--"We told you so." Yes; it is true. English
Post-Impressionism is becoming academic: but Post-Impressionism is not;
in France the movement is as vital as ever.

Too many of the English Post-Impressionists are coming to regard certain
simplifications, schematizations, and tricks of drawing, not as means of
expression and creation, but as ends in themselves, not as instruments,
but as party favours. The French masters are being treated by their
English disciples as Michael Angelo and Titian were treated by the minor
men of the seventeenth century. Their mannerisms are the revolutionary's
stock-in-trade. One is constantly confronted at the Dore Gallery by a
form or a colour that is doing no aesthetic work at all; it is too busy
making a profession of faith; it is shouting, "I am advanced--I am
advanced." I have no quarrel with advanced ideas or revolutionary
propaganda; I like them very well in their place, which I conceive to be
a tub in the park. But no man can be at once a protestant and an artist.
The painter's job is to create significant form, and not to bother about
whether it will please people or shock them. Ugliness is just as
irrelevant as prettiness, and the painter who goes out of his way to be
ugly is being as inartistic and silly as the man who makes his angels
simper. That is what is the matter with Hamilton's portrait in the big
room--to take an instance at random. Hamilton has plenty of talent, and
this picture is well enough, pleasant in colour and tastefully planned;
but his talent would be seen to greater advantage if it did not strut in
borrowed and inappropriate plumes. The simplifications and distortion of
the head perform, so far as I can see, no aesthetic function whatever;
they are not essential to the design, and are at odds with the general
rhythm of the picture. Had the painter scribbled across his canvas, "To
hell with everything