Since Cézanne | Page 3

war--then, at any rate, was the hour of his glory; he dominated the
cosmopolitan groups of his quarter at a time when most of the French
painters, masters and disciples, were in the trenches. Modigliani owed
something to Cézanne and a great deal to Picasso: he was no
doctrinaire: towards the end he became the slave of a formula of his
own devising--but that is another matter. Modigliani had an intense but
narrow sensibility, his music is all on one string: he had a
characteristically Italian gift for drawing beautifully with ease: and I
think he had not much else. I feel sure that those who would place him
amongst the masters of the movement--Matisse, Picasso, Derain,
Bonnard, and Friesz--mistake; for, with all his charm and originality,
he was too thoughtless and superficial to achieve greatly. He invented
something which he went on repeating; and he could always fascinate
simply by his way of handling a brush or a pencil. His pictures,
delightful and surprising at first sight, are apt to grow stale and, in the

end, some of them, unbearably thin. A minor artist, surely.
[Footnote B: He was at work, however, by 1906--perhaps earlier.]
Though Paris is unquestionably the centre of the movement, no one
who sees only what comes thither and to London--and that is all I
see--can have much idea of what is going on in Germany and America.
Germany has not yet recommenced sending her art in quantities that
make judgement possible, while it is pretty clear that the American art
which reaches Europe is by no means the best that America can do.
From both come magazines with photographs which excite our
curiosity, but on such evidence it would be mere impertinence to form
an opinion. Of contemporary art in Germany and America I shall say
nothing. And what shall I say of the home-grown article? Having taken
Paris for my point of view, I am excused from saying much. Not much
of English art is seen from Paris. We have but one living painter whose
work is at all well known to the serious amateurs of that city, and he is
Sickert. [C] The name, however, of Augustus John is often pronounced,
ill--for they will call him Augustin--and that of Steer is occasionally
murmured. Through the _salon d'automne_ Roger Fry is becoming
known; and there is a good deal of curiosity about the work of Duncan
Grant, and some about that of Mark Gertler and Vanessa Bell. Now, of
these, Sickert and Steer are essentially, and in no bad sense, provincial
masters. They are belated impressionists of considerable merit working
in a thoroughly fresh and personal way on the problems of a bygone
age. In the remoter parts of Europe as late as the beginning of the
seventeenth century were to be found genuine and interesting artists
working in the Gothic tradition: the existence of Sickert and Steer made
us realize how far from the centre is London still. On the Continent
such conservatism would almost certainly be the outcome of stupidity
or prejudice; but both Sickert and Steer have still something of their
own to say about the world seen through an impressionist temperament.
The prodigious reputation enjoyed by Augustus John is another sign of
our isolation. His splendid talent when, as a young man, he took it near
enough the central warmth to make it expand (besides the influence of
Puvis, remember, it underwent that of Picasso) began to bear flowers of
delicious promise. Had he kept it there John might never have tasted
the sweets of insular renown: he would have had his place in the
history of painting, however. The French know enough of Vorticism to

know that it is a provincial and utterly insignificant contrivance which
has borrowed what it could from Cubism and Futurism and added
nothing to either. They like to fancy that the English tradition is that of
Gainsborough and Constable, quite failing to realize what havoc has
been made of this admirable plastic tradition by that puerile gospel of
literary pretentiousness called Pre-Raphaelism. Towards these
mournful quags and quicksands, with their dead-sea flora of anecdote
and allegory, the best part of the little talent we produce seems
irresistibly to be drawn: by these at last it is sucked down. That, at any
rate, is the way that most of those English artists who ten or a dozen
years ago gave such good promise have gone. Let us hope better of the
new generation--recent exhibitions afford some excuse--a generation
which, if reactionarily inclined, can always take Steer for a model, or, if
disposed to keep abreast of the times and share in the heritage of
Cézanne as well as that of Constable, can draw courage from the fact
that there is, after all, one English painter--Duncan Grant--who