Since Cézanne | Page 6

to 1914, though there is divergence, there is, I
think, no antipathy between them--of antipathies between individuals I
say nothing. Solidarity was imposed on the young generation by the
virulent and not over scrupulous hostility of the old; it was _l'union
sacrée_ in face of the enemy. And just as political allies are apt to
become fully alive to the divergence of their aims and ambitions only
after they have secured their position by victory, so it was not until the
new movement had been recognized by all educated people as
representative and dominant that the Fauves felt inclined to give vent to
their inevitable dislike of Doctrinaires.
Taken as a whole, the first fourteen years of the century, which my
malicious friend Jean Cocteau sometimes calls _l'époque héroïque_,
possessed most of the virtues and vices that such an epoch should
possess. It was rich in fine artists; and these artists were finely prolific.
It was experimental, and passionate in its experiments. It was
admirably disinterested. Partly from the pressure of opposition, partly
because the family characteristics of the Cézannides are conspicuous, it
acquired a rather deceptive air of homogeneity. It was inclined to
accept recruits without scrutinizing over closely their credentials,
though it is to be remembered that it kept its critical faculty sufficiently
sharp to reject the Futurists while welcoming the Cubists. I cannot deny,
however, that in that moment of enthusiasm and loyalty we were rather
disposed to find extraordinary merits in commonplace painters. We
knew well enough that a feeble and incompetent disciple of Cézanne
was just as worthless as a feeble and incompetent disciple of anyone
else--but, then, was our particular postulant so feeble after all? Also, we
were fond of arguing that the liberating influence of Cézanne had made
it possible for a mediocre artist to express a little store of recondite

virtue which under another dispensation must have lain hid for ever. I
doubt we exaggerated. We were much too kind, I fancy, to a number of
perfectly commonplace young people, and said a number of foolish
things about them. What was worse, we were unjust to the past. That
was inevitable. The intemperate ferocity of the opposition drove us into
Protestantism, and Protestantism is unjust always. It made us narrow,
unwilling to give credit to outsiders of merit, and grossly indulgent to
insiders of little or none. Certainly we appreciated the Orientals, the
Primitives, and savage art as they had never been appreciated before;
but we underrated the art of the Renaissance and of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Also, because we set great store by our theories
and sought their implications everywhere, we claimed kinship with a
literary movement with which, in fact, we had nothing in common.
Charles-Louis Philippe and the Unanimistes should never have been
compared with the descendants of Cézanne. Happily, when it came to
dragging in Tolstoyism, and Dostoievskyism even, and making of the
movement something moral and political almost, the connection was
seen to be ridiculous and was duly cut.
The protagonists of the heroic epoch (1904--1914 shall we say?) were
Matisse and Picasso. In modern European painting Picasso remains the
paramount influence; of modern French, however, Derain is the chief;
while Matisse, who may still be the best painter alive, has hardly any
influence at all. In these early days Derain, considerably younger than
Matisse and less precocious than Picasso, was less conspicuous than
either; yet he always held a peculiar and eminent position, with an
intellect apt for theoretical conundrums and sensibility to match that of
any Fauve and his personal genius brooding over both. About the best
known of Matisse's companions--for they were in no sense his
disciples--were, I should say, Friesz, Vlaminck, Laprade, Chabaud,
Marquet, Manguin, Puy, Delaunay, Rouault, Girieud, Flandrin. I think I
am justified in describing all these, with the exception, perhaps, of
Girieud and Flandrin, as Fauves; assuredly I have heard them all so
described. In very early days Maurice Denis was by some reckoned a
chief, the equal almost of Matisse; but through sloppy sentiment he fell
into mere futility, and by now has quite dropped out. Friesz, on the
other hand, has gone ahead, and is to-day one of the half-dozen leaders:
I shall have a good deal to say about him in a later part of this book.

Vlaminck a few years ago had the misfortune to learn a recipe for
making attractive and sparkling pictures; he is now, I understand, in
retirement trying to unlearn it. Rouault is a very interesting artist of
whom we see little; from what I have seen I should be inclined to fear
that a taste for romance and drama is too often suffered to smother his
remarkable gift for painting. Marquet, with gifts equal to almost
anything, is content, it seems,