Since Cézanne | Page 7

to remain a brilliant but superficial
impressionist. Puy is a thoroughly sound artist, and so in a smaller way
is Manguin. What has become of Chabaud, who was a bit too clever,
and a little vulgar even? And what of Delaunay? And of Flandrin--what
has become of him? Something sufficiently interesting, at any rate, to
give pause even to a critic in a hurry. His name must not go by
unmarked. Flandrin was amongst the first to rebel against
Impressionism--against that impressionism, I mean, which remained
implicit in post-impressionism. Resolutely he set his face against the
prevailing habit of expressing an aspect of things, and tried hard to
make a picture. So far he has succeeded imperfectly: but he is still
trying.
Of one artist who is certainly no Doctrinaire, nor yet, I think, a Fauve,
but who has been influenced by Cézanne, I shall here do myself the
honour of pronouncing the name. Aristide Maillol is so obviously the
best sculptor alive that to people familiar with his work there is
something comic about those discussions in which are canvassed the
claims of Mestrovic and Epstein, Archipenko and Bourdelle. These
have their merits; but Maillol is a great artist. He works in the classical
tradition, modified by Cézanne, thanks largely to whom, I imagine, he
has freed himself from the impressionism--the tiresome agitation and
emphasis--of Rodin. He has founded no school; but one pupil of his,
Gimon--a very young sculptor--deserves watching. From the doctrine a
small but interesting school of sculpture has come: Laurens, an artist of
sensibility and some power, and Lipsitz are its most admired
representatives. At home we have Epstein and Dobson; both have been
through the stern school of abstract construction, and Epstein has
emerged the most brilliant pasticheur alive. Brancuzi (a Bohemian) is, I
should say, by temperament more Fauve than Doctrinaire. Older than
most of Cézanne's descendants, he has nevertheless been profoundly
influenced by the master; but the delicacy of his touch, which gives

sometimes to his modelling almost the quality of Wei sculpture, he
learnt from no one--such things not being taught. Gaudier Brzcska, a
young French sculptor of considerable promise, was killed in the early
months of the war. He had been living in England, where his work,
probably on account of its manifest superiority to most of what was
seen near it, gained an exaggerated reputation. The promise was
indisputable; but, after seeing the Leicester Gallery exhibition, I came
to the conclusion that there was not much else. Indeed, his drawings
often betrayed so superficial a facility, such a turn for calligraphic
dexterities, that one began to wonder whether even in expecting much
one had not been over sanguine. The extravagant reputation enjoyed by
Gaudier in this country will perhaps cross the mind of anyone who
happens to read my essay on Wilcoxism: native, or even resident, geese
look uncommonly like swans on home waters: to see them as they are
you should see them abroad.
Bonnard and Vuillard, unlike Aristide Maillol, though being sensitive
and intelligent artists who make the most of whatever serves their turn
they have taken what they wanted from the atmosphere in which they
work, are hardly to be counted of Cézanne's descendants. Rather are
they children of the great impressionists who, unlike the majority of
their surviving brothers and sisters, instead of swallowing the
impressionist doctrine whole, just as official painters do the academic,
have modified it charmingly to suit their peculiar temperaments. Not
having swallowed the poker, they have none of those stiff and static
habits which characterize the later generations of their family. They are
free and various; and Bonnard is one of the greatest painters alive.
Mistakenly, he is supposed to have influenced Duncan Grant; but
Duncan Grant, at the time when he was painting pictures which appear
to have certain affinities with those of Bonnard, was wholly
unacquainted with the work of that master. On the other hand, it does
seem possible that Vuillard has influenced another English painter,
Miss Ethel Sands: only, in making attributions of influence one cannot
be too careful. About direct affiliations especially, as this case shows,
one should never be positive. It is as probable that Miss Sands has been
influenced by Sickert, who has much in common with Vuillard, as by
Vuillard himself; and most probable of all, perhaps, that the three have
inherited from a common ancestor something which each has

developed and cultivated as seemed to him or her best. _La recherche
de la paternité_ was ever an exciting but hazardous pastime: if Bonnard
and Vuillard, in their turn, are claimed, as they sometimes are, for
descendants of Renoir, with equal propriety Sickert may be claimed for
Degas. And it is worth noting, perhaps, as a curious fact, that in the
matter of influence