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Cézanne, of course, created far greater things than any Impressionist painter; and Gaugin, Van Gogh, Matisse, Rousseau, Picasso, de Vlaminck, Derain, Herbin, Marchand, Marquet, Bonnard, Duncan Grant, Maillol, Lewis, Kandinsky, Brancuzi, von Anrep, Roger Fry, Friesz, Goncharova, L'Hôte, are Rolands for the Olivers of any other artistic period.
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.
Raft at one of those elegant afternoons where the talk would run on the politics of the moment, on symbolism, on Bergson, or Iturrino or the works of Othon Friesz ! He could not be her companion in that place, in that atmosphere, within leagues of those people. She was not thinking that now.
It included such names as Derain, Picasso, Vlaminck, Marchand, Friesz, Maillol, Duncan Grant: one need not be laudator temporis acti to feel that the men of the new generation are on a smaller scale. This merely confirms my often expressed notion that the decade 1875-85 produced a prodigious quantity of greatly gifted babies.
They have to do solely with the art of painting; they are born of his own experience; and he makes visible use of them. That is why I call Friesz a painters' painter. I wonder whether the Italian Primitives, with that disquietingly unself-conscious inspiration of theirs, directed with such amazing confidence along well devised, practical channels, were not a little like him.
Each creates and inhabits a world of his own, which, by the way, he is apt to mistake for the world of everyone who is not maliciously prejudiced against him. And Friesz, whose character and intelligence are utterly unlike those of his compeers, is now, naturally enough, producing work which has little in common with that even of Matisse
If I am right, it is only natural that pictures by Friesz should improve on acquaintance. The studied logic of the composition may for a time absorb the spectator's attention and blind him to more endearing qualities; but, sooner or later, he will begin to perceive not only that a scrupulously honest vision has been converted into a well-knit design, but that the stitches are lovely.
The scheme which was planned with caution was carried through with passion. Now, obviously, a painter capable of performing this feat must possess a rare, at this moment possibly unique, gift. Friesz is one who can bring the whole weight of his intellect to bear on his sensibility. That sensibility let no one underrate.
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