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Updated: June 12, 2025
His is one of the most inventive minds in Europe. Invention is as clearly his supreme gift as sensibility is that of Matisse. His career has been a series of discoveries, each of which he has rapidly developed. A highly original and extremely happy conception enters his head, suggested, probably, by some odd thing he has seen.
On the contrary, you will see, in a later chapter, how, having dubbed Matisse "temperamental" and Picasso "theorist," I come, on examination, to find in the art of Matisse so much science and in that of Picasso such extraordinary sensibility that in the end I am much inclined to pull off the labels and change them about.
Matisse, to whom, not fifteen years ago, I saw a picture of his attributed by a competent amateur who was the friend of both. Friesz has an air of being more professional than any other artist of this first rank for Marchand, I think, is not quite of it. Indeed, for a moment, Friesz may appear alarmingly professional.
And though Duncan Grant holds his own handsomely with Marchand, Vlaminck, Lhote, de Segonzac, Bracque and Modigliani, I am not yet prepared to class him with Matisse, Picasso, Derain, and Bonnard. Having bravely recognized this disagreeable truth, let us take as much interest in contemporary British painting as we can.
Indeed, it sometimes strikes me that even to appreciate them you must have a touch of their sensibility. A critic who is apt to be sensible was complaining the other day that Matisse had only one instrument in his orchestra. There are orchestras in which fifty instruments sound as one. Only it takes a musician to appreciate them.
He has drawn right away from "the field" to join those leaders Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Bonnard, shall we say, with one or two more in close attendance a cursory glance at whom, as they flash by, provokes this not unprofitable exclamation: "How different they are!" Apparently, amongst the chiefs, that famous movement no longer counts for much.
I know that it is not every one who can enjoy Botticelli and Monet, Dürer and Manet, Rembrandt and Matisse. Ready-made admiration is fatal to youthful minds; nevertheless, we should, all of us, old as well as young particularly the academic elderly cultivate a broader comprehension of the later schools and personalities. Art is protean.
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.
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.
Also, one hears the others talking about "the pretty, tinkley stuff" of Mozart. Those who call the art of Matisse slight must either be insensitive or know little of it. Certainly Matisse is capable of recording, with an exquisite gesture and not much more, just the smell of something that looked as though it would be good to eat. These are notes.
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