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Updated: June 20, 2025
They forgot to reckon with the artistic problem, and made the mistake that people make who fancy that nothing looking so unlike a Raphael or a Titian as a Matisse or a Picasso can be a work of art. They thought that because the stuff of art comes from the depths of human nature it can be expressed only in terms of naturalism.
The man who influenced Derain, and to some extent Picasso, is not likely to have been less. But a great painter? For the present, at any rate, let us avoid great words. In 1903, when first I lived in Paris, Rousseau appeared to be very much "in the movement." That was because by nature he was what thoughtful and highly trained artists were making themselves by an effort: he was direct.
Matisse and Picasso, great modernists, could not out-do those cows. The cigarette men are particularly interesting. A bit over done. One cannot help wonder what enthusiasm they would have left for a gorgeous sunset having spent so much on, a cigarette. But I expect they are good men at heart and not so sensuous as they appear.
But Picasso shows such admirable indifference to the public that you could never guess from his pictures that such a thing existed: and that, of course, is how it should be. He never startles for the sake of startling; neither does he mock.
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.
The same may be said of Picasso in his most abstract works: but not of all his followers, nor of all Mallarmé's either. Was he really a great painter? A new generation is beginning to ask the question that we answered, once and for all as we thought, ten years ago. Yes, of course, the douanier was a remarkable painter.
The lecturer, as might have been expected, was out even in his facts: for Renoir who came from the people, by the way might, were he less of an artist, by means of the taking and almost anecdotic quality of his earlier work, give some pleasure to a working man; whereas Picasso the son of middle-class parents, too could not possibly win from an honest labourer, left to himself, anything but sarcastic laughter or ferocious abuse.
They were so ignorant of the new arts that even Mary Pickford meant hardly more to them than Picasso or Matisse. Jim brought out a photograph of Kedzie, a small one that he carried in his pocket-book for company. The problem of what she looked like distracted attention for the moment from the problem of what she did and was. Mrs. Dyckman took the picture and perused it anxiously.
"The alternative arises: perhaps the natives were not natives at all, but immigrants or colonists like ourselves. Yet the age of the city contradicts this. "Perhaps there is a simple explanation, although it does not occur to me. But I do have this feeling. The city was utilitarian. To me, it calls to mind one of those exquisite etchings of Picasso. The severe economy of line suggests simplicity.
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