o keep in hand that most
charming and unruly of its sister gifts, sensibility. And a painter who
possesses both sensibility and the intellect to direct it is in a fair
way to becoming a master.

The sensibility of English artists, whether verbal or visual, is as
notorious as their sense of beauty. This becomes less surprising when we
reflect that the former includes the latter. The fact is, critics,
with their habitual slovenliness, apply the term "sensibility" to
two different things. Sometimes they are talking about the artist's
imagination, and sometimes about his use of the instrument: sometimes
about his reactions, and sometimes--in the case of painters--about the
tips of his fingers. It is true that both qualities owe their existence
to and are conditioned by one fundamental gift--a peculiar poise--a
state of feeling--which may well be described as "sensibility." But,
though both are consequences of this peculiar delicacy and what I should
like to call "light-triggeredness" of temperament, they are by no means
identical. By "sensibility" critics may mean an artist's power of
responding easily and intensely to the aesthetic significance of what
he sees; this power they might call, if they cared to be precise,
"sensibility of inspiration." At other times they imply no more than
sensibility of touch: in which case they mean that the contact between
the artist's brush and his canvas has the quality of a thrilling caress,
so that it seems almost as if the instrument that bridged the gulf
between his fingers and the surface of his picture must have been as
much alive as himself. "Sensibility of handling" or "hand-writing"
is the proper name for this. In a word, there is sensibility of the
imagination and sensibility of the senses: one is receptive, the other
executive. Now, Duncan Grant's reactions before the visible universe are
exquisitely vivid and personal, and the quality of his paint is often
as charming as a kiss. He is an artist who possesses both kinds of
sensibility. These are adorable gifts; but they are not extraordinarily
rare amongst English painters of the better sort.

In my judgement Gainsborough and Duncan Grant are the English painters
who have been most splendidly endowed with sensibility of both sorts,
but I could name a dozen who have been handsomely supplied. In my own
time there have been four--Burne-Jones (you should look at his early
work), Conder, Steer, and John, all of whom had an allowance