paid Cezanne.

The brave _douanier_ was hardly master enough to have great and enduring
influence; nevertheless, the sincerity of his vision and directness of
his method reinforced and even added to one part of the lesson taught
by Cezanne: also, it was he who--by his pictures, not by doctrine of
course--sent the pick of the young generation to look at the primitives.
Such as it was, his influence was a genuinely plastic one, which is
more, I think, than can be said for that of Gauguin or of Van Gogh. The
former seemed wildly exciting for a moment, partly because he flattened
out his forms, designed in two dimensions, and painted without
chiaroscuro in pure colours, but even more because he had very much the
air of a rebel. "Il nous faut les barbares," said Andre Gide; "il nous
faut les barbares," said we all. Well, here was someone who had gone
to live with them, and sent home thrilling, and often very beautiful,
pictures which could, if one chose, be taken as challenges to European
civilization. To a considerable extent the influence of Gauguin was
literary, and therefore in the long run negligible. It is a mistake on
that account to suppose--as many seem inclined to do--that Gauguin was
not a fine painter.

Van Gogh was a fine painter, too; but his influence, like that of
Gauguin, has proved nugatory--a fact which detracts nothing from the
merit of his work. He was fitted by his admirers into current social
and political tendencies, and coupled with Charles-Louis Philippe as an
apostle of sentimental anarchy. Sentimental portraits of washerwomen and
artisans were compared with Marie Donadieu and Bubu de Montparnasse;
and by indiscreet enthusiasm the artist was degraded to the level of a
preacher. Nor was this degradation inexcusable: Van Gogh was a preacher,
and too often his delicious and sensitive works of art are smeared over,
to their detriment, with tendencious propaganda. At his best, however,
he is a very great impressionist--a neo-impressionist, or expressionist
if you like--but I should say an impressionist much influenced and much
to the good, as was Gauguin, by acquaintance with Cezanne in his last
and most instructive phase. Indeed, it is clear that Gauguin and Van
Gogh would not have come near achieving what they did achieve--achieved,
mind you, as genuine painters--had they not been amongst the first to
realize and make use of that bewildering revelation which is the art of
Cezanne.

Of that art I a