if I call those who, without giving outward
sign (they may well have had their private speculations and systems) of
an abstract theory, appeared to use distortion when, where, and as their
immediate sensibility dictated, Fauves, that is because the word has
passed into three languages, is admirably colourless--for all its
signifying a colour--and implies the existence of a group without
specifying a peculiarity. Into Doctrinaires--Theorists if you like the
word better--and Fauves the first generation of Cezanne's descendants
could, I feel sure, be divided; whether such a division would serve any
useful purpose is another matter. What I am sure of is that to have two
such labels, to be applied when occasion requires and cancelled without
much compunction, will excellently serve mine, which may, or may not, be
useful.

I would not insist too strongly on the division; certainly at first
it was not felt to be sharp. Plenty of Fauves did their whack of
theorizing, while some of the theorists are amongst the most sensitive
and personal of the age. What I do insist on--because it explains and
excuses the character of my book--is that in this age theory has played
so prominent a part, hardly one artist of importance quite escaping its
influence, that no critic who proposes to give some account of painting
since Cezanne can be expected to overlook it: some, to be sure, may
be thought to have stared indecently. The division between Fauves and
Theorists, I was saying, in the beginning was not sharp; nevertheless,
because it was real, already in the first generation of Cezanne's
descendants the seeds of two schools were sown. Already by 1910 two
tendencies are visibly distinct; but up to 1914, though there is
divergence, there is, I think, no antipathy between them--of antipathies
between individuals I say nothing. Solidarity was imposed on the young
generation by the virulent and not over scrupulous hostility of the old;
it was _l'union sacree_ in face of the enemy. And just as political
allies are apt to become fully alive to the divergence of their aims and
ambitions only after they have secured their position by victory, so
it was not until the new movement had been recognized by all educated
people as representative and dominant that the Fauves felt inclined to
give vent to their inevitable dislike of Doctrinaires.

Taken as a whole, the first fourteen years of the century, which my
malicious friend Jean Cocteau sometimes ca