of art into theories of life. His are not of the kind that can
be so converted; I said he was a painters', not a journalists', painter.
Also, unlike the theories of the mere craftsman, his are based always
on the assumption that there is such a thing as art--something that
is created by and appeals to peculiar faculties, something rare and
personal, something not to be had simply by taking thought and pains,
something as utterly unlike honest craftsmanship as it is unlike the
cryptic mutterings of boozy mountebanks: subject, however, to this
assumption, his theories are severely practical. They have to do solely
with the art of painting; they are born of his own experience; and
he makes visible use of them. That is why I call Friesz a painters'
painter. I wonder whether the Italian Primitives, with that
disquietingly unself-conscious inspiration of theirs, directed with such
amazing confidence along well devised, practical channels, were not a
little like him.

The exhibition is fairly representative of Friesz's later work; and if
it cannot be said quite to summarize a stage of his career, at least it
is a milestone. Friesz has arrived: that is to say, what he has already
achieved suffices to affirm the existence of a distinct, personal talent
entitled to its place in the republic of painting. At that point we
leave him. But we may be sure that, with his remarkable gift and
even more remarkable power of turning it to account, his energy, his
patience, and his manifest ambition, he will soon have gone beyond it.

WILCOXISM

To return from Paris, full of enthusiasm for contemporary art, and find
oneself forced immediately into an attitude of querulous hostility is
surely a melancholy thing. It is my fate; but it is not my fault. Had I
found our native quidnuncs in a slightly less exalted humour, had they
gushed a little less over their imperial painters at Burlington House,
had they made the least effort to preserve a sense of proportion, I,
for my part, had held my peace. But, deafened by the chorus of hearty
self-applause with which British art has just been regaling itself, [W] a
critic who hopes that his country is not once again going to make itself
the laughing-stock of Europe is bound at all risks to say something
disagreeable.

[Footnote W: February 1920.]

In that delightful book _The Worlds and I_, for bringing me acquainted
with which I shall ever be grateful to _The Athenaeum_, nothing is more
delig