ing
passionately in what they will call "order." If so, in the name of
Napoleon and Louis XIV, but, let us hope, with the science and restraint
of Poussin and Ingres, they will turn, most likely, to the classical
tradition and, while endeavouring to create significant form, will
assert vehemently that they are expressing their political convictions.

[Footnote X: September 1920.]

[Illustration: DERAIN (_Photo: Bernheim jeune_)]

THE AUTHORITY OF M. DERAIN

Sooner or later the critic who wishes to be taken seriously must say his
word about Derain. It is an alarming enterprise. Not only does he run a
considerable risk of making himself absurd, he may make a formidable
and contemptuous enemy as well. "On ne peut pas me laisser tranquille!"
grumbles Derain; to which the only reply I can think of is--"on ne peut
pas."

Derain is now the greatest power amongst young French painters. I would
like to lay stress on the words "power" and "French," because I do not
wish to say, what may nevertheless be true, that Derain is the greatest
painter in France, or seemingly to forget that Picasso's is the
paramount influence in Europe. For all their abjurations most of the
younger and more intelligent foreigners, within and without the gates of
Paris, know well enough that Picasso is still their animator. Wherever a
trace of Cubism or of _tete-de-negre_, or of that thin, anxious line of
the "blue period" is still to be found, there the ferment of his unquiet
spirit is at work. And I believe it is in revolt against, perhaps in
terror of, this profoundly un-French spirit that the younger Frenchmen
are seeking shelter and grace under the vast though unconscious
nationalism of Derain.

For the French have never loved Cubism, though Braque uses it
beautifully. How should they love anything so uncongenial to their
temperament? How should that race which above all others understands and
revels in life care for an art of abstractions? How, having raised good
sense to the power of genius, should France quite approve aesthetic
fanaticism? What would Poussin have said to so passionate a negation of
common sense? Well, happily, we know the opinion of Moliere:

La parfaite raison fuit toute extremite,
Et veut que l'on soit sage avec sobriete.

Did ever Frenchmen sympathize absolutely with Don Quixote? At any rate,
because at the very base of his civilization lies that marvellous sense
of social relations and human solidarity, a Fre