ant: one need not
be _laudator temporis acti_ to feel that the men of the new generation
are on a smaller scale. This merely confirms my often expressed notion
that the decade 1875-85 produced a prodigious quantity of greatly gifted
babies. On the other hand, if by comparison with the _salon d'automne_
of 1911 that of '2l seems unexciting, we must not fail to do justice to
the extraordinarily high level of painting that has now been attained.
And this confirms another of my pet theories--that we live in an age
comparable (so far as painting goes) with the _quattro cento_. The works
of even the smallest artists of that age enchant us now, because in that
age any man of any talent could make a picture; but doubtless at the
time critics and amateurs sighed for the first thrilling years of the
movement--for the discoveries of Masaccio and Donatello--and were quite
ready to welcome the novelties of the high renaissance when they came.
The world moves faster nowadays; already we look regretfully back to the
days when Matisse and Picasso were launching the movement, and another
high renaissance may be nearer than we suppose.]

To this list I would add, in no spirit of paradox, two names which, at
first sight, must appear singularly out of place--Camoin and Guerin.
Both were at work before the contemporary movement--the Cezanne
movement--was born or, at any rate, launched; both for a long time
seemed to be, if anything, opposed to it; both for some years lay
dormant in a chrysalis-like state to emerge recently a pair of very
interesting painters. The Camoin and the Guerin with whom I am concerned
appeared since the war; they may, of course, relapse into their former
condition: time will show. Apparently it was only three or four years
ago that Camoin realized that Matisse--his contemporary--was the master
from whom he could draw that nourishment which one good artist may very
legitimately draw from another. So nourished, he seems to have made a
fresh start; at any rate his work has now a freshness and vivacity which
in his younger days he could never impart. The case of Guerin is odder
still. A passionate admirer of Watteau, he would seem to have locked
himself up in a rather sterile devotion to the eighteenth century
master. One must suppose that there was something dead in his
appreciation, something recognized but unfelt, and therefore not really
understood. This deadness came through into his work. Lacking genuine
inspirati