on, struggling in consequence to impart life by tricks and
conventions, he occasionally allowed himself to tumble into downright
vulgarity. Suddenly, and without renouncing any ancient loyalty, he has
come to life. It is Watteau that inspires him still; but the essential
Watteau--Watteau the painter--not that superficies which is more or
less familiar to every hack, be he limner or penman, who dabbles in the
eighteenth century. How amusing to fancy that the just admiration now
felt for the genius of Watteau by those descendants of Cezanne who
formerly misesteemed it has somehow put Guerin himself in the way of
becoming intimate with an art he had formerly worshipped at a distance!

Though the war did not kill or even cripple the movement, since the war
there has been a change, or, at any rate, a change has become apparent.
To begin with, Picasso has, in a sense, retired from public life--from
the life of the _cafes_ and studios I mean--and in isolation works out
those problems that are for ever presenting themselves to his restless
brain. The splendid fruit of his solitude we saw last summer _chez_ Paul
Rosenberg. From time to time Picasso still paints a Cubist picture--to
keep his mind in--but he is hardly to be reckoned a Cubist, and
certainly not a pure one. Of that school, which still flourishes
(exhibiting at _la Section d'Or_ or rue de la Baume the work of Braque,
Gleizes, Leger, Metzinger, Gris, Laurens, Lipsitz, Marcoussis, Henry
Hayden, and the brilliant Irene Lagut), Picasso is the inspiration,
perhaps, but not the chief. His influence in the western world and on
foreign painters in Paris is as great as ever; but the French, slightly
vexed, maybe, at having accepted so long the leadership of a Spaniard,
show signs of turning back towards their national tradition. So, though
Picasso remains the animator of the doctrinaire school or schools,
Lhote may become the master. It is the fashion, I know, not to take his
influence seriously. No matter how clever a man he may be, Lhote--they
say--is not a big enough painter to be a chief. It may be so--I suspect
it is--yet we should not forget that, besides being intelligent and
capable of drawing more or less plausible inferences from premises of
his own choosing, Lhote can point to a practice by no means despicable.
For the rest, he is the apostle of logic and discipline, and so finds
plenty to approve in the Cubist doctrine and the French tradition from
Poussin to David