there was
Ibsen; but who can say that these did not set out in search of Eldorados
of which already they had heard travellers' tales. Ruskin shook his
fist at the old order to some purpose; and, if he could not see clearly
what things counted, succeeded at least in making contemptible some that
did not. Nietzsche's preposterous nonsense knocked the bottom out of
nonsense more preposterous and far more vile. But to grub for origins is
none of my business; when the Church shall be established be sure that
industrious hagiographers will do justice to its martyrs and
missionaries.

Consider, too, that a great emotional renaissance must be preceded by an
intellectual, destructive movement. To that how shall we assign a
starting-point? It could be argued, I suppose, that it began with
Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists. Having gone so far back, the historian
would find cause for going further still. How could he justify any
frontier? Every living organism is said to carry in itself the germ of
its own decay, and perhaps a civilisation is no sooner alive than it
begins to contrive its end. Gradually the symptoms of disease become
apparent to acute physicians who state the effect without perceiving the
cause. Be it so; circular fatalism is as cheerful as it is sad. If ill
must follow good, good must follow ill. In any case, I have said enough
to show that if Europe be again at the head of a pass, if we are about
to take the first step along a new slope, the historians of the new age
will have plenty to quarrel about.

It may be because the nineteenth century was preparing Europe for a new
epoch, that it understood better its destructive critics than its
constructive artists. At any rate before that century ended it had
produced one of the great constructive artists of the world, and
overlooked him. Whether or no he marks the beginning of a slope, Cezanne
certainly marks the beginning of a movement the main characteristics of
which it will be my business to describe. For, though there is some
absurdity in distinguishing one artistic movement from another, since
all works of art, to whatever age they belong, are essentially the same;
yet these superficial differences which are the characteristics of a
movement have an importance beyond that dubious one of assisting
historians. The particular methods of creating form, and the particular
kinds of form affected by the artists of one generation, have an
important bearing on the art o