m.

It angered him to see himself imitated and he was wrathful when he
heard that his still-life pictures were praised in Paris. "That stuff
they like up there, do they? Their taste must be low," he would
repeat, his eyes sparkling with malice. He disliked the work of Paul
Gauguin and repudiated the claim of being his artistic ancestor. "He
did not understand me," grumbled Cezanne. He praised Thomas Couture,
who was, he asserted, a true master, one who had formed such excellent
pupils as Courbet, Manet, and Puvis. This rather staggered Bernard, as
well it might; the paintings of Couture and Cezanne are poles apart.

He had, he said, wasted much time in his youth--particularly in
literature. A lettered man, he read to Bernard a poem in imitation of
Baudelaire, one would say very Baudelairian. He had begun too late,
had submitted himself to other men's influence, and wished for half a
century that he might "realise"--his favourite expression--his
theories. When he saw Bernard painting he told him that his palette
was too restricted; he needed at least twenty colours. Bernard gives
the list of yellows, reds, greens, and blues, with variations. "Don't
make Chinese images like Gauguin," he said another time. "All nature
must be modelled after the sphere, cone, and cylinder; as for colour,
the more the colours harmonise the more the design becomes precise."
Never a devotee of form--he did not draw from the model--his
philosophy can be summed up thus: Look out for the contrasts and
correspondence of tones, and the design will take care of itself. He
hated "literary" painting and art criticism. He strongly advised
Bernard to stick to his paint and let the pen alone. The moment an
artist begins to explain his work he is done for; painting is
concrete, literature deals with the abstract. He loved music,
especially Wagner's, which he did not understand, but the sound of
Wagner's name was sympathetic, and that had at first attracted him!
Pissarro he admired for his indefatigable labours. Suffering from
diabetes, which killed him, his nervous tension is excusable. He was
in reality an amiable, kind-hearted, religious man. Above all, simple.
He sought for the simple motive in nature. He would not paint a Christ
head because he did not believe himself a worthy enough Christian.
Chardin he studied and had a theory that the big spectacles and visor
which the Little Master (the Velasquez of vegetables) wore had helped
his vision. Certa