gland no
competent amateur could possibly take him seriously?

Some British artists, when they were young--and some of them must once
have been so--are said to have studied in Paris. Does it ever occur to
them that their proper rivals, the men whose rivalry is stimulating and
not merely disquieting, are not to be found in London? And does it occur
to them that, instead of hunting for tips in Bond Street and Burlington
House they might go for lessons to the National Gallery and South
Kensington? Whatever people may think of the art of Henri Matisse, his
fame is beyond cavil. Just before the war commissions and entreaties
were pouring in on him, not from France only, but from Russia, Germany,
Scandinavia, and America. He had--he has, for that matter--what no
English painter, with the possible exception of Constable, ever had--a
European reputation. Yet in the spring of 1914, looking with a friend at
a picture by Chardin, he is said to have remarked that if he could
believe that one day he would paint as good a thing as that he would be
extremely happy. If one of our famous portrait-painters would go for
once to the National Gallery and stand, not before a great master, but
before a Philippe de Champaigne or a Vivarini, I wonder what he would
say.

It is hard to conjecture; for our portrait-painters live in a world
which, though not insensitive to prettiness, and impressed by obvious
manifestations of ability, cares nothing for art or good painting. In
such a world an artist--who is, after all, little better than a human
being--can hardly be expected to develop his critical faculty. If some
of our gifted men were to take their talents to Paris, where is a press
and public that knows how to be serious about art, they would, one
fancies, begin to feel dissatisfied with their facile triumphs and
appetizing confections. They would feel, too, that they were surrounded
by people who could recognize and appreciate conviction and science even
though these were presented in forms too recondite for the mob. They
would find that in Paris a painter can have praise enough without
stooping for the applause of Mayfair. It is significant that, whereas
English painters once they have found a style that hits the public
taste, are not much inclined to change it, in Paris such an artist as
Picasso, who has taken the fancy of amateurs and dealers in at least
three different manners, goes on from experiment to experiment, leaving
the public t