; no one denied that
they were considerable men or that Cezanne was a master. In London no
one had heard of them, so it was decided out of hand that they were
immoral aliens fit only to be thrown on the nearest bonfire. Cezanne was
a butcher, Gauguin a _farceur_, Van Gogh a particularly disagreeable
lunatic: that is what the critics said, and the public said "Hee-haw."
They reminded one of a pack of Victorian curates to whom the theory of
natural selection had been too suddenly broken. Two years later Roger
Fry and I collected and arranged at the Grafton Galleries an exhibition
of contemporary French art--Matisse, Picasso, Maillol, etc. Every one
abroad had recognized these men as interesting artists of varying merit;
no one doubted that the movement they represented was significant and of
promise. Only the English critics had learnt nothing. They never do;
they only teach. Here was something going on under their noses that
might well turn out to be as important as the early fifteenth-century
movement in Tuscany, and they went on directing the attention of their
pupils to the work of Alfred Stevens. Here was the art of the East--of
China, Persia, and Turkestan--being revealed to us by European scholars,
and they went on messing about with English choir-stalls and
sanctuary-rings.

Our critics and teachers provided, and continue to provide, an artistic
education comparable with the historical education provided by our
board-schools. People who have been brought up to believe that the
history of England is the history of Europe--that it is a tale of
unbroken victory, leadership, and power--feel, when they hear of the
ascendancy of France or of the House of Austria or of the comparative
insignificance of England till the dawn of the eighteenth century, angry
first and then incredulous. So they give themselves the least possible
chance of hearing such unpalatable nonsense by living snugly in the
slums and suburbs, where, persuaded that they have nothing to learn from
damned foreigners, they continue to entertain each other with scraps of
local and personal gossip. That is what our art criticism sounds like to
cultivated people from abroad.

A few months ago an extraordinarily fine Renoir, a recognized
masterpiece of modern art, was hung in the National Gallery. Any young
painter who may have seen and profited by it need not thank those
directors of public taste, the critics. It was passed by in silence or
with a nod by th