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ENGLISH POST-IMPRESSIONISTS 181
for the transmission of facts and ideas.
Polka and False by Severini are, in intention,
as descriptive as The Doctor by Sir Luke
Fildes ; only they
are meant to describe states
of mind, whereas The Doctor purports to de-
scribe a situation. Whether, in fact, they
succeed in describing anything, and, if so,
whether what they describe is of much con-
sequence, are questions for the psychologist.
The critic of art has only to note that the
forms and colours are in themselves in-
significant and in their relations commonplace ;
they are also those much affected of late by
the more adventurous students at the Ecole
des Beaux-Arts.
Futurism is a negligible accident : the
discoveries of Cezanne are safe in the hands
of the French masters, with whose names the
catalogue bristles Gauguin,Van Gogh, Matisse,
Picasso, Marchand, Derain, Marquet, Friesz,
Herbin, 1'Hote. Unluckily, the big artists
are, for the most part, meagrely represented
by rather unimportant works, of which, by
the way, a good many are already familiar to
I
picture-goers. think I never met so many
old faces in a modern exhibition. And though
I shall never complain of encountering a
Matisse or a Marchand, though it be for the
third time in eighteen months, to be vexed by
some mediocre remnant from the summer