Download File

MARCHAND 195
5) would have been just what it is if Gauguin
had never existed, or that the scheme of the
beautiful Portrait defemme (No. 4) owes nothing
to Picasso. And isn't it pretty clear that
Marchand would have painted in an altogether
different style if Cezanne had never existed ?
Believing, as I do, in the influence of one
artist on another, I regard this exhibition as
a
piece
of rare good fortune for British art.
Marchand is eminent in just those qualities
that we most lack. Above all things he is a
painter. I am curious to hear what Mr.
Sickert has got to say about his pictures ; and
I shall be if disappointed they do not wring
from him what used to be the highest encomium
on the lips
of his old friend Degas
C^est de la peinture !
No is
living painter more purely concerned
with the creation of form, with the emotional
significance of shapes and colours, than Marchand.
To him, evidently, the function of a
painter is to paint ; the discussion of such
interesting matters as Love, Life, Death, and
"
The grand for ever," he leaves to the literary
gentlemen. He has nothing to say about
Man's place in the Universe, or even in
Camden Town it is in combinations of lines
;
and colours that he deals, and, as you may
see, he has already produced some of extraordinary
subtlety and significance. Before