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196
MARCHAND
such a picture as No. 7 or No. 12 the most
inveterate psychologist, should he happen to
possess a grain of sensibility, must be dumb ;
unless he murmur respectfully the name of
Chardin.
Marchand is neither a doctrinaire nor a timid
Conservative. He is familiar with the work
of Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, and the whole
Cubist school ; and if by simplification, dis-
tortion, or what men of science would call
"
flat absurdity," he can in any way improve
his composition, he does not hesitate to simplify,
distort, or fly in the face of facts. He
wants to create significant form, and all means
to that end he finds good. But he is no
doctrinaire. He never distorts or makes his
pictures look queer on principle. He cares
nothing for being in the fashion, neither does
he eschew a novel eccentricity lest the nicest
people should say that he is going a little too
far. His work is uncompromisingly sincere.
He neither protests against tradition nor
it. He is an artist.
respects
I shall not be surprised to hear that some
critics consider Marchand dry and intellectual.
Certainly he is not lyrical or charming. No
picture by him has the ravishing loveliness of
a Renoir or the delicious handling of a Duncan
Grant. I suspect he paints all his big things
in the studio. He makes sketches ; and I