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202 THE MANSARD GALLERY
he is highly sensitive by which I mean that
his reactions to what he sees are intense and
peculiar.
But these reactions, one fancies, he
likes to take home, meditate, criticize, and
reduce finally to a rigorously definite conception.
And this conception he has the power
to translate into a beautifully logical and
harmonious form. Power he seems never to
lack : it would be almost impossible to paint
better. I do not know which of Marchand's
three pictures is the best ;
but whichever it be,
it is the best picture in the gallery.
With de Vlaminck it is from a word to a
blow, from a thrilling emotion to a finished
picture.
If Marchand is like a minor Milton
the is comparison not one to be pressed
de Vlaminck is like Keats. He is the most
lyrical of the younger Frenchmen the flash
;
and sparkle of his is pictures the wonderfully
close expression of a tremblingly delighted
sensibility. Yet there is nothing sketchy
about them. Consider his landscape (No. 65),
and you will be astonished to find what a
solid, self-supporting design these delicately
graded tones and lightly brushed forms
compose.
Only one Englishman
holds his own with
the French painters, and he, of course, is
Duncan Grant. The challenge to another
very interesting young Englishman is, how-