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THE MANSARD GALLERY 205
lacks sensibility. In his handwriting his lines
and dashes, smudges and contours, that is to
say there is neither charm nor temperament.
His colours do their work, saying what they
have to say, but are without beauty in them-
selves or in their relations. There is something
slightly depressing in the unlovely sincerity of
his execution that reminds me rather of Fra
Bartolomeo, and his imaginative limitations
might be compared with those of Lesueur. I
am taking a high standard, you perceive. And
any one who cannot respond to the conviction
and conscience with which he not only excludes
whatever is irrelevant or fortuitous or false,
but does positively realize his conceptions is,
in my judgment, incapable of appreciating
visual art.
No art could be more different from the art
of Gertler than that of Duncan Grant. For
him it seems impossible to scrabble a line or
wipe his brush on a bit of paper without giving
delight. As the saying goes, he is all over an
artist. Men endowed with this prodigious
sensibility, facility, and sense of beauty are
not uncommon in England. In my time there
have been four Conder, Steer, John, and
Duncan Grant. The danger is, of course, that
they will fall into a trick of flicking off bits of
empty prettiness to the huge contentment of a
public that cannot bear artists to develop or