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206 THE MANSARD GALLERY
be serious. But Duncan Grant shows no bad
symptoms : from his early picture Lemon
Gatherers (No. 35) (justly and almost univer-
sally admired for its great beauty and delightful
references to Piero della Francesca) to the little
" still life " in the north corner of the room,
there is a vast progression ;
and beneath these
gay and delicious paintings so delicious one
could fancy them good to eat is a struggle
with the problems of design and space-composition
as vital as anything here to be found,
unless it be in the work of Marchand. I
noticed, by the way, that in Lemon Gatherers,
a picture on cardboard, something is going
wrong with the colours, and of this I take
rather a serious view as the picture belongs to
me. Duncan Grant is the hope of patriotic
amateurs : blessed with adorable gifts and a
powerful intellect, he should, if he has the
strength to realize his courage
conceptions and the
to disdain popularity, become what
we have been awaiting so long, an English
painter in the front rank of European art.
Of the remaining British artists, the most
interesting, to my mind, is Vanessa Bell. The
influence of Duncan Grant on her work is
unmistakable, and I hope, unlike most artists,
who seem to suppose that for them the laws
of cause and effect and the influence of environment
are inoperative, she will not mind my