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228 CONTEMPORARY ART
Raphaelite picture. 1 But when there was
question of selling a block of unimportant
water-colours by our national Turner and
buying with the proceeds two or three great
masterpieces of Italian art the hubbub of
these patriot-geese rose for a moment above
the noise of battle. Such is the atmosphere
in which young British artists are expected
to mature.
One wonders what is going to happen to
them these young or youngish Englishmen
of talent. There are at least half a dozen on
whom a discerning critic would keep a hopeful
eye Mr. Duncan Grant, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Stanley
Spenser, Mr. Gertler, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Bomberg,
Mrs. Bell, and Mr. Epstein for it would be
absurd to omit from this list an artist possessed
of such skill, scholarship, and surprising powers
of improvisation and development as the lastnamed.
Of these some already have been
touched by that breath of life which, blowing
from Paris, has revolutionized painting without
much discomposing the placid shallows of
British culture. Standing in the broad light
of European art, these can hardly detect that
sacred taper which the New English Art Club
is said to shield from the reactionary puffings
1 I have referred already to Mr. Roger Fry's article in
the Burlington Magazine, and would draw attention also
to his article in the Nation.