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Page 2
Post-Impressionism, that vague and much-abused term, is now
almost a household word. That the name of the movement is better
known than the names of its chief leaders is a sad misfortune,
largely caused by the over-rapidity of its introduction into
England. Within the space of two short years a mass of artists
from Manet to the most recent of Cubists were thrust on a public,
who had hardly realized Impressionism. The inevitable result has
been complete mental chaos. The tradition of which true Post-
Impressionism is the modern expression has been kept alive down
the ages of European art by scattered and, until lately,
neglected painters. But not since the time of the so-called
Byzantines, not since the period of which Giotto and his School
were the final splendid blossoming, has the "Symbolist" ideal in
art held general sway over the "Naturalist." The Primitive
Italians, like their predecessors the Primitive Greeks, and, in
turn, their predecessors the Egyptians, sought to express the
inner feeling rather than the outer reality.
This ideal tended to be lost to sight in the naturalistic revival
of the Renaissance, which derived its inspiration solely from
those periods of Greek and Roman art which were pre-occupied with
the expression of external reality. Although the all-embracing
genius of Michelangelo kept the "Symbolist" tradition alive, it
is the work of El Greco that merits the complete title of
"Symbolist." From El Greco springs Goya and the Spanish influence
on Daumier and Manet. When it is remembered that, in the
meantime, Rembrandt and his contemporaries, notably Brouwer, left
their mark on French art in the work of Delacroix, Decamps and
Courbet, the way will be seen clearly open to Cezanne and
Gauguin.
The phrase "symbolist tradition" is not used to express any
conscious affinity between the various generations of artists. As
Kandinsky says: "the relationships in art are not necessarily
ones of outward form, but are founded on inner sympathy of
meaning." Sometimes, perhaps frequently, a similarity of outward
form will appear. But in tracing spiritual relationship only
inner meaning must be taken into account.
There are, of course, many people who deny that Primitive Art had
an inner meaning or, rather, that what is called "archaic
expression" was dictated by anything but ignorance of
representative methods and defective materials. Such people are
numbered among the bitterest opponents of Post-Impressionism, and
indeed it is difficult to see how they could be otherwise.
"Painting," they say, "which seeks to learn from an age when art
was, however sincere, incompetent and uneducated, deliberately
rejects the knowledge and skill of centuries." It will be no easy
matter to conquer this assumption that Primitive art is merely
untrained Naturalism, but until it is conquered there seems
little hope for a sympathetic understanding of the symbolist
ideal.
The task is all the more difficult because of the analogy drawn
by friends of the new movement between the neo-primitive vision
and that of a child. That the analogy contains a grain of truth
does not make it the less mischievous. Freshness of vision the
child has, and freshness of vision is an important element in the
new movement. But beyond this a parallel is non-existent, must be
non-existent in any art other than pure artificiality. It is one
thing to ape ineptitude in technique and another to acquire
simplicity of vision. Simplicity--or rather discrimination of
vision--is the trademark of the true Post-Impressionist. He
OBSERVES and then SELECTS what is essential. The result is a
logical and very sophisticated synthesis. Such a synthesis will
find expression in simple and even harsh technique. But the
process can only come AFTER the naturalist process and not before
it. The child has a direct vision, because his mind is
unencumbered by association and because his power of
concentration is unimpaired by a multiplicity of interests. His
method of drawing is immature; its variations from the ordinary
result from lack of capacity.
Two examples will make my meaning clearer. The child draws a
landscape. His picture contains one or two objects only from the
number before his eyes. These are the objects which strike him as
important. So far, good. But there is no relation between them;
they stand isolated on his paper, mere lumpish shapes. The Post-
Impressionist, however, selects his objects with a view to
expressing by their means the whole feeling of the landscape. His
choice falls on elements which sum up the whole, not those which
first attract immediate attention.
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