During this first phase theory has been much to the fore.  But it has been theory, you must remember, working on a generation of direct and intensely personal artists.  In so curious an alliance you will expect to find as much stress as harmony; also, you must remember, its headquarters were at Paris where flourishes the strongest and most vital tradition of painting extant.  In this great tradition some of the more personal artists, struggling against the intolerable exactions of doctrine, have found powerful support; indeed, only with its aid have they succeeded at last in securing their positions as masters who, though not disdaining to pay homage for what they hold from the new theories, are as independent as feudal princes.  But the more I consider the period the more this strange and restless alliance of doctrine with temperament appears to be of its essence; wherefore, I shall not hesitate to make of it a light wherewith to take a hasty look about me.  Here are two labels ready to hand—­“temperamental” and “doctrinaire.”  I am under no illusion as to the inadequacy and fallibility of both; neither shall I imagine that, once applied, they are bound to stick.  On the contrary, you will see, in a later chapter, how, having dubbed Matisse “temperamental” and Picasso “theorist,” I come, on examination, to find in the art of Matisse so much science and in that of Picasso such extraordinary sensibility that in the end I am much inclined to pull off the labels and change them about.  But though, for purposes of criticism coarse and sometimes treacherous, this pair of opposites—­which are really quite compatible—­may prove two useful hacks.  As such I accept them; and by them borne along I now propose to make a short tour of inspection, one object of which will be to indicate broadly the lie of the land, another to call attention to a number of interesting artists whose names happen not to have come my way in any other part of this book.

I said, and I suppose no one will deny it, that Paris was the centre of the movement:  from Paris, therefore, I set out.  There the movement originated, there it thrives and develops, and there it can best be seen and understood.  Ever since the end of the seventeenth century France has taken the lead in the visual arts, and ever since the early part of the nineteenth Paris has been the artistic capital of Europe.  Thither painters of all foreign nations have looked; there many have worked, and many more have made a point of showing their works.  Anyone, therefore, who makes a habit of visiting Paris, seeing the big exhibitions, and frequenting dealers and studios, can get a pretty complete idea of what is going on in Europe.  There he will find Picasso—­the animator [A] of the movement—­and some of the best of his compatriots, Juan Gris and Marie Blanchard for instance, to say nothing of such fashionable figures as mm.  Zuloaga et Sert.  There he will find better Dutchmen than Van Dongen, and