Did ever Frenchmen sympathize absolutely with Don Quixote?  At any rate, because at the very base of his civilization lies that marvellous sense of social relations and human solidarity, a French artist will never feel entirely satisfied unless he can believe that his art is somehow related to, and justified by, Life.

Now, Picasso is not Spanish for nothing.  He is a mystic; which, of course, does not prevent him being a remarkably gay and competent man of the world.  Amateurs who knew him in old days are sometimes surprised to find Picasso now in a comfortable flat or staying at the Savoy.  I should not be surprised to hear of him in a Kaffir kraal or at Buckingham Palace, and wherever he might be I should know that under that urbane and slightly quizzical surface still would be kicking and struggling the tireless problem.  That problem his circumstances cannot touch.  It has nothing to do with Life; for not only was Picasso never satisfied with a line that did not seem right in the eyes of God—­of the God that is in him, I mean—­but never would it occur to him that a line could be right in any other way.  For him Life proves nothing and signifies not much; it is the raw material of art.  His problem is within; for ever he is straining and compelling his instrument to sing in unison with that pitiless voice which in El Greco’s day they called the voice of God.  Derain’s problem is different, and perhaps more exacting still.

It seems odd, I know, but I think it is true to say that Derain’s influence over the younger Frenchmen depends as much on his personality as on his pictures.  Partly this may be because his pictures are not much to be seen; for he is neither prolific not particularly diligent, and always there are half a dozen hungry dealers waiting to snap up whatever he may contrive to finish.  But clearly this is not explanation enough, and to appreciate Derain’s position in Paris one should be, what unluckily I am not, a psychologist.  One should be able to understand why his pictures are imitated hardly at all, and why his good opinion is coveted; why young painters want to know what Derain thinks and feels, not only about their art, but about art in general, and even about life; and why instinctively they pay him this compliment of supposing that he does not wish them simply to paint as he paints.  What is it Derain wants of them?  I shall be satisfied, and a good deal surprised, if I can discover even what he wants of himself.

A year or two ago it was the fashion to insist on Derain’s descent from the Italian Primitives:  I insisted with the rest.  But as he matures his French blood asserts more and more its sovranty, and now completely dominates the other elements in his art.  Assuredly he is in the great European tradition, but specifically he is of the French:  Chardin, Watteau, and Poussin are his direct ancestors.  Of Poussin no one who saw La Boutique Fantasque will have forgotten how it made one think.  No