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CgZANNE AND TECHNIQUE
Fos some time past the public has been concerning itself more and more with the technicalities of the painter's craft until now we find that it has become practically incapable of responding to the conception of a picture with any degree of immediate receptiveness and must pore into, and talk glibly about, brush-work, proportion, perspective and other such appurtenances of the craft. Whether or not this ana- lytical method of looking at art arises out of a desire to make up for a lack of responsiveness or from that inquisitive fascination which makes us stand gaping in wonder for hours at bricklayers, roadmenders or bargees, it is very difficult to say. I am inclined to think, however, that this fascination of being let into trade secrets cannot altogether account for the present attitude of the public to art. The painters themselves are in part to blame. The facilities for studying and practising painting have become so ready to hand that there has been an overwhelming absorption into the realm of art of a majority of painters whose con- ceptions are absolutely barren, who merely bring to art a number of facile tricks of the trade, and who, in a world where survival values were a little more difficult, would automatically become very excellent plasterers, watch- makers or something of the sort with a distinct gain to that world. Technique has so surely become an end in itself that the only interest most pictures have for us is of a purely technical nature. The most unfortunate part of the whole business is that the public has been so cajoled into taking an interest in certain specialized methods that any new conception which of necessity is combined with a technique of its own draws forth only a response of abuse. It seems to me that for the public to be interested in technique it must take an interest in all technique ; for every new con- ception is co-related to its own technical laws. Our present narrowly schooled public, however, is so busy prying into the machinery parts that it cannot see whether the engine works or not. The majority of us seem to be more interested in spare parts and gadgets than we are in ears. There thus arises a situation where the young artist with something to say must spend so much energy in battling for the acceptance of his technique that by the time it has been accepted there is a great danger of his becoming so engrossed in it that he may have forgotten what it was he wanted to say.
Cezanne was an artist who never lost sight of his initial conception. And although he took so much trouble to evolve his technique, he did so only because he was deter- mined to find an adequate means of communicating that conception. Once he knew what he wanted to express he might have been quite carelessly satisfied with a kind of short hand, which would have been sufficient to himself. The fact that he took such pains to evolve a technical method which would make his work more communicable has not, however, made us any the more willing to accept what it communicates, but has produced a cult which surrounds his intricacies of technique. Perhaps if we can now forget, for a little, how many beats there are to the bar, we may be able to listen to his music.
Cezanne is extremely well communicated ; let us look at his work and absorb it. No picture demands this tacit acceptance more than 10 L'Amour en Mitre at the Leicester Galleries ; there are few pictures which are so easy to enjoy. On coming away from this exhibition one becomes depressingly aware of how little he was understood by that vast number of painters who have picked the bones of his technique so bare in order to provide a covering for their own sterility of conception. Cezanne's method can only be applied by Cezanne ; and he is now dead. Their emulative flattery to the great Frenchman is an unconscious piece of self-abasement on their part. They must tap the springs within themselves as he did. W. MCCANCE.
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