Most painters of sixty who are now Impressionists and who ridicule Cubists, if cross-questioned would be obliged to confess that thirty-four years ago they ridiculed the men in whose footsteps they have since followed and whom they now recognize as masters. * * * * * In the course of our discussion we shall have occasion to speak of the Futurists and other extremists, for they all are part of the one big reaction, they are all _Post-Impressionists_, and all have something to say worth hearing, but the Cubists serve our purpose best because their pictures, from an argumentative point of view, are more tangible, and their theories have been worked out in print in plain terms. [Illustration: VILLON Young Girl] III LES FAUVES Every development bears within the seeds of its dissolution and the germs of its succession. The seeds of the dissolution and the germs of the succession of Impressionism were _Les Fauves_--the Savages, the Wild Ones, as you please. The philosophical student of the history of art has no trouble in tracing at any time the following currents: _A._ The main stream which includes _all_ art developments from the profoundest and most permanent to the most fleeting and superficial, from the soberest to the most extravagant. _B. B._ +. Within the main current lesser currents of such magnitude that they frequently seem to dominate--and often do obscure the direction of--the main current; as, for instance, Impressionism dominated the art of France and influenced the art of the entire western world in the final years of the last century. These lesser currents have their effect on the main current, though their ultimate effect is never so revolutionary as their enthusiasts believe; the good in them is absorbed, the meretricious rejected. _C. C. C._ +. Surface manifestations of all kinds, often so violent they disguise not only the main current, but the important subsidiary currents, and lead men to believe for the moment that art is reversing itself, that all that has been done is being undone, that chaos is taking the place of order. These subsidiary movements are with us always, evident in every exhibition; they are the experiments, the extravagances of each generation, of each decade, of each year. Some of them contain so much of truth they develop into _B._--larger currents--“movements;” others are of such ephemeral importance they cause their sensations of the hour and pass away, leaving behind scarce distinguishable traces. It is these last movements which, because they are new and strange, so impress critics and public that observation loses its sense of proportion; the force of the main current (_A._) is lost sight of, and the strength of subsidiary currents (_B. B._ +) is overlooked.