The Child and the Naif are two of the principal mainstays of dilettante criticism in this country. And this “phenomenon” with all the sentimentality of which its exploitation clearly is susceptible, is one of the trump cards in the Amateur’s game, and a fruitful source of confusion. It is one of the most obvious avenues, flooded with an effusive critical craft, by which the thoroughly undeserving can slip through into a position of artificial respect. “The Young Visiters” is swelling into fabulous editions. Pamela Bianca, a child of nine, is fawned on by the hoary great. The Omega Workshops have had an exhibition of children’s drawings. The Naif, too, is a doll-like dummy that the trader on sentiment pushes in front of him in stalking the public. The Naif is an elastic phenomenon and of earlier date, as regards his boom, than the Child. The Slade School produces regularly a certain number of Naifs. They are frequently the most sophisticated individuals imaginable. Beyond the fact that they wrestle with a slight incompetence, in addition to possessing a pretty feeling for the sentimentalities of rustic prints, although they never by any means capture the native charm of those, they are no more naive than Mr. Horatio Bottomley. None that I know are half as good manufactured naiveté as George Formby. They are very cunningly simple, and their graces and queernesses pall as swiftly as the tiresome mannerisms of a too clever child, exploiting its childishness. There are two types of Naif: the Child-Naif, and the Primitive Naif. It is difficult to decide which is the more boring of the two. The Child-Naif usually starts from a happy combination of an ingrained technical incompetence and of a “nice feeling” for the things of art. He is distressed that this “nice feeling” should be wasted owing to his lack of power, and hits on the happy idea, or gradually drifts into the habit (a sort of progressive _collage_) of bringing his lack of painter’s prowess and his nice feeling for art together, and producing the very marketable commodity, Naiveté! Or he may be a bit more definitely naive than this. The woodenness of his figures or trees, his rickety line, may really have a pathetic charm for him. He genuinely pities his little wooden figures for being so wooden and silly looking (a manner of pitying himself). He is sorry for himself through them! And this sensation becomes a necessity with him; he goes on doing them. If he has been touched enough; or, more likely, if his is a nasty theatrical self-love, other people are touched, and he in turn touches a little regular income in consequence!