Picasso and the men associated with him seem to have taken their liberty at once too seriously and not seriously enough. They have taken Fashion, too, too seriously on the one hand, and on the other they have not used it as they might, or done with it what they could. I do not see amongst them all, except possibly in Matisse, a man who is above Fashion, or one unimpressed by it. _Cézanne_ When this very useful process of corrective reaction occurred in the art centres of Europe twenty years ago, the Impressionists came in for the customary heavy reversal of opinion. But the root theories of the Impressionists remained in the consciousness of the new men, and completely as they might imagine they had discarded Impressionism, Naturalism, and the rest of that movement, Impressionist compunctions and fetishes could be found at every turn in the new painting. There was nothing wrong with this, for the Impressionists did much good work, and their experience was a useful one to inherit. This would no doubt not be apparent to the benighted body of the movement, but must have been to the leaders. And it was these leaders who cast round and went through their immediate heritage once more before finally discarding it. Here in turn the familiar faces of Dégas, Manet, Renoir came up for inspection; also Cézanne. Cézanne came up rather crabbed and reluctant, a little aloof, and with something in his eye liable to awake suspicion. And sure enough suspicion awoke. In fact, what the journalist would describe as a “shrewd” suspicion grew up that this till then thought to be second-class artist, rather incompetent, though well-meaning old fellow, had something very useful and new in him; and was probably more a portion of the new sensibility, and possibly of more intrinsic importance altogether, than any of his Impressionist contemporaries.