Hayden, and the brilliant Irène Lagut), Picasso is the inspiration,
perhaps, but not the chief. His influence in the western world and on
foreign painters in Paris is as great as ever; but the French, slightly
vexed, maybe, at having accepted so long the leadership of a Spaniard,
show signs of turning back towards their national tradition. So, though
Picasso remains the animator of the doctrinaire school or schools,
Lhote may become the master. It is the fashion, I know, not to take his
influence seriously. No matter how clever a man he may be, Lhote--they
say--is not a big enough painter to be a chief. It may be so--I suspect
it is--yet we should not forget that, besides being intelligent and
capable of drawing more or less plausible inferences from premises of
his own choosing, Lhote can point to a practice by no means despicable.
For the rest, he is the apostle of logic and discipline, and so finds
plenty to approve in the Cubist doctrine and the French tradition from
Poussin to David. I do not know whether Bissière is to be ranked amongst
his disciples--I should think not--but Bissière, a most attractive
artist, is perhaps significant of the new tendency in that he has chosen
to express a whimsical temperament in terms of prim science. About the
science of picture-making, as the director of the National Gallery
calls it, he has little to learn. He knows the masters, the Primitives
especially, and has a way, at once logical and fantastic, of playing on
their _motifs_ which gives sometimes the happiest results. Bissière is
too fanciful and odd ever to be a _chef d'école_ or representative even;
but the very fact that, being what he is, he has chosen such means of
expression is symptomatic.

So the doctrinaire side of the movement persists, animated by Picasso,
and schooled to some extent by Lhote. The main current, however, has
found another channel; and, unless I mistake, we are already in the
second phase of the movement--a phase in which the revelations of