Primitives, because they are artists, have to grapple with the artistic
problem. They have, that is, to create form that will express an
emotional conception; they have to express their sense of something they
have seen and felt. A child may well have an artistic vision; for all
that, a child is never, or hardly ever, an artist. It wrestles with
no problem because it does not try to express anything. It is a mere
symbolist who uses a notation not to express what it feels but to convey
information. A child's drawing of a horse is not an expression of its
sense of a horse, but a symbol by which other people can recognize that
what occupies a certain position in its figured story is a horse. The
child is not an artist, but an illustrator who uses symbolism. When,
using Mr. Bertrand Russell's new symbolism, I say that L^c3nI--C^ct =
the Almighty, clearly I am not expressing my feeling for infinite and
omnipotent goodness. Neither does the child who teases you to look at
its charming coloured diagram of the farmyard expect you to share an
emotional experience. Doubtless the vanity of the craftsman demands
satisfaction; but chiefly the child wishes to assure itself that some
impartial judge can interpret its notation. One definitely artistic
gift, however, many children do possess, and that is a sense of the
decorative possibilities of their medium. This gift they have in
common with the Primitives; and this the _douanier_ possessed in an
extraordinary degree.

Of Rousseau's sense of the decorative possibilities of paint it is,
I suppose, unnecessary to say anything. Gauguin called his black
"inimitable." But, indeed, we all agree now that, if the term
"decorative" is to be used in this limited and rather injurious sense,
Rousseau, as a decorator, takes rank with the very greatest. More
important is it to realize that Rousseau had his problem; and that he
approached it in the spirit of a Primitive. His reactions were as simple