was not using his gift, posed as an artist, a saint, or simply "a great
man"; but he never contrived to be anything but a bourgeois--a "sale
bourgeois," according to Cézanne. Cézanne was all gift: seen as anything
but a painter he looked like a fool. At Aix he tried to pass for a
respectable _rentier_; he found no difficulty in being silly, but he
could not achieve the necessary commonplaceness. He could not be vulgar.
He was always an artist.

Instead of telling us so much about Zola and _tutti quanti_ M. Vollard
might have told us more about Cézanne's artistic development. What, for
instance, is the history of his relations with Impressionism? The matter
is to me far from clear. Cézanne began his artistic life amongst the
Impressionists, he was reckoned a disciple of Pissarro; yet it is plain
from his early work that he never swallowed much of the doctrine.
Gradually he came to think that the Impressionists were on the wrong
tack, that their work was flimsy and their theory misleading, that they
failed to "realize." He dreamed of combining their delicate vision,
their exquisite _sensation_, with a more positive and elaborate
statement. He wanted to make of Impressionism "quelque chose de solide
et de durable comme l'art des Musées." He succeeded. But at what moment
did his dissent become acute, and to what extent was he aware from the
first of its existence? Towards the end of his life he took to scolding
the Impressionists, but one fancies that he was never very willing that
anyone else should abuse them. "Regardez," said he to a young painter
who had caught him coming out of church one stormy Sunday morning, as
he pointed to a puddle touched by a sudden ray of sunlight, "comment
voulez-vous rendre cela? Il faut se méfier, je vous le dis, des
Impressionnistes_..._Tout de même, ils voient juste!"

The critical moment in Cézanne's life--if in such a life one moment may