Amongst the hundred differences between Matisse and Picasso perhaps,
after all, there is but one on which a critic can usefully insist. Even
about that he can say little that is definite. Only, it does appear to
be true that whereas Matisse is a pure artist, Picasso is an artist and
something more--an involuntary preacher if you like. Neither, of course,
falls into the habit of puffing out his pictures with literary stuff,
though Picasso has, on occasions, allowed to filter into his art a, to
me, most distasteful dash of sentimentality. That is not the point,
however. The point is that whereas both create without commenting on
life, Picasso, by some inexplicable quality in his statement, does
unmistakably comment on art. That is why he, and not Matisse, is master
of the modern movement.



THE PLACE OF ART IN ART CRITICISM

The knowing ones--those, I mean, who are always invited to music after
tea, and often to supper after the ballet--seem now to agree that in art
significant form is the thing. You are not to suppose that, in saying
this, I am trying to make out that all these distinguished, or soon to
be distinguished, people have been reading my book. On the contrary, I
have the solidest grounds for believing that very few of them have done
that; and those that have treat me no better than they treated Hegel.
For, just as an Hegelian is not so much a follower of that philosopher
as an expounder, one who has an interpretation of his own, and can tell
you what Hegel would have said if Hegel had been endowed by The Absolute
with the power of saying anything, so of those admirable people who
agree, for the moment, that significant form is what matters, no two are