people at least will give his art fair consideration, and that,
of these people, a few will come to love it as, in my opinion, it
deserves.

Post-Impressionism, that vague and much-abused term, is now
almost a household word. That the name of the movement is better
known than the names of its chief leaders is a sad misfortune,
largely caused by the over-rapidity of its introduction into
England. Within the space of two short years a mass of artists
from Manet to the most recent of Cubists were thrust on a public,
who had hardly realized Impressionism. The inevitable result has
been complete mental chaos. The tradition of which true Post-
Impressionism is the modern expression has been kept alive down
the ages of European art by scattered and, until lately,
neglected painters. But not since the time of the so-called
Byzantines, not since the period of which Giotto and his School
were the final splendid blossoming, has the "Symbolist" ideal in
art held general sway over the "Naturalist." The Primitive
Italians, like their predecessors the Primitive Greeks, and, in
turn, their predecessors the Egyptians, sought to express the
inner feeling rather than the outer reality.

This ideal tended to be lost to sight in the naturalistic revival
of the Renaissance, which derived its inspiration solely from
those periods of Greek and Roman art which were pre-occupied with
the expression of external reality. Although the all-embracing
genius of Michelangelo kept the "Symbolist" tradition alive, it
is the work of El Greco that merits the complete title of
"Symbolist." From El Greco springs Goya and the Spanish influence
on Daumier and Manet. When it is remembered that, in the