A Watteauesque Enthusiast
The Enchantment of Art, by Duncan Phillips. [John Lane Company, New York.]
To Mr. Phillips life is a Fête Galante in Watteau’s style. He sees nothing but the elegant, the poetic, the joyous, the enchanting. I picture him in a powdered wig, clad in a gorgeous costume of the Louis XV. period, playfully lorgnetting life and art, and raving ecstatically over everybody and everything. I confess, an all-loving person looks suspicious to me; but Mr. Phillips’ book is so sincere, he adores things so pathetically, that I cannot help enjoying him. He becomes irritating only at such moments when he tries to be very much in earnest and breaks into absurd generalization. His credo is Impressionism—in life and in art—but what an elastic term is Impressionism to our dear enthusiast. Giotto, Titian, Da Vinci, Velasquez, Corot, and Dégas were impressionists, and so were Shakespeare, and Browning, and Keats, and Yeats, and Robert Bridges and who not! He loves them all, loves beautifully, touchingly, but he fails pitifully to define his beliefs. Why should he define? Why not be happy in enjoying good things without giving reasons, without strained endeavors to form classifications and definitions? Oh, those definitions! But we easily forgive the author his absurd statements, we can even sympathize with the pain he gets when contemplating the Futurists, whom he terms “lawless.” We forgive a lover everything, for we feel grateful to him for the moments of bliss that he generously shares with us. Truly, it is a book of religious joy.
K.