There are many reasons for approving of the London Salon. For one thing it is the only place in England where pictures are hung without any selection being made. The fate of the Salon d'Automne, formerly the most interesting exhibition in Europe, could be cited to discredit the jury system, were it not that the system had discredited itself even more effectually in this country by making it appear that British art had ceased to exist. No matter how good the intentions of a jury may be, inevitably it comes to be dominated by a clique of painters who imagine that they are setting a high standard by rejecting all pictures sufficiently unlike their own. In France, therefore, "Les IndÉpendants" have become the representatives of contemporary art, while English people who hope to discover something vital at home must betake themselves to the Albert Hall.

But there is more than this to be said for the London Salon: its standard of painting is far higher than that of the Royal Academy or of the New English Art Club. For this we have chiefly to thank Mr. Walter Sickert and his pupils. They set the tone. It is extraordinary that any master should have led so many pupils so far along the road to art. All have been taken to that point where work ceases to appear utterly negligible. All have been made to search life for realities, and not for pictures. They have been taught to simplify and to select; and they have been taught not to select the obvious, the romantic, and the pretty. They have not been taught, however, to discover and express the profoundly significant, for that cannot be taught. Even Mr. Sickert cannot turn sincere and intelligent painters into artists.

Entering the arena, the visitor will probably turn first to the large picture by Mr. Wyndham Lewis. To appreciate this, he should take the lift to the gallery, whence, having shed all irrelevant prejudices in favour of representation, he will be able to contemplate it as a piece of pure design. He will be able to judge it as he would judge music—that is to say, as pure, formal expression. So judging, he cannot fail to be impressed by the solidity of the composition, to which the colour is not an added charm, but of which it is an integral part; he will feel that the picture holds together as a unity in the way that a good sonata holds, in a way that nothing else does in this exhibition; also he will feel a certain dissatisfaction which may cause him to inquire whether Mr. Lewis has altogether succeeded in expressing himself. We believe that he has not. There is a laboriousness about this work which seems to represent the artist's unsuccessful struggle to realize in paint his mental conception; and it is for this reason that we admire it rather as a promise of something great than as an achievement.

The other striking thing in the arena is Mr. Epstein's statue. Approached from behind, as the present writer approached it, this has very much the air of an important work of art; and that it well may be. Closer examination, however, raises some doubts. Is it, perhaps, only the imitation of one? Mr. Epstein is a baffling artist. His skill and scholarship are amazing, and he seems to have convictions; but what are they? Has he merely a brilliant gift for description, helped out and sophisticated by a subtle taste? Or has he a queer entangled sense of the significance of form. Is he a plastic artist or an extraordinarily gifted statuary? Even if this work be an imitation, how admirable a one is it! That Mr. Epstein should combine with the taste and intelligence to perceive the beauty of Mexican sculpture the skill and science to reproduce its fine qualities is surely something to note and admire. There is enough in this figure, imitative though it be, to secure for its author pre-eminence amongst living British sculptors.[19]

A third work in this part of the hall has attracted some attention. It is a picture of the coronation of George V. by one Fernand Piret, a French aviator—so the story goes—who never before dabbled in terrene arts. It may be so. In any case he has contrived a mordant comment on that memorable and mystic ceremony.

Upstairs, the best things are two charming pictures by Mr. S. F. Gore. It is a joy to watch the progress of this good artist. The patient and unpretentious labour of his experimental years is being handsomely rewarded. Mr. Gore is finding himself; we never doubted that he was well worth finding. Mr. Gilman, too, is steadily becoming more interesting; but Mr. Ginner has, as yet, hardly fulfilled the promise of his early work. The delicate sensibility and fine scholarship which M. Lucien Pissarro chooses to conceal beneath a presentment of almost exaggerated modesty will escape no one whose eyes have not been blinded by the flush of fashionable vulgarity, of which, happily, there is very little here. The London Salon is no place for those who are, or who hope to become, portrait-makers at "a thousand" a head.

All the creditable work to be found in this exhibition is not to be mentioned in one article. The pictures by Miss Helen Saunders, painted surely under the influence of Mr. Etchells; The Omnibus, by Mr. Adeney; the works of Mrs. Louise Pichard, Mr. Malcolm Drummond, Mr. J. B. Yeats, and Mr. W. B. C. Burnet; that rather pretentious piece, Les Deux Amies, by Madame RenÉe Finch; and The Cot, a charming little picture by Mrs. Ogilvie—all deserve more attention than any overworked critic is likely to give them. They are, for the most part, accomplished paintings that provoke no doubts and no outrageous hopes.