Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/114

Rh is now loosely but conveniently known as Post-Impressionism. Here is a thing which has proved sufficiently puzzling to the ordinary man. He cannot place it, cannot understand it at all. At first he laughs. Then maybe frowns. Till at length, obliged at any rate to go through the semblance of making up his mind, he brands the whole affair as perverse, ridiculous, the product of minds that have lost their bearings, and are wandering witless and rudderless on uncharted seas. And yet to those who are accustomed to a more critical view of painting, this same Post-Impressionism offers no such difficulties. Whether they approve of it or disapprove, they are not deceived into mistaking it for a monster. For however shocking at the first glance, it quickly becomes evident to their perception as a genuine movement whose antecedents are clearly 78