Moore, George: Reminiscences of the Impressionist painters (Dublin: Maunsel, 1906)

“Be not ashamed of anything, but to be
ashamed.” Never did Manet paint more
unashamedly. There are Manets that I like
more, but the portrait of Mademoiselle Gon-
zales is what Dublin needs. In Dublin every-
one is afraid to confess himself. Is it not clear
that whosoever paints like that confesses him-
self unashamed ; he who admires that picture is
already half free—the shackles are broken, and
will fall presently. Therefore I hope it will be
Mademoiselle Gonzales that will be purchased,
for it will perhaps help to bring about the
crisis we are longing for—that spiritual crisis
when men shall begin once more to think out
life for themselves, when men shall return to
nature naked and unashamed.
Some day this question will have to be
discussed—whether the buying of odds and
ends, chairs, fireirons and decanters, and
building at a great cost places in which to
store them along with stuffed birds and Esqui-
meaux boats and all the paraphernalia of the
South Sea Islanders is not a waste of public
money. Every age has its folly, and the
folly of the twentieth century is probably the
desire to educate. I do not say the desire of
education, of that desire there is very little—
it is not uncommon to meet men who will
admit that they are not educated, and we may
meet men who admit that they are incapable
of education, but we never meet anyone who
will admit that he cannot educate somebody
else. Hence the great vogue of museums.
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