'That's what I call beautiful'.

2nd - Post-Impressionist Exhibition. Self-satisfied smiles of most people as they entered. One large woman of ruling classes with a large voice and face-a-mains, in front of a mediocre picture: ‘Now no-one will ever be able to persuade me that  the man who painted that was serious. He was just pulling our legs.’ Self-satisfied smiles all over the place all the time. One reason of the popularity of these shows is that they give the grossly inartistic leisured class an opportunity to feel artistically superior. A slight under-current of appreciation here and there. A woman to whom a young man pointed out a pencil drawing by Matisse said, ‘That’s what I call beautiful.’ (It was.)

                                                                                    Arnold Bennett's Journals - October 8^th 1912