24 OCTOBER 1952, Page 18

Re-establishing the Tradition

Snt,—I was pleased to see Mr. Berger's protest against your learned critic's employment of the term " middle of the roaders," There seems to be an idea prevalent in London (and even more so in New York), that an abstract picture is in some way superior to one in which the spectator can tell with some degree of certainty what is represented. I hear that in England people of superior intelligence dismiss the whole of the Impressionist School as out of date and therefore of no more interest; such a doctrine would make a Frenchman stare indeed.—