BXHIBITION, “NOVEMBER 17-DECEMBER 15 A ie: SE a OS add ea a " e » > ~ ry y * ; . ” _ +: £ 4 t 5 v af c F r Z : ae e / . ' : ‘; ; ; : ’ ‘ * 4 | aay € ER GALLERY NEW YORK SA TALOGUE BRANCUSI By PAUL MOoRAND SCULPTOR’S studio, as the public imagines it and as it is perpetu- ated on the screen by those guardians of the stereotyped, the motion picture directors, is a campo santo filled with dramatic statues of Carrara marble, blue and livid as death, with here and there, to cheer it up, divans, bibelots, bric-a-brac, and travel souvenirs. Rodin himself, who so liked to be told that he was a force of nature, continued this tradition. I remember having as a child often wandered through his studio in the rue de |’Uni- versité. JI remember certain of his pieces, like the Porte de l’Enfer, which were intended to astonish, and a whole crowd of workmen, fine ladies and pupils hovering about him, exactly as any Renaissance master must have been surrounded. In this respect Rodin was at one with the School, the Institute. Brancusi, on the contrary, is a modern, a sculptor of tomorrow. Let us visit his studio. Studio? ‘This stone quarry? Where are the big declama- tory subjects only waiting to be set up in some forum? Where are the pic- turesque clays, the “‘lost waxes”? Nothing here but great blocks of building stone, beams, trunks of trees, boulders and rocks, and here and there the highlight of a polished bronze. One of these primitive forms detaches itself from the rest, and advances toward us, massively. It is Brancusi. A gray beard which recalls Walt Whitman’s; the clear eyes of the Latin, and a look of kindness, courage and certitude—so Brancusi appears to us. Erancusi is a born artisan. He knows nothing of pupils, assistants, stone- pointers, polishers or cutters. He does everything for himself. His mate- rials are always true to him, always faithful. He has approached them from every angle. He has worked at all trades. Brancusi, we know, is a Rou- manian, of the old peasant stock of that beautiful country. Legend has it that prodded on by the demon of sculpture he trudged on foot to Paris. The Ecole des Beaux Arts itself could not tame this indomitable nature. Calmly and fearlessly Brancusi keeps on working. He works on without masters or disciples, without advertising, without toadying art critics. The extreme freedom of Paris has allowed Brancusi to remain the least eiarisian~ of artists, and what is:indeed rarer still, the least “Parisian ai Roumanians. The public which knows and loves Brancusi is that which sought out and appreciated the douanier Rousseau, Derain or Matisse long before they became celebrated. Our Brancusi works without haste. In this alone he is not of our day. At a moment when everyone is rushing into extravagance, he has understood that the one true luxury is not to hurry. He collaborates with Time. His taste for solitude, his conscience, his respect for his material, his joy in living and in creating, his patience, his passionate temperament, his vio- lence are never expressed on the surface, for that surface is as hard and polished as only he can make it. Never does Brancusi produce repetitions. Never without reason does he translate a theme for one medium into another. Respecting the individu- ality of his medium, always he transposes. He knows what so many ignore; that what has been thought out in wood or in stone, cannot without modi- fication be executed in bronze. Brancusi dips into primitive life, moves in it without losing anything of his vital force, of his genetic puissance or his creative faculties. Everything close to Nature inspires him. This hewn mass of wood, suggesting from one angle the crane of an ancient fireplace, is the cock. Now in the cock everything suggests the crémaillére—the shadow, the crest, the crow. Here- in Brancusi joins the most modern poetry. His fish glides lke a meteor. His birds sing and fly through space. His woods speak of the happiness of their new life. His Socrates strikes us as a wireless post which is broad- casting. The grace of his female figures charms us like lovely music. “Look at this work by Brancusi; had it been unearthed among some ancient ruins, it would be acclaimed as a marvel,” Jacques Doucet once remarked of the “Sleeping Muse,” which Brancusi has known how to place on the ground as a head is placed on a pillow or an ostrich egg in the sand. Let us take Brancusi’s most abstract works—or rather his most realistic, for he claims that ‘“‘what is real is not the external form, but the essence of things. Starting from this truth it is impossible for any one to express any- thing essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.” These ovoid shapes, these polished cylinders, this plastic geometry embodied in his column without end, we must admire on trust, even if—as often happens to me—we cannot fully comprehend them. Our hands have lingered too long over the patina of bronzes of the Italian Renaissance, over Syracusan medallions, over the Kore of the Acropolis and the cheeks of Buddhas. It is high time to seek cleaner contacts, more complex pleasures. Here we are with Bran- cusi at the extreme pole of purity. The satisfaction we experience before his art is of a quality already so immaterial that, though we owe it to the senses, it is to the spirit that we offer thanks. September, 1926. PROPOS BY BRANCUSI Direct cutting is the true road to sculpture, but also the most dangerous for those who don’t know how to walk. And in the end, direct or indirect, cutting means nothing, it is the complete thing that counts. High polish is a necessity which certain approximately absolute forms demand of some materials. It is not always appropriate, it is even very harmful for certain other forms. Simplicity is not an end in art, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, in approaching the real sense of things. Simplicity is complexity itself, and one has to be nourished by its essence in order to understand its value. It is not the things that are difficult to make, but to put ourselves in con- dition to make them. When we are no longer children, we are already dead. To see far, that is one thing, to go there that is another. It is something to be clever, but being honest is worth while. 2" No. 1 CHILD’S HEAD (Bronze) 1910 (Marble and stone) 1912 HOMME Pan thewed with sinews of ilex trees; A faun's heady black «curls, (One suspects onyx horns). A beard touched with white; Darkness between two white fingers; The throat—a column; Quick hands, gestures Faultless of intention, Flinging aside knowledge, Reaching for perfection As a child reaches for a flower; Dissolving wisdom Tragically for the wise. L” ARBRE In the Forest of St. Germain, he caressed a tree trunks “This is my brother. With only a little change in my substance, I could take root in the ground, Grow motifs instead of cutting them in marble. The sap in me would grow a new form of tree trunk. I would spread out my branches over lovers When they lie down upon the leaves.” LE PORTRAIT Papier ivoire, blank, a satin glaze, “A Madame, Votre ami Constantin Brancusi. I am sending you my portrait, Papier ivoire, blank, a satin glaze; I could not please you With lies of the sun or of pencil. All that I am to you is here for you; You will see me as I would have you see me. IT shall not ask you how you will precipitate my likeness; I trust you.” DINER AVEC BRANCUSI A glow in the Olympian cave. Faggots are blazing (Brancusi built the fireplace), Fat cocks are roasting. Brancusi whips the salad delicately against a wooden bowl. Vy casalutestiestapless ss. -aleAsteroid Caught snowy from frozen spaces of the sky. (Plaster freshly trowled by Brancusi, Damp to the touch.) Upon its whiteness, Color of flame and twilight— Capuchins, petals of scarlet Sinking in twilight. Brancusi pours the wine into the glasses. He has forgotten his cool marbles. The wine bubbles, crimson and amber; Fruits shine on fig leaves— Pomegranates, peaches like Chinese silk. Fragrance sifts through the fumes of wine and fruit. Brancusi is grinding coffee In a cylinder of Turkish brass. One sees cloudily, A faun’s head, black curls, curved onyx horns, Brancusi smiling. Gravitation loosens its clutching; The roof of the cavern has become moonlight; We rise slowly, beating the air rhythmically With small cloven hoofs; Slowly as befits mortals who have put on Godship for the moment, Following Pan, turning a coffee grinder of ‘Turkish brass, Speaking the tongue of dreams, Of the lion and the lizard, We arrive On Olympus. JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER Rock-Flower. He has been making these ‘‘Birds’’, they say, for years, again and again—the one I saw was a slender shape of the purest marble about three feet high and tapering so finely as almost to form a thread where it joined its diminished pedestal—yet, as Mr. Ezra Pound remarks, though they appear identical in reproduction, there is perhaps six months’ work and twenty years’ knowledge be- tween one model and another. It is an attempt, he says, to solve the “maddening difficult problem of getting all the forms into one form,” and Brancusi, with characteristic indifference, disarms any critics by asking them to wait until he is in the churchyard before they dis- cuss esthetics with him. ANGUS WILSON New York Times. Unless one can come to such art in the unprejudiced mood of dis- covery, there is little use pretending this or that about Brancusi’s art. If, however, the visitor will restore his natural enthusiasm for lovely form no matter how found or fashioned, if he will ap- proach these slender shafts of marble or polished bronze, these ro- tund masses of stone or metal as if they were washed-up treasure on some pebbly beach without particular history or hall-mark, then something of Brancusi’s special gift will become apparent. RALPH FLINT Christian Science Monitor. A colossal ignorance of art in general places one very little behind even the critics when it comes to an understanding of Constantin Brancusi’s work. ‘The strangeness and enigmatic simplicity of it have puzzled nearly everyone. He is evidently headed for somewhere but where, he doesn’t seem to know himself, nor care. Whether | you consider it art or not, the man is sufficient artist to feel that none of his pieces has come up to what he had hoped and intended it should. FLORA MERRILL New York World. For years he will keep under his eyes some beam of weathered oak © that he has saved from a demolished house, or some water-worn stone that he has picked up by the river, until, having lived with them, he feels able to touch them without spoiling their natural beauty, which must be embodied in his work. WALTER PACH The Masters of Modern Art. —a EXHIBITS (Clie Bias: Utena) MOV RASRWAL)) glover ele a en ne 1910 PVranaSUi awe lla Loman GestOne ie. ota wee a aks. aoc. eae 1912 Negri Cae COL OMOAIs Mt ue Slaton 8. cry + ons Medak ew 608% 1915 MiremiS Some SLONC) Menten tic ache. ered. hiya uns osea wo on 1908 IS. JEXOLEAE (Saeed) Se acto ae 1915 Peete CUCM TN ag DIC) mene ts. Og rebels! on) onal iat UEP ST ANCETOU UG Le YG OV Die iers an ere ae ene ee Ls iP esa SA WENS {OLIN 8) CS) WEP reo ree, A aera, tee het eg eera rere ar are aa 1914 ec Gam rOLGmU a Kiara nee Ae te Pin, Saleen cg ay ean 1918 ee HOD Lr Gmarn a CDG) wats.) aki ile Gh pt Nes we aoe kaa 1974 Be orotagy OUneHVlanc( Walntit) 24.08) a0) ae ee eee 1922 com imem COUN Oa Gri Cle (ONYX): ho. este ee eee 1918 RS HmUCOLOLCCaMarDl6,)) §. gc dyin 1 citiens ane ee ee ee 1922 Priclmmepolisheds Dron Ze)~ conc ehe ince ec Shy ee ee ee 1926 Meet tt Lime ya fh) C.) tacts 2 cee erecting eee 1916 Be S OR GOLUOa Kae isk ht ban ae ere re a aes Mey Ree ha 1920 Ped anie old: OAK) i. ace ten vmead eae cake nk irae ee eee 1974 HEVCR COLA OA Ki at) ne enn) ky v.20 gee aah dae ne eee ee eval MilesPogany-((polisheds bronze). masen ean re ee 1920 Golden: Bird (( polished bronze) ie ge. cane na ee DOD ‘Torso:ofeanyoung: Girlie Cony x) g:eeey ete eee eee [972 BrodigalsSon™ (wood \ ee: ergs te eer ee ee eee ES Collection Walter C. Arensberg Docta tess aldroak |e eens: RMN Mead ee MATES sili rath 24 128 Mile a Pooan yeast iat 16 \i ere ner cee eeeen caer ae eee ea, Bortrait (polishedabronze\m. eee tae oe ee 1916 Collection Walter C. Arensberg Birdan:S pacer (marble) grec meaeac nts ee ee 1928 Blond Neeress (polished) bronze) ) ae. men) eee eee 1926 Collection Eugene Meyer, Jr. GOcke (wa litt canon ogee ene ae MME aR i) OR Ses se 1924 The Chiets( walnut). 37 eee mee 1925 Bird in'Space*(marble) (ys <8 ee 1925 Collection Eugene Meyer, Jr. Column Without=Bnd=(old™cak \a. 5 iy ane 1918 The Beginning ot the World (marble j)) eer eee Wes Bird in Space*( polished bronze) a...) 1925 Collection Edw. J. Steichen GIP = (WOOK) ia) oan. hg ne eee errr is eee wernt | Child’s Head ( gilded'bronze) =) 4. Dues, New Born (polished bronze) 3.) = O20 Birdim Space (yellow marble)i jr 1925 38—42 Five Bases 43 Painting 2 .o.2 3 ie a ee 1916 44/0) Studies... 2 fe on 0 ieee ee 1910-1916 : a ‘ . re r wer f a i og a i ‘ i : 4 - * aaa 6 ; P s \ BROOKLYN EAGLE : J