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THE FUTURE OF PAINTING 
 
BOOKS BY MR. WRIGHT 
 
 The Future of Painting 
 The Creative Will 
 
 Modern Painting: Its Tendency and 
 Meaning 
 
 What Nietzsche Taught 
 Misinforming a Nation 
 Informing a Nation 
 The Man of Promise: A Novel 
 Europe After 8:15 
 
 The Great Modern French Stories 
 In Preparation 
 Modern Literature 
 The Mother: A Novel 
 
THE 
 
 FUTURE OF PAINTING 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. mcmxxiii 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
COPYRIGHT, I923, BY 
 B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN U. S. A. 
 
IN FRIENDSHIP, TO 
 
 SAMUEL T. HAAS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/futureofpaintingOOwrig 
 
THE FUTURE OF PAINTING 
 
THE FUTURE OF PAINTING 
 
 I 
 
 That a grave misconception attaches to the art 
 of modernist painting should be evident from the 
 bitter warfare which, for over a century, has 
 raged between the advocates of the older painting 
 and the exponents of the new. Never before in 
 the history of art has there existed so violent and 
 prolonged a controversy concerning the merits 
 and demerits of opposing aesthetic procedures. 
 Practically the entire artistic world has divided 
 into two hostile camps, with diametrically op- 
 posed doctrines and beliefs. Critics have aligned 
 themselves on one side or the other, and have 
 given an exhibition of polemical vindictiveness 
 unsurpassed in the records of judicial literature. 
 Even the layman, usually a silent and indifferent 
 spectator to the clashes of aesthetic partisanship, 
 has taken a hand, and expressed his opinion in 
 
 to 
 
no uncertain terms. Scientists, doctors, and psy- 
 chologists have come forth as “expert” witnesses, 
 and added to the general confusion. 
 
 There have always been differences of ideals 
 between old and new manifestations of thought; 
 and conflicts of opinion accompany all intel- 
 lectual progress and creative effort. But during 
 the great periods of the world’s sesthetic activity 
 one can find always in the opposing factions a 
 certain uniformity of purpose and homogeneity 
 of inspiration. The two schools of painting 
 during the nineteenth century, however, have 
 revealed no such unified evolutionary direction. 
 In purposes, ideals and methods, graphic art has 
 followed two distinct lines of development — 
 each group of adherents earnestly, and often 
 viciously, attacking the other, and refusing to 
 grant even a basis of truth or reason to its op- 
 ponents. 
 
 Moreover, as time went by, there were no evi- 
 dences of a rapprochement or mutual understand- 
 ing. To-day — one hundred and twenty-five 
 
 years after the early pioneers of “modern paint- 
 ing” hoisted the banner of a new art-procedure — 
 the antagonism is more bitter than at any stage 
 of its existence. Nor is this schism in the ranks 
 of painting a condition of the past two decades. 
 
 [*] 
 
The same violent factional opposition has existed 
 since the precursors of modernist movement — 
 Turner, Bonington, Constable, Delacroix, Cour- 
 bet and Daumier — first reacted against the for- 
 mulas and traditions of the neo-classicists, and 
 set in motion that sweeping current of a new art 
 which has drawn into its tempestuous tide many 
 of the greatest talents of modern times. 
 
 In order to understand the perpetually widen- 
 ing chasm between academic painting and 
 “modernist painting,” and to arrive at an explana- 
 tion for the seemingly irreconcilable attitudes 
 held by the exponents of these two procedures, 
 it is necessary to define the art of painting as 
 originally conceived, and to trace its evolution 
 to the point where disintegration set in. More- 
 over, it is necessary to analyze the basic purposes 
 of painting as an art, and to determine just what 
 impulses and aims motivated its prosecution. 
 
 [3] 
 
II 
 
 Oil-painting was an outgrowth of other forms 
 of art, but principally of sculpture. Indeed, the 
 finest examples of painting during the Renais- 
 sance — the epoch in which the primary pictorial 
 impulse reached its fruition — were wholly sculp- 
 tural. The art of painting as practiced by 
 Giotto, Giorgione, Veronese, Titian and Leon- 
 ardo, may be said to have absorbed the art of 
 sculpture. Sculpture reached a high point of de- 
 velopment with the Greeks. But it was Michel- 
 angelo who, because of his colossal powers of or- 
 ganization, succeeded in adding the third plane 
 to sculpture, thus taking the final step in the art 
 of plastic form. Sculpture, as a creative art, 
 died with Michelangelo. He exhausted its pos- 
 sibilities as an sesthetic medium. After his 
 achievements in marble there were no longer any 
 unsolved problems confronting the sculptor; and 
 all sculpture since his day has been but a modi- 
 fication or restatement of what he accomplished. 
 
 [4] 
 
The art of painting, like sculpture, was based 
 on definite principles — technical, intellectual and 
 philosophic. These principles were as old as art 
 itself. They were, in fact, the basic principles 
 of all aesthetic creation. The painter had only to 
 master these principles and to restate them in a 
 new medium. When the Van Eycks — the prac- 
 tical inventors of oil-painting — made possible a 
 new art-form, art-theory was already far ad- 
 vanced; and so the established principles of art 
 were merely transferred to another metier . Dur- 
 ing the Renaissance these principles reached a 
 very profound degree of sophisticated projection, 
 despite the fact that oil-painting was only a cen- 
 tury or so old. Rut none of the Italians suc- 
 ceeded in completely and finally projecting these 
 principles in oil. There was still one more step 
 to be taken, just as there had been one more step 
 to be taken in sculpture after the Greeks. 
 
 In much the same way that Michelangelo 
 carried sculpture to its final decimal point, so did 
 Rubens carry the art of painting to its ultimate 
 statement. In Rubens the art of oil-painting, 
 as a living creative factor, culminated. The 
 principles of form were mastered and given ex- 
 pression by him for all time. The problems of 
 organization, in relation to the graphic medium, 
 
 [5] 
 
were solved and set aside. Since Rubens, the 
 only advances in painting have been in the realm 
 of methods and means. The only problems 
 which faced the painter who came after him were 
 purely technical ones. And even these problems 
 have now been solved. No painter has sur- 
 passed, or ever will surpass, Rubens, no matter 
 how much the surface aspect of canvases may 
 change. 
 
 A perfect parallel exists in music. The art of 
 music culminated in Beethoven — that is to say: 
 Beethoven gave a final statement to the principles 
 of musical form. His symphonies, as form, will 
 never be surpassed. All significant compositions 
 since his time have been based upon his aesthetic 
 structures. 
 
 However, there have been many researches 
 made on the technical side of music. Numerous 
 advances in methods have taken place, such as the 
 development of the orchestra, and the complicat- 
 ing of harmonics. It is only along the line of 
 what we might call the orchestration of painting 
 that there has been any progress in the graphic art 
 since Rubens. 
 
 The “new” music is, in reality, an art of sound 
 and harmonics; for it is primarily scientific, and 
 has to do almost exclusively with the medium of 
 
 [ 6 ] 
 
music. Whether one employs a whole-tone 
 scale, a new set of chord-sequences and a highly 
 augmented and complicated orchestra with all 
 manner of novel effects, or whether one uses 
 merely the primitive harmonics and simple orches- 
 tral musical form of Haydn, the fundamental 
 statement of the principles of musical form are in 
 no way altered. The aesthetic basis of music it- 
 self is not affected. A Beethoven symphony 
 played on a piano in simplified arrangement, is 
 just as advanced, just as profound and final, from 
 the standpoint of musical form, as if played by a 
 one-hundred-and-fifty-piece orchestra, and ar- 
 ranged by the most modern of contrapuntalists 
 and mathematical harmonists. 
 
 Painting, however, developed technically far 
 beyond music. The medium of painting kept al- 
 most abreast of the development of its esthetic 
 content. To-day there are no longer any prob- 
 lems, either technical or aesthetic, confronting the 
 painter. Painting is, and has been for many 
 years, a finished art. For, in any definition of an 
 art, the original intent must be considered. 
 
 What, then, one asks, has been the nature of 
 all the labor and researches in painting since 
 Rubens? If painting terminated with Rubens, 
 what is the status of the great pictorial artists 
 
 [7] 
 
since his day? Are we to repudiate all the splen- 
 did work done by the more modern men? Are 
 the new color-theories of Delacroix to go for 
 naught ? Are the volumnear conceptions of Dau- 
 mier to be ignored? Are we to disregard the 
 experimentations in light made by the Impres- 
 sionists? The chromatic, optical, and formal 
 researches of Cezanne, the harmonics of Matisse, 
 the planar abstractions of the Cubists, the ration- 
 alization of the palette by the Synchromists — 
 are all these technical advances of no value to the 
 world of art? 
 
 The answer to these questions is the crux of the 
 whole disagreement between the academic paint- 
 ers and the modernists. The truth is that so- 
 called modern painting is not an art of painting 
 at all. The experiments and researches in 
 pictorialism since 1800 have been along the lines 
 of an entirely new art — an art basically distinct 
 from that of painting — an art whose purposes, 
 impulses, motives and final goal are intrinsically 
 different from those of the art of painting. 
 
 [ 8 ] 
 
Ill 
 
 “Modernist painting,” against which the ad- 
 vocates of academic painting have protested so 
 bitterly, is, in reality, an art of color. And the 
 reason that it is so widely misunderstood and has 
 given rise to so many misconceptions, is due to 
 the fact that, for over a hundred years, it has been 
 measured by the standards of painting to which 
 it does not, and can not, conform, any more than 
 the art of the drama can be made to conform to 
 the standards of the art of poetry. 
 
 The new art of color has been condemned by 
 the exponents of painting because it did not ful- 
 fill the functions of painting; and the art of 
 painting has been condemned by exponents of the 
 new art of color because it did not fulfill the func- 
 tions of the new art of color. The misunder- 
 standing has been mutual. The entire conflict 
 has been one of a misconception of purpose and 
 ideals — one might almost say, of nomenclature. 
 
 This confusing of two separate arts, and the 
 
 [9] 
 
continual efforts to reconcile two divergent meth- 
 ods of aesthetic procedure, and to measure each by 
 the other’s standard, grew originally out of the 
 fact that their metiers and processes were identi- 
 cal. Also, there were certain apparent, but not 
 actual, similarities of purpose in the two arts, 
 which resulted in the new art of color being re- 
 garded as a development of painting — a logical 
 and direct development, according to the defend- 
 ers of modern art ; a distorted and abortive devel- 
 opment, according to the adherents of the older 
 painting. But while the aft of color sprang 
 from, and grew out of, the art of painting, it was, 
 in reality, an independent organism. Its evolu- 
 tion, instead of being a direct progressus , was in 
 the nature of a differentiation. 
 
 In very much the same way have the different 
 forms of literary art sprung from the saga and 
 the fable. Poetry, the drama, criticism, and the 
 novel are individual arts, each governed by, and 
 accountable to, its own specific laws and stand- 
 ards. Though possessing a common source, and 
 making use of the same metier , they are positive 
 differentiations of a specific mother impulse. In 
 like manner the art of color has differentiated it- 
 self from the art of painting; and though it has ex- 
 pressed itself thus far through the same metier 
 
 [ 10 ] 
 
(namely: canvas, paint, and pictorial objectiv- 
 ity), it has followed its own purposes and im- 
 pulses, irrespective of the purposes and impulses 
 of the older art of painting. 
 
 Aside from the borrowed metier of this new art 
 of color, which has led even its practitioners to 
 misinterpret its true status, there was a long period 
 of gestation during which the outward manifesta- 
 tions of the two arts were so similar — due to the 
 minuteness of the differentiation process — that 
 their separate individualities were barely distin- 
 guishable; and the one was therefore regarded as 
 a slight variation of the other. The confusion 
 arising from this similarity spread and took root. 
 Soon it became a fixed notion in the world of art. 
 In time every new manifestation of the art of 
 color was accepted as an attempt to alter the 
 status of the art of painting, to improve upon the 
 conceptions of the Renaissance and Rubens, and 
 to push forward the evolution of the graphic art. 
 As the breach between the two “schools” widened 
 — that is, as the art of color drew further and 
 further away from that of painting — the mis- 
 understanding increased, and the exponents of 
 the two arts became more and more alienated. 
 
 Had the progenitors themselves of this new art 
 not mistaken the impulses which animated their 
 
 [11] 
 
various researches, and had they at once hoisted 
 the flag of a new sesthetic procedure and sought at 
 once for a new medium, the world would then 
 have been spared all this controversy between the 
 classicists and the modernists. But such a course 
 was, in the very nature of things, impossible. So 
 closely were the early impulses of pictorial ex- 
 perimentation related to the impulses of the art of 
 painting, that canvas and pigments were the 
 natural and instinctive means for the work of 
 research to which these pioneers set themselves. 
 
 Although the early modernists felt the urge of 
 new discoveries and the necessity for the solving 
 of new problems, their creative instincts were so 
 intimately allied to the external aspects of paint- 
 ing, that they themselves did not at first draw the 
 line of distinction between the two arts. To the 
 contrary, they immediately set up an elaborate 
 a-posteriori defense of their activities from the 
 standpoint of painters. Only Cezanne, the 
 greatest and perhaps most self-conscious of all the 
 new men, recognized the truth. Shortly before 
 his death he said: “I have not 'realized/ and I 
 
 shall never 'realize’ now. I shall always remain 
 the primitive of the way I have opened .” 
 
 There is no doubt that habit also had much to 
 do with the choice of canvas and paint by the 
 
 [ 12 ] 
 
precursors of the new color-art. The technique of 
 painting was familiar; and there were no obstacles 
 to overcome in the handling of the painter’s tools. 
 Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the art of 
 painting was the matrix out of which the art of 
 color grew, and that there was a period of almost 
 identical interests — a period of parturition, as it 
 were, during which the art of painting carried in 
 its womb the germs of this new life. Therefore, 
 it was necessary for the latter to express itself 
 through the art of painting, at least until the 
 embryonic growth should have been completed. 
 Later, when the birth of the new art took place, 
 there was a separation; and the two art-forms pro- 
 ceeded to function as distinct entities. But so 
 widely disseminated and deeply implanted had 
 become the idea that the two arts were identical, 
 that even when the separation came, the true 
 situation was not recognized. Instead, an in- 
 creased antagonism rose between the two groups 
 of artists, their camp-followers and partisans, each 
 group imagining itself the rightful interpreters of 
 the other’s doctrines. 
 
 [13] 
 
IV 
 
 Another potent reason for this confusion and 
 misunderstanding lies in the widely manifested 
 influence exerted on the art of painting by the 
 new art of color, as well as the obvious evidences 
 that the new art of color derived almost unlimited 
 inspiration from the older art of painting. The 
 visual bond alone has been sufficient to mislead 
 many into accepting both arts as merely divergent 
 manifestations of the same impulse. The art of 
 color has certainly had a profound effect upon 
 painting — even upon the most traditional and 
 formalized academic painting. Of late years 
 there has been evident in the most conservative of 
 “salon” pictures a new freedom of technique, a 
 broader approach to subject-matter, a deeper con- 
 cern with organization and abstract form, and, 
 above all, a much bolder, purer and more vital 
 use of color. The old-fashioned pictorial anec- 
 dote has almost disappeared; and the meticulous, 
 photographic technique, so popular a half-centurv 
 
 [14] 
 
ago, has given place to broad, vigorous and im- 
 pressionistic brushing. 
 
 These influences, however, do not prove or 
 even indicate a consanguinity between the two 
 arts. Mutual influences in the arts are always to 
 be found; and similarities in technical procedure 
 are very often due to a common source of domi- 
 nation from without, rather than to an inter- 
 activity between the art-forms themselves — just 
 as the resemblance of two persons may be traced 
 to a common parent rather than to any mutual 
 imitative mechanism. The new freedom, in both 
 conception and execution, which marks the work 
 of modern scholastic painters, is attributable as 
 much to those general demands for intensity in 
 aesthetic stimuli (which brought forth the art of 
 color) as to the direct influence of the new art 
 itself. Indeed, it is wholly a specious contention 
 that the change in academic art proves the sound- 
 ness of the modernist aesthetic. 
 
 That academic art has been influenced, how- 
 ever, is undeniable. But academic art has given 
 far more to the new art of color than the new art 
 of color has given to academic art. We can find 
 abundant influences of the art of poetry in the art 
 of the drama; and the modern naturalistic novel 
 has most certainly exerted an influence on the art 
 
 [15] 
 
of poetry., (One notices it in Masefield, for in- 
 stance.) But such influences do not indicate even 
 a similarity of aesthetic objective. Nor is either 
 art thus influenced by a sister art to be condemned 
 because the ultimate effects of the imitation are 
 not the same as in the other. 
 
 Therefore, the mutual influence of academic 
 art and modernistic art can not be advanced as 
 evidence that they are striving towards the same 
 goal, and that one achieves its aesthetic purpose 
 with greater efficiency than the other. Their 
 goals are entirely different, and their influence 
 upon one another must not be mistaken for an at- 
 tempt to usurp one another’s field. Nor should 
 either art be disparaged or denounced because it 
 fails to attain the goal towards which the other is 
 striving. 
 
 I have sought to define briefly the art of paint- 
 ing and to indicate its motives and its aims. In 
 order, therefore, to clarify the duality of the dis- 
 pute centering about modernistic art, it is also 
 necessary to analyze the motives and aims of the 
 new art of color, and to point out those conditions 
 in modern life which have brought it into exist- 
 ence; for all art springs into being in response to 
 an emotional and psychological demand. Then, 
 with a definition of the art of color, and a defini- 
 
 [16] 
 
tion of the art of painting, an sesthetic comparison 
 may be made, which will at once reveal the fun- 
 damental divergencies of these two creative im- 
 pulses. 
 
 Once these divergencies become manifest — 
 once the world is brought to realize that the 
 modern colorist is not attempting to usurp the 
 prerogatives of painting, and that the continuance 
 of academic painting can in no way affect the pros- 
 ecution and development of the art of color — 
 then the causes of animosity and dissension will 
 have been removed, and competition, enmity and 
 misunderstanding will disappear. For, in reality, 
 there is no excuse or reason for the differences of 
 opinion between the academic painter and the 
 modernist. 
 
 [17] 
 
V 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century the 
 creative artist — and especially the artist whose 
 aesthetic instincts tended towards visual expres- 
 sion — felt the need of a new method of stating 
 his artistic concepts. He had come to realize 
 that the existing graphic means were exhausted. 
 The colossal forms of Rubens, organized with a 
 highly sensitized and magistral technique, left 
 the painter facing a neant . To surpass Rubens 
 was impossible. The principles of composition 
 had been mastered and stated in perfectly poised 
 three-dimensional form. The implication of ab- 
 stract plasticity had been projected through re- 
 cognizable subject-matter; and nothing was to be 
 gained by merely eliminating the naturalistic ob- 
 ject — the only possible logical step left for the 
 painter to take. In fact, the elimination of rep- 
 resentative document would do away with, or at 
 least greatly diminish, the emotional appeal of 
 painting; for the form, being intellectual, re- 
 
 [18] 
 
quired the emotional balance of objective nature. 
 Hence, to carry painting to its logical conclusion 
 would result in a reductio ad absurdum. 
 
 Wherein, then, lay the opportunity for visual 
 expression, without resorting to mere repetition 
 and imitation? The answer was: in color. (In 
 Ruskin’s expositions of Turner’s painting, and 
 in the notebooks of Delacroix, we find abundant 
 evidence that these two great precursors of the art 
 of color reasoned along this very line; and that 
 their reasoning — often instinctive and intuitive — 
 led to their elaborate color-theories and to their 
 entirely new treatment of pigments.) 
 
 Paradoxical as it may seem, all painting up to 
 the time of Turner and Delacroix was an art of 
 black-and-white. Color played no organic part 
 in the classic pictorial conception. All forms 
 and rhythms were conceived and expressed in 
 drawing; and all volumes and tones — namely: 
 the means for obtaining solidity and structure — 
 were produced by the scale of grays. The 
 “studies” for most of the great masterpieces 
 of the past were done in monotint; and the most 
 profound problems presented by these pictures 
 were solved by line and black-and-white masses. 
 We know that in some of the greatest of the old 
 canvases the color-scheme and even the tonal tints 
 
 [19] 
 
were not decided upon until the picture had been 
 fully conceived and worked out. Color, as a rule, 
 was put on as an afterthought, generally in imita- 
 tion of nature, as a kind of decoration or beautifi- 
 cation. It was, in short, merely a reinforcement 
 of drawing. This is why the majority of the 
 works of the old masters are as artistic in black- 
 and-white reproduction as in their original colors. 
 In fact, many an old masterpiece is superior in 
 black-and-white reproduction, for it comes nearer 
 to the artist’s original conception; and the func- 
 tioning of the superimposed colors (which was not 
 then understood) does not clash with the function- 
 ing of the lines and forms. 
 
 The fact is — and it is too often overlooked — 
 that the art of painting is not an art of color . 
 Color, indeed, had practically nothing to do with 
 the aesthetic evolution of painting. Had there 
 been only black-and-white oil-paints, the art of 
 painting would still have progressed in very much 
 the same way that it has done, and the achieve- 
 ments of the art of painting would have been 
 practically what they are now, save that they 
 would have been less decorative, less naturalistic, 
 and less emotional. 
 
 The so-called modern painter, realizing this 
 
 [ 20 ] 
 
fact, focused his attention on color, and endeav- 
 ored to make it an intrinsic and organic element 
 in the projection of pictorial forms. In so doing, 
 he reversed the very process of the art of painting. 
 For a time he even ignored the principles of form 
 and the laws of composition on which the art of 
 painting was based. His achievements had noth- 
 ing in common with painting beyond the super- 
 ficial projection of visual nature. His entire con- 
 cern was with the theory of color. All the ac- 
 tivities in “modern painting ’ 7 have had one object 
 for their goal — the solution of the problems of 
 color. To call these researches and experimenta- 
 tions the art of painting is a contradiction, and a 
 denial of the very foundation on which that art 
 was reared. 
 
 Turner sought to heighten the intensity of 
 color. Delacroix strove to develop the dramatic 
 possibilities of color. The Impressionists en- 
 deavored to solve the problem of light and vi- 
 bration. The Pointillists carried the science of 
 color-juxtaposition and the interactivity of com- 
 plementaries to a coldly intellectual extreme. 
 Gauguin worked exclusively in the decorative val- 
 ues of pure color. Matisse devoted himself to 
 the harmonic relationships of color. The Cubists 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
sought to eliminate objectivity — the essence of 
 painting — and to achieve form by intersecting 
 tonal planes. Cezanne carried his researches in 
 the optics of chromatic gradations to a point 
 where he was able to determine the active func- 
 tions of color, and thus to supplant form with 
 color, thereby achieving a simultaneous concep- 
 tion, and eliminating the very basis of painting 
 — namely: representation by line and mass in the 
 scale of black-and-white. The Synchromists, 
 carrying forward Cezanne’s discoveries, coor- 
 dinated and rationalized the palette, and made 
 of every color and tone in the painter’s entire 
 gamut a relatively fixed attribute in the construc- 
 tion of form. 
 
 This, in brief, is an outline of the evolution of 
 what is erroneously termed “modern painting.” 
 At no point in this evolution is there discernible 
 a single fundamental relationship with the art of 
 older painting; and for several decades even the 
 demands of aesthetic form were ignored. Every 
 advance, every new step, was along the line of 
 scientific or harmonic color-research. What is 
 more, no experimentation or discovery made by 
 the exponents of this new art affected the status 
 of painting, or altered a single truth or principle 
 of that art. There has been no actual conflict, 
 
 [ 22 ] 
 
for both the methods and the aims of the new art 
 of color are wholly outside the realm of painting 
 as originally conceived and practiced for four 
 hundred years. 
 
 [23] 
 
VI 
 
 Where the art of color reveals its greatest dis- 
 similarity to the art of painting is in the incentive 
 which produced it. As I have stated in my 
 “Modern Painting” and elsewhere, this new art 
 of color is striving for an intensity of effect which 
 the older painting does not possess. The world 
 to-day demands more powerful aesthetic stimuli 
 than it did in the past. The reason for this is to 
 be found in the new conditions of modern life, 
 and in the corresponding emotional development 
 of mankind. Modern life has markedly in- 
 creased in intensity as a result of mechanics, 
 densely populated areas, the flooding of the mind 
 with a vast amount of knowledge of events 
 through the perfecting of means for collecting 
 news, the rapidity of travel, the world’s swiftly 
 moving panorama, the discoveries in brilliant 
 artificial lights, etc. These complexities and in- 
 tensifications in man’s existence to-day tend to 
 deaden the mind, through the senses, to the 
 
 [24] 
 
subtleties of minute variations of grays, the 
 monotonies of simple melodies and rhythms, and 
 similar manifestations of a day when febrile liv- 
 ing had not blunted the sensibilities. 
 
 All art must dominate life. This is as true 
 to-day as in the Middle Ages. The modern 
 workers in color have realized that only by per- 
 fecting the purely mechanical side of painting can 
 a new intensity, commensurate with modern 
 needs, be achieved in the realm of visual art. 
 To be sure, great painting will always remain 
 great as long as our organisms remain unchanged ; 
 yet the demands of human evolution must be 
 met; and it is a result of these demands that the 
 means and media of all the arts are to-day being 
 developed through study and experimentation. 
 This is what is known as the “modern move- 
 ment.” 
 
 We hear many complaints directed at the 
 public’s indifference toward painting; and the 
 truth is that to-day only painters are vitally in- 
 terested in painting as an art . The reason is that 
 the average painter of to-day has little realization 
 that the world — psychologically speaking — has 
 progressed since 1600. He is apparently unaware 
 that the emotional development of three cen- 
 turies has rendered the art of painting inadequate 
 
 [25] 
 
to the aesthetic needs of the present. The mod- 
 ern art of color has, by its very vividness, at- 
 tracted a host of admirers who might otherwise 
 seek a mild reaction in conventional painting. 
 The painter naturally sees in this new art a dan- 
 gerous rival. His animosity is therefore aroused 
 automatically, like a sort of protective mechan- 
 ism. The fault, of course lies in the fact that he 
 is still living in an olden, placid age before com- 
 plexity and noise blunted man’s sensibilities and 
 created a demand for a more powerful stimulant. 
 Only the “modern painter” — to wit: the re- 
 searcher in color — has sensed the change. 
 
 Music, on the other hand, has developed and 
 enlarged its scope to meet the public’s aesthetic 
 needs. The orchestra has been greatly aug- 
 mented; new instruments have been invented; 
 more brass is used; and the volume of “noise” 
 in orchestration has been increased. Further- 
 more, the forms of music have grown more intri- 
 cate and profound. The fugue and the rondo 
 evolved into the Bach quartette; and the quar- 
 tette, in Haydn’s hands, was developed into the 
 symphony. Even the symphony was extended 
 and complicated by Beethoven and Brahms. 
 Then new harmonics, new effects and new scales 
 came into vogue. In fine, the stimulus of music 
 
 [26] 
 
grew more powerful as mankind demanded more 
 powerful reactions. 
 
 The development of literature progressed simi- 
 larly. Not only did new and intricate forms of 
 literary art arise, but the older forms — poetry, fic- 
 tion, and the drama — increased in intensity. In 
 both music and literature one sees a constant evo- 
 lutionary process at work; and that process has 
 gone hand in hand with mankind’s aesthetic evo- 
 lution. Regard the novel of fifty years ago, or 
 the orchestra in Beethoven’s time ; and then com- 
 pare these two art-types with the corresponding 
 types of to-day. Beethoven’s orchestra would 
 not meet the emotional demands of the present. 
 Nor would the old-fashioned 200,000-word novel, 
 with its quiet, leisurely manner and its prolix 
 verbiage, satisfy our modern literary tastes. 
 How, then, can we expect the painting of two 
 or three centuries ago to supply our current emo- 
 tional needs 4 ? 
 
 The reason that music and literature have been 
 able to keep more or less abreast of the sesthetic re- 
 quirements of man, is that these two arts were 
 practically in their infancy when painting was 
 approaching its final and complete flowering. 
 Painting during the Renaissance had progressed, 
 in the statement of form and in the evolution of 
 
organizational principles, further than music had 
 progressed in the hands of Beethoven and Brahms. 
 That complicated and perfectly balanced example 
 of aesthetic form, which we call the symphony, 
 had achieved a corresponding development in 
 painting at the time of Giorgione, Titian and 
 Veronese. And the orchestrating of forms — 
 namely, the technical means for projecting com- 
 positional concepts — such as music attained to 
 during the latter part of the nineteenth century, 
 had reached a correspondingly advanced stage in 
 painting, at the time of Rubens. In brief, the 
 mastering of the basic problems of art, and the 
 organized statement of the principles of aesthetic 
 form, which are to-day occupying the attention 
 of the exponents of music and literature, were 
 completed by the exponents of painting centuries 
 ago. 
 
 This is why there has been no modern prog- 
 ress in the art of painting, and why the aesthetic 
 stimulus it offers is not sufficiently powerful to 
 produce adequate reactions in the modern organ- 
 isms. Furthermore, this emotional impotency of 
 painting explains the greater public interest 
 to-day in music and literature — a condition which 
 was reversed in the Middle Ages. 
 
 [28] 
 
VII 
 
 Although the new art of color has tended to 
 supplant the older art of painting, it can never 
 replace painting. But because the art of color 
 is still expressing itself through the borrowed 
 medium of painting, it is generally considered a 
 competitor of the graphic art; and this misinter- 
 pretation of its status has given rise to a further 
 misconception which, in large measure, accounts 
 for the animosity and ridicule so often aroused 
 by examples of the modernist’s work. Since the 
 art of color is regarded as a competitor of paint- 
 ing, the mistaken conclusion to which the public 
 has come is that the art of color, like painting, is 
 a decorative art — or, rather, is striving to fulfill a 
 decorative function. 
 
 Painting has always been accepted as a means 
 for decorating the interior of buildings. During 
 the Renaissance the primary object of painting 
 was the beautification of the Church. Gradually 
 pictures found their way into all manner of pub- 
 
 [29] 
 
lie buildings, and finally into the home. So 
 firmly has this decorative idea taken hold of both 
 public and painter, that houses are now built with 
 the hanging of pictures in mind ; and the size and 
 shape and subjects of canvases have been influ- 
 enced by the demands of mural hanging. 
 
 But whereas the destiny of painting was a 
 decorative one, the art of color fills no such utili- 
 tarian place in the aesthetic scheme of things. 
 Not only is the very nature of this new art op- 
 posed to so neutral and passive a function, but 
 the psychological needs which brought it forth 
 preclude its being relegated to such a purpose. 
 The art of color does not belong in the home. 
 It is not an unobtrusive form of beauty which 
 can be enjoyed or ignored at will; and it is essen- 
 tially inappropriate as a constant accompaniment, 
 or background, to our everyday existences. As I 
 have pointed out, it is a highly intensified emo- 
 tional stimulant — a stimulant, in fact, whose very 
 intensity is its raison d'etre. There is no escap- 
 ing the effects of this art, once contact with it 
 has been established. It is distracting and ab- 
 sorbing, and, when successfully conceived and exe- 
 cuted, fixes the attention and produces a positive 
 and poignant reaction — both intellectual and 
 emotional. 
 
 [30] 
 
When an admirer of academic painting remarks 
 that he would go insane if he had to live day in 
 and day out with one of these “modern ’ 5 canvases, 
 he is stating (in exaggerated terms) a simple and 
 obvious truth. His implied criticism is wholly 
 justified. But it is a criticism which in no way 
 reflects upon the merits of the work of art in 
 question, but which, to the contrary, indicates that 
 the artist has achieved a more vivid and potent 
 statement of pictorial form than is to be found in 
 academic painting. Adjectives such as “harsh” 
 and “blatant,” when applied to examples of the 
 new art, are, from the standpoint of painting, 
 both accurate and just. The stricture implied in 
 such adjectives rises from the mistaken notion 
 that the art of color is seeking to fulfill the same 
 destiny as is the art of painting, and is therefore 
 to be gauged by the same standards. Obviously, 
 harshness and blatancy are not virtues in paint- 
 ing. But, on the other hand, they do constitute 
 a virtue when applied to the art of color. 
 
 The music, for instance, which we play in our 
 homes must be subdued and accommodated to its 
 surroundings. But when we attend a symphony 
 concert, tremendous volumes of sound, large num- 
 bers of executants, and fortissimo passages are 
 not out of place. That is to say, intensity in 
 
 [31] 
 
sesthetic stimuli (namely: “harshness” or “blat- 
 ancy”) is, under certain conditions, not only a 
 virtue but an essential. However, should a host- 
 ess in a private home entertain her guests for an 
 entire evening with Brahms symphonies and 
 Strauss tone-poems rendered by an orchestra of a 
 hundred pieces, there would be quite as many de- 
 rogatory ejaculations of “blatant” and “harsh” 
 as we hear when it is proposed that one hangs ex- 
 amples of modern color-art in one’s home. 
 
 The new art of color, despite its present metier 
 and the fact that it is still in a groping, experi- 
 mental stage, belongs not to the decorative and 
 atmospheric arts, but to what may be called the 
 entertainment art-form, such as the symphony 
 concert, the drama, and the spectacle. When it 
 has found its true medium, and has developed 
 into a fixed and organized type of expression, it 
 will lose its present utilitarian aspect, and will — 
 beyond all peradventure of misconception — take 
 its place alongside those sesthetic stimuli which 
 possess our natures and our minds wholly during 
 their exhibition, and which produce such reactions 
 as can be endured only at intervals and for limited 
 periods of time. Sculpture and the graphic arts 
 do not belong in this category; and herein lies 
 one of the most significant and fundamental dif- 
 
 [32] 
 
ferences between the art of painting and the art 
 of color. Indeed, when this new color-art has at- 
 tained its inevitable goal, it will bear a much 
 closer aesthetic relationship to music than to paint- 
 ing. Even now its achievements — slight and 
 abecedary as they are — have, in many cases, 
 proved themselves capable of producing keen 
 emotional reactions. 
 
 [33] 
 
VIII 
 
 The reason why the reactions possible from 
 this new art are far more intense and satisfying 
 than the reactions to be obtained from painting, 
 lies in the different physiological effects produced 
 by the two media. The medium of painting 
 is form represented by subject-matter — linear 
 rhythms, chiaroscuro, and structural solidity 
 achieved by black-and-white; whereas the me- 
 dium of the art of color is a physical property 
 which has a direct vibratory action upon the optic 
 nerve of much the same kind that sound-waves 
 have upon the ear-drum. 
 
 Without going into a scientific explanation of 
 the difference between the medium of the art of 
 painting and that of the art of color, I think I 
 can make my point sufficiently clear by a simple 
 analogy. For example, a single black line or 
 smudge on a piece of white paper, when acting 
 upon the eye, does not have the same physiological 
 effect as does a single pure color. A color in itself 
 
 [34] 
 
possesses what we call beauty— that is to say, it 
 causes a pleasurable reaction, just as does a single 
 note played on an organ. But a single gray, black 
 or white line (or mass) does not produce this 
 pleasing physical reaction. (Its equivalent in 
 sound is a mere bit of natural noise; and, in an 
 orchestra, black and gray are represented by the 
 drums.) 
 
 The art of painting makes use of the latter 
 medium ; the art of color the former. The color- 
 ing or tinting of works of painting after their 
 structural completion, may, as I have pointed out, 
 enhance their visual appeal; but the colors thus 
 applied are not the basis of the aesthetic form, and 
 therefore are not the source of our enjoyment; 
 for a painting in black-and-white reproduction is 
 still a work of art, and provocative of an aesthetic 
 reaction. 
 
 In the new art of color, however, color is the 
 basis of the form, and hence the source of the 
 aesthetic reaction. Therefore, the reaction pos- 
 sible in this latter art (other aesthetic values being 
 equal) is infinitely more intense than in painting. 
 In fact, the physical stimulation of color is often 
 greater even than that of sound. During the past 
 twenty-five years scientists have been experiment- 
 ing in the effects of colors upon human and animal 
 
 [35] 
 
organisms; and their findings — notably those of 
 Dr. Jacques Loeb of Rockefeller Institute, in the 
 field of heliotropism — prove conclusively that 
 color holds infinite possibilities as a highly active 
 mechanistic source of physiological reaction. 
 
 This new art, with color as its functioning me- 
 dium and therefore as the basis of one’s enjoyment 
 of it, is, I predict, going to develop into what will 
 be the most powerful and moving source of 
 aesthetic pleasure the world has yet known. But 
 its metier will not be canvas and pigment. The 
 more rudimentary problems in this new art have 
 already been solved; and even now it is divorcing 
 itself from the very aspect of painting, and is seek- 
 ing a means of expression which heretofore has 
 never been associated with art-procedure. The 
 result will be an entirely new art, as distinct from 
 painting as is music or literature. 
 
 [36] 
 
IX 
 
 Thus far I have endeavored to show that so- 
 called modern, or modernist, painting is not an 
 art of painting at all, but an art of color, with im- 
 pulses, functions and aims which are quite distinct 
 from those of painting. I have also ventured 
 the prediction that this new art of color, though 
 temporarily expressing itself in the medium of 
 painting, will in time develop into a source of 
 one of the most intense and pleasurable aesthetic 
 reactions which the world of art has yet known. 
 At present the art of color is definitely limited in 
 its means of projection; but there are sufficient 
 indications by which the future status of this art 
 may be determined. 
 
 The key to the art of the future lies in the ques- 
 tion of medium. Herein we may find not only 
 an explanation for the current misconceptions re- 
 garding it, but also the secret of its growth and 
 evolution. So-called modern paintings — that is, 
 pictorial representations of recognizable or semi- 
 
 [37] 
 
recognizable subjects constructed according to the 
 theories of the new researches in color — must be 
 done on large canvases in order to be most effec- 
 tive. Unlike the art of painting, the art of color 
 — even in its present hybrid state — demands ex- 
 pansive areas for adequate projection. 
 
 The modern home, however, is constantly grow- 
 ing smaller; wall-space to-day in the average 
 house is at a premium. Obviously, therefore, 
 the art of color can have but slight value as a vital 
 expression of the modern creative instinct as long 
 as it clings to the medium of canvas and paint. 
 Its contact with the world would be too limited, 
 and its accessibility too restricted. In fact, there 
 is no future for it as painting. The hostility 
 which it has already met, and its persistently low 
 market-value, are traceable, in large measure, to 
 its decorative impracticability. The best and 
 most representative modernistic canvases must 
 eventually go into museums to be properly seen 
 and appreciated. There is no incentive in such 
 a destiny for the creative artist. The invention 
 of museums was an outgrowth of man’s primitive 
 instinct for placing corpses in a mausoleum; and 
 the truly vital artist can find no inspiration in 
 decorating a sepulchre’s interior. 
 
 Now that painting has lost its emotional effi- 
 
 [38] 
 
cacy, a new optical stimulus is required. TKe 
 visual aesthetic needs of mankind must be fed and 
 gratified. Since the older painting no longer 
 meets these needs, and modern houses are becom- 
 ing too cramped and congested to hold pictures; 
 and since the art of color has no proper place in the 
 home and is at present expressing itself through 
 a medium which is both impracticable and inade- 
 quate: the time has come for a fundamental 
 change in the very nature of this new color-art. 
 Conditions are inevitably forcing into existence a 
 new metier for its expression and new methods 
 for its projection. 
 
 The most important indication that this change 
 is imminent lies in the fact that no new modern 
 art “school” has risen during the past ten years. 
 From Delacroix to the outbreak of the last war 
 the history of so-called modern painting was a 
 continuous record of experimental groups, re- 
 ferred to as “schools.” The first one of any sig- 
 nificance to be known by a name was Impression- 
 ism, although there had already been numerous 
 pioneers whose researches and theories had paved 
 the way for the Impressionists’ experimentations 
 in light and vibration. After Monet, Pissarro, 
 Guillaumin and Sisley there followed, in rapid 
 succession, the Neo-Impressionists (or Pointil- 
 
 [39] 
 
lists), the Pont- A von School, the Post-Impression- 
 ists, the Cubists, the Orphists (or Simultaneists), 
 and the Synchromists. Also, there were indi- 
 vidual men, with coteries of followers and imita- 
 tors, who escaped categorical designation, but 
 who nevertheless constituted important links in 
 the chain of sesthetic research — such as Cezanne 
 and Renoir. (The latter was for a time enrolled 
 under the banner of Impressionism, but he carried 
 his work far beyond the findings of that school.) 
 
 Each of these experimental groups addressed 
 itself to certain problems in the field of color. 
 What these problems were and what each school 
 achieved, need not concern us here. Suffice it 
 to say that each group marked a logical forward 
 step in the development of the theory and tech- 
 nique of color. With the advent of the Synchro- 
 mists in 1912, all the problems of color that re- 
 lated to the painter’s art, were solved. In my 
 book, “Modern Painting,” early in 1914 , 1 wrote: 
 
 Ancient painting sounded the depths of composition. 
 Modern painting has sounded the depths of color. Re- 
 search is at an end. It now remains for artists to create. 
 The means have been perfected : the laws of composition 
 have been laid down. After Synchromism no more in- 
 novatory “movements,” or “schools,” are possible. Any 
 school of the future must necessarily be compositional. 
 
 [40] 
 
It can be only a variation or modification of the past. 
 The methods of painting may be complicated. New 
 forms may be found. But it is no longer possible to add 
 anything to the means at hand. The era of pure 
 creation begins with the present day. 
 
 The activities and progress of ‘"modern paint- 
 ing” since 1914 have substantiated these observa- 
 tions. 
 
 [41] 
 
X 
 
 The reason that the art of color has not pro- 
 gressed more rapidly during the past decade, is 
 attributable to the fact that even after the cul- 
 mination of technical research in color, there per- 
 sisted in the practitioners of this new art, what 
 might be called a “medium fixation. 55 The mod- 
 ern artist was still bound by the mechanical 
 characteristics of painting. His retention of can- 
 vas and pigments was but a convention of human 
 conduct such as is to be found throughout all 
 human progress. For example, when electric 
 lights were first invented, and even after they be- 
 came practical utilities, the bulbs, whether single 
 or in bracket-groups, pointed upwards. Although 
 a revolutionary and epoch-making idea had been 
 conceived and perfected, the simple fact that en- 
 closed lights could burn downwards was entirely 
 overlooked. Gas-lights and all flames ascended; 
 therefore, the electric bulbs were instinctively 
 placed upright. The medium, so to speak, of the 
 
 [42] 
 
older (or original) lighting devices persisted, 
 wholly as a result of association and habit. 
 
 Throughout the entire history of inventions and 
 discoveries we find this same curious lack of intel- 
 lectual plasticity manifest in the selection of me- 
 dium. The form which has been most closely 
 associated with an idea almost invariably accom- 
 panies the first stages of any new statement of 
 that idea. And since canvas and paint had al- 
 ways been associated with the art of visual repre- 
 sentation, this medium accompanied the first 
 stages of the new color-art’s expression. 
 
 That pigment is not the proper medium for 
 color is at last being realized. On every hand 
 one sees evidences of a groping for some other 
 vehicle of color-projection; and this groping is 
 the result of a strongly felt inner need. This 
 need did not assert itself during the experimental 
 stages of color-development, for at that time the 
 new artists were not concerned with the under- 
 lying principles of aesthetics. Their instinct was 
 not so much creative as scientific; they were en- 
 gaged in research rather than in artistic concep- 
 tion; and the medium of painting answered their 
 purposes. But when these researches terminated, 
 when the problems of color were disposed of, the 
 exponents of this new procedure were left un- 
 
 [43] 
 
hampered by the necessity of further experimenta- 
 tion. They were free to express the eternal prin- 
 ciples of art through the new means. It was only 
 then that the inadequacy of the painter’s medium 
 for creation in color became evident. 
 
 The gradual elimination of the recognizable ob- 
 ject from "modern painting” — that is, the con- 
 stant approach to pure abstraction of form — 
 should have given a hint that a new art, entirely 
 opposed to the aims of painting, was in process 
 of growth. But even when all documentary 
 representation had been excluded from pictures, 
 and when no determinable shapes were present — 
 when, in fine, a picture became merely a congeries 
 of abstract color-forms and linear rhythms com- 
 pletely divorced from objective reality — the 
 standards of painting continued to be applied; 
 and the failure of such canvases to meet the older 
 requirements of graphic art was vigorously con- 
 demned. It was at this point in the evolution of 
 the art of color that the breach between the 
 academic painter and the color-artist was widest, 
 and that mutual recriminations reached their high- 
 est pitch. 
 
 At about this time certain of the modern men 
 began to experiment in new media, though still 
 clinging with one hand, as it were, to the metier 
 
 [44] 
 
of painting. Bits of glass, pieces of newspaper, 
 cotton-wool, pasteboard, bits of musical score, 
 wooden chips, putty, coils of metal, and various 
 other objects, made their appearance in the mod- 
 ern works of art. There was an almost frantic 
 search for new textures. In sculpture Archipenko 
 used glass and tin, which he painted over with 
 harmonic colors. Wire and imitation hair were 
 employed as a medium for busts ; and clay began 
 appearing on canvases, like bas-relief. There was 
 widespread activity in the use of all manner of 
 strange and bizarre media, many of the results 
 being fully as absurd and ineffectual as the most 
 conservative and horrified adherents of the older 
 painting pronounced them to be. 
 
 But here again the animating impulse of the 
 “freak” artists was lost sight of ; and they were 
 judged wholly by the aspects of their work. This 
 straining after unusual and unconventional effects 
 was, at bottom, a sincere attempt to find a novel 
 means of visual expression. It evidenced a vital 
 need for a more congenial medium through which 
 to project the discoveries in the new art of color, 
 and demonstrated conclusively that the modern 
 artist instinctively realized the inadequacy of can- 
 vas and pigments. It was, indeed, the first purely 
 creative activity of the new art-consciousness after 
 
 [45] 
 
the experimental instinct had been exhausted. 
 Moreover, the fact that these men were not con- 
 tent with the medium of painting, and that their 
 impulses carried them away from the metier of 
 graphic art, proved that they were not painters, 
 either instinctively or intellectually. 
 
 [46] 
 
XI 
 
 What, one asks, will be the ultimate medium of 
 this new art of color 4 ? There can be little doubt 
 concerning the answer. Already the future of the 
 art of color is evident. The medium of this 
 new art will be light, namely : color in its purest, 
 most intense form, and with determinable vibra- 
 tions. 
 
 That light is the logical means for the expres- 
 sion of color is obvious, for color is light; and only 
 through light (that is: the heliotropic aspect of 
 color) can color be made to function most effec- 
 tively. Pigments are merely colors by proxy, 
 without purity, and low in vibration. The ab- 
 sorption and refraction process which is present 
 in all pigmental colors, greatly reduces their bril- 
 liancy and neutralizes their densities and trans- 
 parencies. Furthermore, pigments are constantly 
 at the mercy of the light under which they are per- 
 ceived, and they continually alter and shift — not 
 only individually but in relation to one another — 
 
 [ 47 ] 
 
under every slight atmospheric variation. On 
 the other hand, the color (or vibration) of light 
 can be rendered fixed and absolute. Light, in 
 fact, is the only medium which answers all the 
 requirements of the color-artist. 
 
 So inevitable was this medium that one may 
 wonder why light did not at once suggest itself 
 to the artist. The answer is that the physical and 
 mechanical difficulties attaching to creative ex- 
 pression through light, are tremendous. The sci- 
 ence of color itself has only begun to be probed. 
 Then again, the proper method of expressing form 
 through light had to be determined, and the in- 
 struments for its attainment invented. 
 
 The first indications of this new art of color as 
 expressed through light, are the various “color- 
 organs” and color-projecting machines which have 
 come into existence during the past few years. 
 Wallace-Rimington’s color-organ was the first to 
 exert any potent influence. But this machine was 
 constructed before the artist had completed his 
 researches in color-theory, and not only is Wal- 
 lace-Rimington’s chromatic scale incorrect, but 
 his types of form are too limited for anything 
 approaching sesthetic composition. Scriabine’s 
 attempt at combining color-lights with music was 
 abortive and futile, and revealed a complete igno- 
 
 [48] 
 
ranee of the color researches of the modern paint- 
 ers. Thomas Wilfred’s color-organ (the “clavi- 
 lux”) — the latest and most plastic of such instru- 
 ments — is a decided advance over any other color- 
 machine; but it, too, is lacking in sesthetic value, 
 and is woefully restricted in the control of both 
 forms and colors. Numerous other like devices 
 have been conceived, but so far without appre- 
 ciable artistic results. 
 
 The sesthetic failure of these instruments does 
 not, at the present time, matter. By the mere 
 projection of mobile colored lights they have 
 proved the value — and, indeed, the inevitability 
 — of this medium for the new art of color; and, 
 even in their present crude form, they are not so 
 inherently inadequate a medium as is oil paint. 
 They have demonstrated the intensity of the phys- 
 ical reaction to color — the thing for which the 
 modern artist has been striving. Also, they have 
 shown that plastic color-forms are possible by the 
 use of light; and they have done away with the 
 representative object which hampered and limited 
 the color-artist so long as he was necessitated to 
 confine himself to the medium of painting. The 
 color-organ, in fact, is the logical development 
 of all the modern researches in the art of color. 
 It is the only means whereby pure color-forms may 
 
 [ 49 ] 
 
be significantly projected; and this is precisely the 
 goal towards which every “modern painter” has 
 been struggling for over a century. 
 
 The Synchromists were the first “school of 
 painting” to foresee this future of the color-art. 
 Also, they were the only modern school which was 
 not antagonistic to the older painting. Many of 
 their canvases were frank restatements, in color, 
 of masterpieces by Rubens and Michelangelo. 
 And it is a significant fact that the leading ex- 
 ponent of Synchromism has long since discarded 
 pigments and canvas, and for years has been de- 
 voting his energies towards the achievement of a 
 color-instrument which can be used to produce 
 color-forms as the orchestra is now used to pro- 
 duce sound-forms. 
 
 [50] 
 
XII 
 
 The color-instrument of the future will not 
 merely throw pretty squares, circles, coils, and 
 volutes of colored light on a screen, but will be 
 able to record the artist’s moods, desires and emo- 
 tions along any visually formal sesthetic line. 
 Only when such an instrument has been perfected 
 can the modern artist’s creative conceptions be 
 properly expressed. With the completion of this 
 new medium the art of color will have entirely 
 dissociated itself from the art of painting, not 
 only in impulse and conception, but in the world’s 
 attitude towards it. 
 
 However, there is one point which must not be 
 overlooked. The principles of form and organ- 
 ization which animate all great painting, and 
 which are to be found in every great masterpiece 
 of graphic art, are the identical principles on 
 which the new art of color will be founded. For 
 these principles are the same in all arts. They 
 constitute the rationale of sesthetics, and are based 
 
 [51] 
 
on the deepest physiological and intellectual 
 needs of mankind. The fundamental relationship 
 which has always existed between the various arts, 
 will also exist between the older arts and the new 
 art of color. 
 
 The canons of art formulated by Hsieh Ho in 
 the fifth century, as recorded by Fenollosa, em- 
 body not only the philosophy of Chinese art, but 
 that of all great art. They are : 
 
 (1) Rhythmic vitality: the life-movement of 
 the spirit through the rhythm of things. 
 
 (2) Organic structure: the creative spirit in- 
 carnating itself in a pictorial conception. 
 
 (3) Conformity with nature. (We must un- 
 derstand these words in the Chinese sense: Na- 
 
 ture is the ever-flowing, ever-producing, ever- 
 manifesting life about and in us; really more the 
 inner world than the mere external world of 
 forms. Conformity means — conformity; not 
 just photographic accuracy, as we would be apt 
 at first to interpret it according to Western objects 
 in art.) 
 
 (4) Arrangement: which again means not 
 merely sensuously beautiful arrangement, but one 
 that recognizes the ever-living mission of painting 
 to tell that Nature provides the experiences of the 
 soul, and that the Superior World, the Inner Dh 
 
 [52] 
 
vine Meaning, is the inspiration and the Model of 
 the other. 
 
 (5) Transmission of classic models. (This 
 canon proves a long previous chain and inherit- 
 ance of artistic tradition, the antetype of what 
 we have left.) 
 
 These canons, or principles, were stated in 
 Chinese art through line — line in the aesthetic 
 sense of visualized directional forces, not in the 
 sense of mere outline, or delimitation of forms; 
 and these same principles which the great Chinese 
 artists of old stated by means of line, the expo- 
 nents of this new art of the future will strive to 
 state by means of color. The art of color will 
 be a new art only in medium; and until the day 
 comes when an artist is great enough to express the 
 profound form of a Rubens, or a Michelangelo, or 
 a Beethoven, through this modern medium of 
 light, the art of color will remain inferior to the 
 other arts. That day may not come for many 
 decades — perhaps for a century. But this fact 
 should in nowise constitute a stricture against 
 the art of color. 
 
 Herein, then, lies what I believe to be the 
 future of the art of color — that art which has er- 
 roneously been regarded as an abortive manifesta- 
 tion of painting, and condemned accordingly. 
 
 [53] 
 
As for the future of painting: we shall con- 
 tinue to have graphic art as in the past, with its 
 schools and academies, its awards and official 
 salons , and its great army of practitioners. There 
 will always be the art of painting, just as there 
 will always be the art of sculpture, despite the 
 fact the one culminated aesthetically in Rubens, 
 and the other in Michelangelo. Painting will 
 continue to serve a decorative and representa- 
 tional purpose. But the art of color will be for 
 occasional reaction and stimulation, like sym- 
 phony concerts and the drama. 
 
 Those “modern painters 5 ’ who predict that their 
 art will be the one visual art of the future, and 
 that the older painting will soon die out, are as 
 preposterously wrong as the exponents of aca- 
 demic art who predict that “modern painting 55 is 
 but a flash in the pan, which will soon pass away 
 and leave the older painting supreme. Both are 
 narrow partisans, blind to the true significance of 
 the aesthetic forces at work in the world to-day. 
 
 [54] 
 
BY WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT 
 
 MODERN PAINTING 
 Its Tendency and Meaning 
 
 Mr. Wright has written the standard book on the history 
 and quality of modern art. — IVilliam Stanley Braithwaite, in 
 the Boston Transcript. 
 
 “Modern Painting” is the best current work upon the genesis 
 and development of the modern movement. — Dr. Christian 
 Brinton, in the International Studio. 
 
 “Modern Painting” is a solid, sincere and brilliant book; 
 the best I have read thus far in English. — James Huneker. 
 
 THE CREATIVE WILL 
 Studies in the Philosophy and Syntax of ^Esthetics 
 
 Mr. Wright has put down well-nigh everything a modern 
 artist or art-lover needs for his mental equipment. — Albrecht 
 Montgelas , LL.D., in the Chicago Examiner. 
 
 It is the first book of aesthetics to come out of America, and 
 it establishes our first link with creative European culture. — 
 Los Angeles Times. 
 
 Mr. Wright is America’s first profound aesthetician. — The 
 Forum. 
 
 THE MAN OF PROMISE 
 
 The best American novel I ever read. It i9 consummate 
 art . . . as tragic as Sophocles’ “CEdipus Rex,” as benev- 
 olently ironical as Anatole France’s “The Gods Are Athirst,” 
 as artistic as the best of Turgenev. — Burton Rascoe in the 
 Chicago Tribune. 
 
 A novel which belongs on conspicuous shelves alongside of 
 Flaubert, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Sudermann, George Moore, 
 and Dreiser. — Newton A. Fuessle, in the Mirror. 
 
BY WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT 
 
 WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT 
 
 Offers a better and truer report of Nietzsche’s ideas than 
 any other book either in English or German. — H. L. Mencken, 
 in the Baltimore Evening Sun. 
 
 An excellent survey of the life and philosophy of Nietzsche. 
 The best summary of Nietzsche that has yet appeared in Eng- 
 lish. — Springfield Republican. 
 
 MISINFORMING A NATION 
 
 A critical examination of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 
 relation to its effect on the development of a national self-con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Mr. Wright proves once more that he is one of the clearest, 
 best informed, wittiest and most constructive of our critics. — 
 Chicago Examiner. 
 
 THE GREAT MODERN FRENCH STORIES 
 
 In no other single volume in English is there a more satis- 
 factory means of tracing the main currents of French fiction. — 
 The Bellman. 
 
 The only book of its kind, supplying accurate information 
 concerning every step in the development of modern Frenoh 
 fiction. — Chicago Nevus. 
 
 EUROPE AFTER 8:15 
 
 A light-hearted and informative book on the night life ofi 
 the principal European capitals. (Written in collaboration 
 with H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan.) 
 
 INFORMING A NATION 
 
 A criticism of the New International Encyclopedia, and a 
 plea for the support of American intellectual institutions. 
 
GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE 
 
 3 3125 01214 3315 
 
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