IS IT ART? POST-IMPRESSIONISM FUTURISM CUBISM Constantin Brancusi Portrait of Mile. Pogany BY J. NILSEN LAURVIK PRICE 50 CENTS T ( Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Getty Research Institute \ https://archive.org/details/isitartpostimpre00laur_0 IS IT ART? POST-IMPRESSIONISM FUTURISM CUBISM BY J. NILSEN LAURVIK NEW YORK THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS 1913. Copyright 1913 By J. NILSEN LAURVIK. For information concerning this Book address; J. N. LAURVIK, 14 Gramercy Park, New York City, N. Y. iOTY mm IS IT ART? I believe that nothing happens arbitrarily either in nature or in Society. Nor do I believe there is any- thing absolutely useless either in the thought or in the acts of humanity. Frequently where we see only perturbations, as in geological convulsions, there is only the harmonious development of a law; these perturbations are an ele- ment of progress and that is why I donT quite agree with certain of my colleagues who persist in judging the latest phase of the evolution of plastic expression from the fixed bias of a formulated criteria that does not take into consideration the past, nor looks into the future. Since the appearance of this new manifestation in art I have been studying it, seeking its derivations, investigating the path it follows and whither it is going. It seems to me that this is what we should wish to know. What this movement has realized up to the present time I regard as a secondary consideration, inasmuch as the works produced might in themselves be bad while the principles upon which they are based might be good and their final success merely dependent upon the appearance of a superior genius who would employ these principles expressively instead of haltingly. And one must not forget that all novelty creates alarm, even when expresed by a genius, and is always op- posed by the old, established principles if for no other reason than that of self-preservation, the enemy of all change. IS IT ART? 2 The marked tendency of this new art, as far as painting and sculpture are concerned, is retrogression, for it wants to revert to primitive art. However, this need not necessarily he scored against it for is it not true that we ofttimes take a step backward that we may have more space in which to accelerate our im- pulse forward and thus reach a greater distance? May not this be true of this movement? Time alone can tell. At the head of this movement we find three per- sonalities whose work is imbued with a certain orig- inality, who are spontaneous and follow their own inclination. Behind them we see many walking in their footsteps in the vain belief that they accom- pany them; grotesquely burlesquing their work in the belief that they complete and carry it forward. These three personalities are Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. The revolt against the false idealism of the roman- tic school of painters in France, brought about in the latter half of the nineteenth century by the conquests of natural sciences, resulted in a glorification of realism that found a striking expression in the work of Courbet, Monet, Manet, and Degas. The intense hostility and fierce opposition aroused by these men in their quest of truth and the subsequent acceptance of their work by the public as well as by officialdom is now a matter of history and need not be rehearsed here. But there was one man who was more radical, more uncompromising, more fanatical in his search of the ultimate reality than any of the men who made up that glorious company of innovators known as the Impressionists. His name was Paul Cezanne, friend and fellow- townsman of Emile Zola, who hailed from Aix, in Provence, whence both went up to Paris to conquer PA UL CEZANNE — PROGENITOR the world. Zola came, saw and conquered, becoming as much a part of Paris as the Eiffel Tower, but Cezanne they could not abide although they put up with Manet and even Claude Monet, and after a time he returned to the more amicable hills of Provence where he became the local enigma. Cezanne is a primitive by nature and not by theory. His life, his education, the place in which he lived and his attitude toward art prove this. He led a simple life, always isolated. He was one of the most prominent members of the Impressionist group, though not one of the most active ; he was opposed to all that meant school, going his own way, pursuing his own ideal. Cezanne is not quite as original as some of his most ardent admirers would have us believe. In many ways his work recalls Greco, but I don’t mean to im- ply that he consciously or unconsciously imitated him; rather, I belive it was more of a kinship of feelings and ideas than an imitation, though his admiration of the Spanish master is clearly shown by the numer- ous copies he made of him. He became known first as a landscape painter and if his landscapes excited the ire of the critics, when they came to know him as a figure painter they accused him of profaning art. I find in him a notable spontaneity, a great sincerity, which may be due to his impotence no less than to his genius. Like Strindberg in his later misanthropic years, he shut himself off from all intercourse with his fel- low men, and year by year, in his two studios in Aix, he laboriously evolved the art that was finally to revo- lutionize the current conception of form. However, the world did not trace a path to his door although he was not wholly without honor. Huysmans is out- spoken in his admiration of him and does not hesitate IS IT ART f U to assert that Cezanne contributed more to accelerate the impressionist movement than Manet, and Zola dedi- cated to him his Salons which are now to be found in a volume of essays on art and literature bearing the provocative title of Mes Haines, and finally, in the year 1901, there was exhibited in the Champ de Mars Salon a picture by Maurice Denis entitled Hommage a Cezanne, after the well-known hommages of Fantin- Latour. But it was left for a later generation to pay him the supreme compliment of imitation, obscuring his virtues and exaggerating his faults and he who was in his day rejected, despised and laughed off the ar- tistic map of Paris has now forced upon him the doubt- ful honor of fathering this whole new movement in France, that has been labeled with the misleading mis- nomer: Post-Impressionism. As a matter of fact the men who are at the present moment engaging the at- tention of Paris and the art world in general have little or nothing to do with what is generally recog- nized as Impressionism and its exponents ; rather, they are anti- Whistlerian, Pseudo-Primitives. If an appel- lation is needed I think Pseudo-Primitives will more truly characterize them than the confusing and irrele- vant one now in general use. At all events it would be more nearly justified by the sources from which they derive their inspiration and artistic sustenance, which I think wil be apparent to any one who exam- ines these works in the light of what has been achieved in primitive art. Cezanne was not alone a primitive at heart; he was a realist of the ultimate type. He reduced reality to its lowest denominator and in him realism achieved its culmination. His extraordinary eyes saw things as they actually are — not as we believe them to be from long-associated ideas of roundness or fiatness PAUL CEZANNE — PROGENITOR 5 acquired through contact, and therefore there is some- thing of the grotesqueness of stark truth in all his work. Its uncompromising verity appeals and repels, v"ery much as does the naturalism of Zola. His still- life studies are the most concrete demonstration of this. Apparently distorted wilfully with the intent to astonish, they are as true to the actual appearance of things as a camera lens could make them. No one so closely analyzed the play of light on surfaces and its effect on form as did Cezanne, and no one before him had the hardihood to put down what he saw with the same unflinching, literal-minded adherence to facts. When one remembers that, as far as form is concerned, most people see with their fingers instead of with their eyes it is not very difficult to perceive the reason for the universal misunderstand- ing that has grown up around his work. For it is a fact well known to scientists that the conception of form, is more largely dependent on the sense of touch than of sight and that a sphere, for example, appears flat to one who has not touched it. Therefore the idea of solidity and roundness thus gained by contact in early life is so elemental and pervasive as to remain a fixed and arbitrary criterion to which all and sundry conceptions of roundness con- form involuntarily in the mind of the uncritical spec- tator. Only a very few persons can disassociate the appearance of things from the knowledge of their form and structure acquired through their sense of touch. This differentiation of form has been for many ages the special province of the artist; he has noted the divergencies that distinguish the apple from the sphere, that give it its special and unique character as compared with an orange, for instance. In his researches into the true nature of form the artist has become ever more exacting in his endeavor to dis- 6 IS I T ART? cover the most significant and expressive form: the one, in other words, that should most nearly approach the ultimate truth. The whole progress of art is traced in this evolu- toin of form, culminating, as far as realism is con- cerned, in Cezanne who got down to the bone of the matter in his final emphasis on the sub-structure of form. To him a sphere was not always round, a cube always square or an ellipse always elliptical. Thus the traditional oval of the conventional face disap- peared in his portraits, the generally accepted round surfaces of a vase or bowl was represented as flat and dented in spots and the horizontal stability of the horizon was rendered elliptical whenever it so appear- ed to him. The general truthfulness of his observations may readily be tested by any one of normal vision who will carefully observe the actual appearance of the surfaces of a round sugar bowl, for example, when placed in the light of a window. It will be found that certain planes are as flat as the table, that others present the appearance of dents and hollows, and the more clearly this is perceived the more grotesque will the object appear as compared with the precon- ceived image of it established in our minds by the unconscious interaction of the sense of touch and sight. We know that scientifically regarded there is no such thing as a round surface, that what appears to to be such is simply the closely adjusted juxtaposi- tion of infinitesimal planes that are each perfectly flat. And the very fact that painters refer to the surface of a figure as planes is indicative of a partial recognition of this basic characteristic of structure. Nevertheless both artists and laymen persist in speak- ing of the roundness of a torso, for example, when in reality, if we could disassociate the sense of round- PAUL CEZANNE — PROGENITOR 7 ness from the appearance of ronndness as did Cezanne, we would find large surfaces of spheroids quite fiat. Therein lies the real secret of the art of Cezanne who is the first of realists. This principle he developed and applied consis- tently in all its ramifications to the representation of form, which he worshipped with the fanatical zest of one intent on discovering the inherent truth in matter. But he only exposed its inner shell through which the real spirit of things struggles in vain to manifest itself. He remained a literalist true to his abnormal, or shall we say excessively normal, sense of actuality. That is the quality of his art that at once attracts and repels. It lacks imagination; it is coldly geometrical, mathematically precise, and hence rigorously truth- ful in the sense that two and two make four. His still life pieces, his landscapes, his portraits have some- thing of the intense and startling reality of naked truth. Whether painting a vegetable or a human being the one is treated with the same whole-souled absorp- tion as the other. Cezanne gave form concrete value, supplementing and correcting the researches of Monet into the nature of light and color. He was intent on conveying the depth, volume, and the bulk and mass of the universe that makes of it a tangible reality as opposed to the Whistlerian veil of mystery, tenuous, gauze-like and unreal that made of objects in the natural world a mere blur of pleasant color. Thus his pictures became designs of closely organ- ized planes, plastically treated, in which the color is an integral factor instead of being the pre-eminent or merely an incidental factor. In fact color was the basis of his design as he remarked in a letter to Emile Bernard, “Design and color are in nowise distinct; 8 18 ITABTf in proportion that one paints, one designs; the more the color is harmonized, the more precisely is the design rendered.’' And he adds, “When the color reaches richness, form attains its fullness (plentitude). Contrasts and relations of tone — there is the secret of design and modelling.” Hence his color approaches monochrome in which his practice coincides with the theory promulgated before him by Goya who was fond of saying that in nature color does not exist, every- thing is light and shade. Thus it will be seen that the principles formulated by Cezanne were nowise revolutionary in character. It was his application of these principles that was new to the point of being startling. First of all he strongly affirmed the basic necessity of design as the fundamental element of all art. “The painter,” he says in one of his illuminating letters, “makes con- crete his sensations and perceptions by means of design and color.” This, too, was in accordance with the past teaching of the schools; the novelty consisted in the fact that Cezanne actually carried it into practice with the utmost consistency, reducing form to an exact science in which he established the principle that form in nature is based upon the geometric figures of the sphere, cone and cylinder. His re-discovery of this principle, which had been the animating spirit of art from the time when it emerged from a purely intuitive state into a condi- tion of self-consciousness that perceived in geometry the key to the universe, his affirmation of this prin- ciple constituted his chief contribution to modern art. Upon this solid foundation his fame rests securely and in due time his work will no doubt repose in the Louvre together with those other masters — the Vene- tians and the Spaniards — whom he venerated. Even now, only seven years after his death, he is regarded PABLO PICASSO AND CUBISM 9 by many of the most discerning spirits of our age as at least a demi-classic who had the root of the matter in him and therefore worthy to be ranked with the elect. He was perhaps the last great painter whose work has in it something of the grand manner, a cer- tain severity of style that inevitably recalls El Greco and the Primitives with whom he has much in common. At all events it would seem that he carried realism to its ultimate limits and that art can go no further in this direction but must turn back upon itself or seek new channels of expression. This is exactly what has happened in the person of Pablo Picasso, a Spaniard from Malaga, whose ad- vent marks the parting of the ways. His whole ten- dency is a negation of the main tenets of the gospel of Cezanne whose conception of form he rejects to- gether with Monet’s conception of light and color. To him both are non-existent. Instead he endeavors “to produce with his work an impression, not with the subject but the manner in which he expresses it,” to quote his confrere, Marius De Zayas, who studied the raison d'etre of this work together with Picasso himself. Describing his process of esthetic deduction further M. De Zayas tells us that: “He (Picasso) receives a direct impression from external nature ; he analyzes, develops, and translates it, and afterwards executes it in his own particular style, with the inten- tion that the picture should be the pictorial equivalent of the emotion produced by nature. In presenting his work he wants the spectator to look for the emotion or idea generated from the spectacle and not the spec- tacle itself. From this to the psychology of form there is but one step, and the artist has given it resolutely and deliberately. Instead of the physical manifestation he 10 IS IT ABTf seeks in form the psychic one, and on account of his peculiar temperament, his psychical manifestation inspires him with geometrical sensations. When he paints he does not limit himself to taking from an object only those planes which the eye per- ceives, but deals with all those which according to him constitute the individuality of form; and with his peculiar fantasy he develops and transforms them. And this suggests to him new impressions, which he manifests with new forms, because from the idea of the representation of a being, a new being is born, perhaps different from the first one, and this becomes the represented being. Each one of his paintings is the coefficient of the impressions that form has performed in his spirit, and in these paintings the public must see the realization of an artistic ideal, and must judge them by the ab- stract sensation they produce, without trying to look for the factors that entered into the composition of the final result. As it is not his purpose to perpetuate on canvas an aspect of the external world, by which to produce an artistic impression, but to represent with the brush the impression he has directly received from nature, synthesized by his fantasy, he does not put on the canvas the remembrance of a past sensation, but des- cribes a present sensation In his paintings perspective does not exist; in them there are nothing but harmonies suggested by form, and registers which succeed themselves to com- pose a general harmony which fills the rectangle that constitutes the picture. Following the same philosophical system in deal- ing with light, as the one he follows in regard to form, to him color does not exist, but only the effects PABLO PICA880 AND CUBI8M 11 of light. This produces in matter certain vibrations, which produce in the individual certain impressions. From this it results, that Picasso’s paintings present to us the evolution by which light and form have operated in developing themselves in his brain to produce the idea, and his composition is nothing but the synthetic expression of his emotion.” Thus it will be seen that he tries to represent in essence what seems to exist only in substance. And, inasmuch as his psychical impressions inspire in him geometrical sensations, certain of these exhibits are in the nature of geometrical abstractions that have little or nothing in common with anything hitherto pro- duced in art. Its whole tendency would appear to be away from art into the realm of metaphysics. Here is a design, a pattern of triangles, ellipses and semi-circles that at first glance appears to be little more than the incoherent passage of a compass across the paper in the hands of some absent-minded engineer. After a little attentive study, however, these enigmatic lines resolve themselves into the semblance of a human figure and one begins to discover a clearly defined intention behind this apparent chaos of ideated sensations. And when you have made this interesting dis- covery of this something that has the semblance of a human being you will also have discovered the inherent contradiction in this work which attempts to evoke an impression of an object by means of an objective ren- dering of it that makes the artist as much a slave to the model as was ever the old masters. Take their portraits, for example. There you will find an eye, the eye of the person depicted. And whether this eye is made diamond-shaped— with angels, in cubes — or round like an orb, what does it really matter? The essential idea and attempt is the same. 12 IS ITARTf Thus one finds a number of these followers of Picasso making a desperate effort at abstraction by reducing all natural forms to a system of cubism, (than which there is nothing more concrete and mathema- tically matter-of-fact) and at the same time vainly retaining a slender hold on actuality by labelling this arbitrary arrangement of cubes with a concrete title such as “A Procession in Seville” or a “Souvenir of Grimalde, Italy,” as does Mr. Picabia as well as Picasso, whose “Woman with a Pot of Mustard” is one of the most engaging puzzles of a very puzzling art. This is sharply emphasized by the delight and pride of every spectator who is successful in solving the puzzle by finding in these enigmatic charts some sort of a tangible, pictorial justification of the title appended thereto. It will be seen therefore that the efforts of these men to give a subjective rendering of actuality results in nothing better than a poorly realized form of object- ivity which is as much the creation of the spectator as of the artist, inasmuch as the vaguely adumbrated forms in the picture simply serve as a hint to that reality of which it is a wilfully distorted symbol, and the discovery of the “mustard pot” would scarcely have been possible without the happy cooperation of the title with the spectator’s previous knowledge of the actual appearance of a mustard pot. Without the intervention of the title and the asso- ciation of ideas called forth thereby through the memory of past experiences with actuality these pic- tures would be totally meaningless even to the most recondite. They would inevitably be reduced to a per- sonal system of short hand, an individual code as it were, comprehensible only to the originator. Regarded from that viewpoint these enigmatic paintings and drawings may very possibly be alto- TEE PARTING OF TEE WAYS 13 gether successful. At all events it is only fair to assume that these works express to the originator what he intended them to express. But it is quite obvious that they express something quite different to the spectator who has not been initiated into the mean- ing of this personal form of shorthand, and the append- ing of an objective title to what is intended as a sub- jective impression of the actual world hardly help him over the difficulty. On the contrary it takes him just that far away from the impression the artist desires to produce, plunging him deeper into that world of reality out of which he was to be extricated by this new art, and there is no doubt that in the minds of even the most intelligent spectator it only serves to reenforce his conception of reality upon which he is forced to fall back by the objective titles as well as the concrete representations of what is sup- posed to be a subjective mood. I think it may safely be said that in no case does this mood manifest itseK to the persons to whom it is addressed, although by a process of auto-hypnotism a certain few no doubt succeed in making themselves believe that they penetrate the real inwardness of these arbitrarily individual mental processes. Granted that these very discerning ones do respond to the real intention of these abstractions it cannot be denied that this work is the most circumscribed in its appeal of anything so far produced in the name of art and, until its working premise is made clearer, its influence must be correspondingly limited. At present it appears to me to be a too purely personal equation to be intel- ligible to others than the artist himself and therefore, generally speaking, it can not be regarded as art, whatever else it may be. For that that communicates nothing expresses nothing and as the office of art is first and last expres- n IS I T A B T? sion this new form is as yet outside of the domain of art. These artists remain searchers in the realms of science and methaphysics which they would annex to the domain of art which has become too circum- scribed for their ambitious strivings after a more com- pletely individual form of self-expression. As the Futurists say in one of their recent manifestos in which they proceed to formulate a new art creed : ‘‘Our growing art/’ it says, “can no longer be ^satisfied with form and color ; what we wish to produce on canvas will no longer be one fixed instant of uni- versal dynamism ; it will simply be the dynamic sensa- tion itself. “Everything is movement, transformation. A profile is never motionless, but is constantly varying. 'Objects in movement multiply themselves, become de- formed in pursuing each other, like hurried vibrations. For instance, a runaway horse has not four legs, but twenty, and their movement is triangular. In art all is conventional, nothing is absolute. That which yes- terday was a truth to-day is nothing but a lie. “We declare, for instance, that a portrait must not resemble its model and that a painter must draw from his own inspiration the landscape he wishes to fix on canvas. To paint a human face one must not only reproduce the features, but also the surrounding atmosphere. “Space no longer exists; in fact, the pavement of a street soaked by rain beneath the dazzle of electric lamps grows immensely hollow down to the centre of the earth. “Thousands of miles divide us from the sun, but that does not prevent the house before us being in- cased in the solar disk. “Who can believe in the opaqueness of bodies since our sensibilities have become sharpened and mul- TENETS OF FUTURISM 15 tiplied through the obscure manifestations of medium- nity? ‘‘Why do we forget in our creations the double power of our sight with its scope of vision almost equal in power to that of X-rays? “It will be enough to cite a few of the innumer- able examples which prove our statements. “The sixteen persons around you in a tramcar are by turn and at one and the same time one, ten, four, three, they are motionless yet change places ; they come and go, are abruptly devoured by the sun, yet all the time are sitting before us and could serve as symbols of universal vibration. How often, while talking to a friend do we see on his cheek the reflection of the horse passing far off at the top of the street. Our bodies enter the sofa on which we sit and the sofa becomes part of our body. The tramway is engulfed in the house it passes and the houses rush on the tram- way and melt with it. The construction of pictures has hitherto been stupidly conventional. The painters have always depicted the objects and persons as being in front of us. Henceforth the spectator will be in the centre of the picture. In all domains of the human spirit a clearsighted, individual inquiry has swept away the obscurities of dogma. So also the life-giving tide of science must free painting from the bonds of academic tradition. We must be born again. Has not science disowned her past in order better to satisfy the material needs of our day? So must art deny her past in order to satisfy our modern intellectual needs. “To our renewed consciousness man is no longer the centre of universal life. The suffering of a man is as interesting in our eyes as the pain of an electric lamp which suffers with spasmodic starts and shrieks, with the most heart-rending expressions of color. The harmony of the lines and folds of a contemporary 16 IS ITARTf costume exercises on our sensibility the same stirring and symbolic power as nudity did to the ancients. “To understand the beauties of a futurist picture the soul must be purified and the eye delivered from the veil of atavism and culture ; go to nature and to museums. When this result is obtained it will be perceived that brown has never circulated beneath our epidermis, that yellow shines in our flesh, that red flashes, and that green, blue and violet dance there with voluptuous and winning graces. How can one still see pink in the human face, when our life doubled by nocturnal life has multiplied our colorists’ percep- tions? The human face flashes of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The pallor of a woman gazing at a jeweler’s shop window has rainbow hues more in- tense that the flashes of the jewels which fascinate her like a lark. “Our ideas on painting can no longer be whis- pered, but must be sung and must ring on our canvases like triumphant fanfares. Our eves, accustomed to twilight, will soon be dazzled by the full light of day. Our shadows will be more brilliant than the strongest light of our predecessors, and our pictures beside those in museums will shine as a blinding day compared to a gloomy night. "We now conclude that now-a-days there can exist no painting without divisionism. It is not a question of a process which can be learned and applied freely. Divisionism for the modern painter must be inborn complementarism, which we declare to be essential and necessary. “Our art will probably be accused of decadence or lunacy, but we shall simply answer that, on the con- trary, we are primitives with quickened sensibilities, and that our art is spontaneous and powerful.” The futurists proceed to make the following “declaration” ; TENETS OF FUTURISM 17 That all forms of imitation must be despised and all forms of originality glorified; That we must rebel against the tyranny, harmony and good taste, which could easily condemn the works of Rembrandt, Goya, and Rodin; That art critics are useless or harmful; That all worn-out subjects must be swept away, in order that we may have scope for the expression of our stormy life of steel, pride, fever, and swiftness; That the name of madmen with which they try to hamper innovators, shall henceforth be considered a title of honor; That inborn eomplimentarism is an absolute neccessity in painting as free verse in poetry and polyphony in music; That universal dynamism must be rendered in painting as a dynamic sensation; That above all sincerity and purity are required in the portrayal of nature; That movement and light destroy the materiality of bodies. “We fight,” say the signers of the manifesto. Against the bituminous colors with which one struggles to obtain the patin of time on modern pictures; Against superficial and elementary archaism founded on flat uniform tints and which, imitating the linear manner of the Egyptians, reduces painting to an impotent childish and grotesque synthesis; Against the false avenirism of secessionists and independents, who have installed new academies as traditional as the former ones; Against nudity in painting as nauseous and tiring as adultery in literature. “Let us,” the Futurists conclude, “explain this last question. There is nothing immoral in our eyes; it is the monotony of nudity that we fight against. It is said subject is nothing, and all depends upon the way of treating it. Granted. We also admit it. But this truth which was objectionable and absolute fifty years ago is no longer so to-day as to nudity, since painters beset by the longing to reproduce on canvas the bodies of their lady loves have transformed exhibi- tions into fairs of rotten hams! We require during the next ten years the total suppression of nudity in painting 1 ’ ^ And to demonstrate their complete freedom from 18 IS I T ART? that petty consistency which is the bugbear of small minds, Marcel Duchamp, one of the most discussed ex- ponents of futurism, though not officially affilliated with the main group, promptly presents us with a “Nude Descending Stairway” which looks for all the world like “an explosion in a shingle yard” as one observer aptly called it when it was shown in New York. Out of this chaos of over-lapping flat planes that look like a pack of cards spread out, the spectator is supposed to resolve a “Nude Descending Stair- way,” which, by reason of its manner of presentation, is calculated to give one a sense of progressive motion such as the succession of images in a moving picture produce. But instead of a sense of movement one simply is conscious of a series of flat figures, one over- lapping the other, the sum total of which remains no less fixed than each separate unit and the attempt to achieve an illusion of motion without the concomitant physical and mechanical means employed by a moving picture results in an amusing failure, very entertain- ing as a new kind of parlor game but of very little value as art. But admitting that this kinetoscopic arrangement of surfaces does produce in the minds of certain spectators a sense of motion, it must be con- ceded that this, regarded as an end in itself, is a very puerile use of art and in no sense an amplification of its possibilities. The Japanese long ago succeeded in solving this visual problem of movement in art, but with them it never degenerated into being practiced and accepted as an end in itself; it was only one of the means employed to give a highthened sense of the fluidity of life. Moreover, if we of to-day desire to be thrilled by a vivid impression of motion we have only to face an onrushing express train coming toward us at top SELF-MADE GENIUSES 19 speed, or if it requires a girating kaleidoscopic motion to stir our sensibilities into activity one needs only walk up Broadway (or any other main thoroughfare in the large cities of the country) of an evening and I venture to say you will be more be-dazzled in five minutes of concentrated attention on the moving elec- tric signs than in an hour with the most extreme Futurist. Certain of these vain strivings after originality are no doubt based upon the effects of color and mo- tion produced in a kaleidoscope, and again one feels the absence of the particular quality that gives in- terest to the object copied, namely: the purity and transparency of color and the constantly changing pattern of color made by turning the kaleidoscope which is its chief charm and source of pleasure. In attempting to simulate this effect they have overlap ped filmy veils of vivid color that of course remain fixed, arbitrary patterns and in nowise give one the sensations produced by a kaleidoscope. This movement has gained its impetus largely from the very general revolt against materialism that is substituting a new individualism for the old realism and I have no doubt that some of these men are sin- cerely and earnestly trying to discover a new form that shall express with greater intensity the new feel- ings and emotions aroused in man by all the objects in the natural world. But I have even less doubt that a very large number of the men who are its chief pontiffs are moved by nothing more laudible than a desire for reclame and quick financial returns. They have so far been eminently successful in both, once more proving the truth of P. T. Barnum’s well known dictum that: ^‘The Public loves to be hum-buged” which recalls Camille Mauelair’s delightful little story about the enterprising Palombaro, recently published in 20 IS I T A B Tf “Comgedia”. Palombaro is one of those heaven-sent geniuses whose inspired productions have made the fame and fortune of certain critics, collectors and discerning dealers, all of whom are sympathetically characterized by the gentle pen of Mauclair in the following ironical account of an imaginary but very possible occurence : ‘ ‘ Grondin, nervous and disheartened paced up and down his picture shop. Everything there was spic and span; but nevertheless he called the boy and ordered him to give everything a final touch. And in the nick of time he discovered that he had kept under his arm, through an old and useful, tho’ inel- egant custom of his whilom profession, a napkin, of which he now quickly rid himself. Satisfied at last he glanced at the new violet rosette, which orna- mented his lappel, and waited. — Grondin was about to receive a visit from a group of important admirers of a young Italian futurist, Giuseppe Palombaro, who were going to introduce to him the man and his works, which would honor his gallery by its being chosen among the many as a shelter for their exposition. A great affair, a big advertisement, large profits and new lustre for the firm of Grondin, already well known as the hotbed of coming genius ! The arrival was most imposing. Pour automobiles stopped at the door, three taxis and one limousine. From the latter emerged first its owner, the celebrated collector, Alcide Gluant, then, Rutilant, the celebrated critic of priemeres, Matois the merchant, and finally Palombaro the master. Prom the other vehicles issued the members of the Committee of the International Exposition of the ‘^Sans Principes’’, who were to act as patrons for the Exposition of Palombaro ’s pictures. They comprised the Englishman Green Cheese, the German Hundsfott, authorized representative of the SELF-MADE GENIUSES 21 firm Pigson & Hundsfott experts, the Frenchman Exigut, the “wild” painter, whose tall figure domin- ated the group, a fat Turk named Chetif-bey, who popularized Cubism at Stambol, Pomposo, the little Milanese sculptor and the sallow Spaniard who was seen everywhere, of whom neither name nor picture was known, and of whom the only thing known was that he descended from Greco by his women folks. And these different people hurriedly put down a number of pictures which had been brought by them in the taxis and arranged them in order whilst Grondin heaped compliments upon Kutilant, Gluant and Palombaro. The face of the latter piqued him without his knowing why, and in his stubborn memory he kept comparing it with vague recollections. But he must examine the pictures. The Committee was ranged before them in silence. It seemed as if upon the walls of the gallery there had suddenly been arranged squares of fayence-ware of many colors for the decoration of a shower bath in an insane asylum. Assuredly nothing like it had ever been seen before and the effect was immense. Rutilant, who was going to write the preface, shook his fist and gnawed at his mustache. He had dined well at Gluant ’s and his face was flushed.. Finally he burst out : “Good Lord; how beautiful it is. Where is the man who will not think that beautiful ? ’ ’ He certainly was not present, for these gentlemen delivered themselves of the following opinions ; “Perfect,” said Exigut. “Collosal,” said Hundsfott. “Soave!” piped Pomposo. “Very good,” acquiesced Cheese. “That will fetch big prices,” murmured Matois. Chetif-bey and the descendant of Greco were moved IS I T ART? but silent. Alcide Gluant touched Eutilant’s shoulder and said maliciously : “What? My dear friend and to think that we wasted time supporting Monet and Eenoir. Well, we were youg then.” “Pooh!” answered Eutilant. Those were only vain stammerings compared to these marvels, but at that time it was something new. When one is indepen- dent from birth and a discoverer of genius, remember gentlemen one must always be discovering something. A discoverer, who does not discover anything more, is- only fit to be thrown to the dogs. As for me, I have discovered something every year for the last thirty years, and have not finished yet. I arrogated this public duty to myself.” “And it is yours by right of genius,” insinuated Gluant. “Do not exaggerate, my dear friend; but having- mixed myself up with art-criticism, I should have preferred to be a scavenger rather than fall into the torpid idiocy of the Promentins, the Charles Blancs and the Theophile Gautiers and other ignoramuses. I have accomplished my difficult and beneficent task because I was the only judge of art of my century. I managed the cudgel, the necessary cudgel ... I am sensitive and have a feeling of integrity, that is all. And now Monsieur Grondin, I am going to write a preface for you which I intend shall be a thundering one, do you understand? I count on you to receive the Assistant Secretary of State, as he deserves to be. It certainly is to laugh or to howl if one believes that such people are still needed, but what can one do? Noble Anarchy reigns as yet only in paintings . . . I hope that you will teach this gentleman a lesson and that he will buy at least one of these masterpieces for SELF-MADE GENIUSES the Luxembourg, to make up for all the dirty stuff put there. You are not going to let him bluff you?’’ “Oh, no,” said Grondin, the Assistant Secretary of State is really very nice. He comes here sometimes to see what is going on. Yesterday he even spoke to me of Delacroix ...” “They still talk of that! What fossils!” exclaimed Rutilant, slapping his thighs with his strong hands covered with red hair. General hilarity followed. Chetif-bey whispered in Hundsfott’s ear: “I did not understand...” “They are speaking of the old man who painted the massacres of Scio ...” “Oh, yes,” said Chetif-bey, “you would have had more work at Adana ...” “Then,” continued Grondin, “I answered: ‘But Mr. Assistant Secretary of State, you know . . . they don’t give a rap far Delacroix. Delacroix didn’t know beans about designing...’ He looked astonished, but nevertheless he did not dare strike back ... I beg your pardon, gentlemen, I mean to say ...” “No, no, Grondin,” took up Rutilant,” I like the old realistic saying. I see that Mr. Palombaro’s inter- ests will be in good hands here, don’t you think so, gentlemen? And there will be a crowd and the common people will bray, and it will be a fine victory for all of us and for the international exposition of the ‘ Sans- Principes’. By Jove! One is independent or one is not. There will be a fight and the day will come when all their dirty museums, which are strongholds of obscur- antism will be set on fire. There will be nothing, nothing else left but free art ! ’ ’ “My dear friend,” softly said Gluant, “there will remain the private collections ...” “And, we, the dealers,” whispered Matois to IS I T A B T? Hundsfott. “He is a surprising fellow, is Rutilant. Neverthless we are able to compel the critics ...” “Never mind,” answered Hundsfott, “Rutilant al- ways gets excited, but he is a friend ; he understands ; he brings me quite some people ...” “Gentlemen,” cried Rutilant, “hurrah for Palom- baro. ’ ’ After this cry, repeated by all present, the meet- ing was adjourned and everybody proceeded to the door. Grondin conducted them, charmed, profusely distributing his smiles and handshakes. When he returned, he noticed that the futurist had remained. Up to now Palombaro had not uttered one word; Grondin looked at him curiously. The painter, un- disturbed, correct, smiled from the corners of his care- fully shaven thin lips. “You doubtless wish to speak of some material details ? ’ ’ said Grondin ... “I am at your disposal, now that these gentlemen . . . but you see I cannot tell why, but I have a persistent impression of having met you, of having known you before ...” “That must date,” said Giuseppe Palombaro quietly, “from the time when, before establishing yourself as a dealer of paintings and before not giving a rap for Delacroix, you were restauranteur on the Place Cambronne. — Not a restorer ... of paintings . . .” “In fact I . . . I . . but I prefer that this ...” “There is no harm in that, Mr. Grondin; you had a fine house, well recommended, and a very renowned Villaudric claret. It was the latter which caused our disagreement. I took a trifle too much of it, and you put me out. Only, if you had artistic aspirations, so had I . . . now don’t faint, Mr. Grondin. At that time a black beard covered my whole face, American style, and that is why you do not recognize me ... I am Joseph, your former dishwasher. Well, you see, I had KADIN8KTS IMPROVISATIONS 25 already daubed some, but when I got to Milan I started to paint. After having tossed about, I finally got a job there at a spaghetti merchant’s and it was there that the idea struck me. My technique? Why it was the spaghetti, colored. The advance guard painting is not so very difficult ; I learned the jargon, I saw some cubists and I chose a ‘nom de guerre’; Giuseppe sounds better than Joseph, and Palombaro means ‘plongeur’ (diver, a slang name for dishwasher). I slipped in and, luck helping me, in two seasons . . . there you are ...” Grondin remained dumbfounded. Palombaro continued quietly. “I speak Italiano, but neverthless when one comes from Granelle, it is for all one’s life. I was born to succeed, I was. You see how simple it is; there are more unusual things. You and I understand each other perfectly; it is to our interest to say nothing about this; especially to Rutilant. He poses as an anarchist, that fellow ... ‘A Dishwasher, who Became a Great Painter’, would be a capital subject for a smashing article for him : the people here, and the right to beauty there and all . . . such rot. As if, at the ‘ Independents ’, they had not a little of everything: Custom house officers, counter jumpers, janitors, who amuse them- selves with painting... hah! that would ’t do at all. You have a very ‘chic’ gallery, I want to be ‘chic’, and as to the people, oh piffle 1 Therefore, both for you and me, it is better to keep mum, don’t you think so, Mr. Grondin?..” The most consistent, if not successful, of all these attempts at abstraction are no doubt the “Improvisa- tions” by Wassily Kadinsky, who has had the good sense to abandon all idea of representation in his pic- tures as well as in the titles. He is content to let color alone serve his purpose and this is apportioned and IS ITABTf juxtaposed in various formless masses according to his conception of its emotional value. It may be anything under heaven or earth that you wish to imagine it but he creates neither boundary posts nor sign posts. He takes you into the Terra In- cognita of art and if you get lost that is your own lookout. And after you have thought of everything under heaven and earth and found it unrelated to Mr. Kadinsky^s picture you finally think of nothing what- ever, and that perhaps is the artist’s real triumph inasmuch as his work is a negation of all the elements hitherto regarded as essential components of a work of plastic art. He attempts to produce with color the sensations produced by music. As far as I am concerned he fails and I think he is bound to fail with most people, for I believe the sensations produced by these two arts are as distinct and separate as are the organs of sight and hearing, notwithstanding Ruskin’s poetic chacteri- zation of architecture as ‘‘frozen music,” which in it- self is as anomalous and paradoxical as the present atempts of certain men to substitute one art for another. Generically, these two arts — music and the plastic arts — are at variance with each other, and what gives life to the one is the death of the other. The first is fiuent and transitory while the latter is static and enduring. Music does not begin to exist until it has been liberated and its very being is a dying and when it is finished it is ended, while plastic art begins to exist only when it has become fixed in paints or clay and every stroke that contributes towards its com- pletion gives it a more fixed and permanent character, therefore kaleidoscopic art is as anomalous as “frozen music. ’ ’ One might easily pursue these essential differences PSEUDO-PRIMITIYES 21 further but this is sufficient, I think, to show the prime fallacy underlying all these vain efforts to attain the effects of one art by means of another. To be sure, we know that red enrages a bull, as we are confidently told by advocates of this method of musical color notation, and that certain colors have been found to have a soothing and even therapeutic effects upon invalids and the insane, but these effects are obtained through optical, not aural sensations and one might with as much reason substitute an omelet for a son- net, simply because we know that sensations are re- ceived thro’ the sense of touch and taste as to pretend that an ‘‘Improvisation” by Kadinsky is the emotional equivalent of an “Improvisation” by Liszt. Shut your eyes and note what becomes of the music of Kadinsky. From this it follows that the attempt to ignore or transcend the forms imposed upon every art by its inner necessity usually ends in nullity. And something similar happens when a man tries by main force to wrench himself free of the time in which he lives, as is evident in the work of many of the most “advanced” artists of to-day. Just as the concrete, matter of fact realism of Cezanne has been converted into a system of involved geometries simply because somewhere he said that form is based on the geometric figures of the sphere, cone and cylinder, so the primitive and very sincere romanticism of Van Gogh and Gauguin has been pro- ductive of all sorts of childish exaggerations that only parody the defects of these innovators without achieving any of their virtues. The genesis of Gauguin was altogether different from that of Cezanne. To begin with he was nurtured in the Academy, and he made his debut as an Acade- mic draughtsman of the purest and best defined style. Later his spirit underwent an evolution, due to the 28 IS I T A R Tf contagion he suffered when he came in contact with the Pre-Columbian art of South America, and with the art of the Tahiti Islands, upon which he lived a long time and in which I find a great deal of the savage. And this man, who had been taught in the ways of the Academy, could say in later life when he had found himself that “To know how to draw is not to draw well,” and that “the greatness of the masters of art does not consist in the absence of faults ; rather, their mistakes are different from those of the ordinary artist.” This came to be very true of his own work in which one finds an absence of copying. Instead he devoted himself to rendering the subjective impres- sion and the large, decorative aspect of the subject that appealed to him. The so-called faults of drawing he ignored as in- consequential and not because of a lack of ability. He seeks a certain monumental effect and to that end he sacrifices the truth of actuality, wherein one may find strong bonds of kinship with Puvis Chavannes whom he admired equally with Cezanne. His color sense is as personal as either of these masters, but more sensuous and exotic perhaps, while his predilection for the primitive art is no less natural and instinctive. He, like Cezanne, was drawn to it by an inner compulsion and not by any extravagant desire to appear different. Both of these men impressed upon their work something of the character of their own physiognomy, producing something at once individual and yet re- lated to the main evolution of art. Prom the method followed by these two painters comes the name I have applied to their art and that of their followers : primi- tive art, because of its tendency to go back to the PSEUDO-PRIMITIVES beginning. Hence a few observations on primitive art may be in place here. The people who appeared at the dawn of civiliza- tion cultivated the arts, not as they wished, but as they could. They had neither masters nor antecedents and they copied nature without being able to interpret nature, nor even to faithfully reproduce it, because they lacked the most indispensable elements. Draw- ing was limited to the simple line, and later when they began to use color their paintings were monochromes; when they finally arrived at polychronism this was imperfect and crude; and as they still remained ig- norant of the laws of perspective their figures appear all in the same plane upon a flat background. The psychology of a race is identical to the psy- chology of the individual; the intellectual develop- ment is just as gradual in one as in the other. Look at the drawing spontaneously made by a child and compare it with those made by the artists of the primitive races. In both of them we will find the silhouette, the line more or less clumsy, but not lacking in intention. This is quite universal and common to all humanity in that particular state of development, finding a more or less identical expression in Aztec drawings and Egyptian drawings which have led cer- tain ethnologists and archaelogists to establish anthro- pological affiliations. Appearances have led them into error. They have not considered that humanity is the same wherever it is found and follows the same laws in its development. To establish affiliations simply because one finds that two races have developed their arts through the same methods and that there are resemblances in their work, is as reasonable as to pretend to establish the same affiliations because it may be observed that in both races children begin by crawling, later they learn to so IS IT ART? stand, then to walk and finally to run. This evolution of motion coresponding to the physical evolution is not a patrimony of a certain race but of humanity. The same thing happens with the psychological evolution, and consequently the same happens also with the esthetic evolution, which proceeds from the simple to the complex, from the line to the composition, from the note to the melody and from the melody to the harmony. The evolution which takes place in each in- dividual is a synthesis, in the material as well as in the psychological domain, of the evolution of each race, and even of all humanity. To take primitive art as a model or even “as a point of departure,” as our present-day Pseudo-Pri- mitives are fond of saying, seems to me as illogical as to take as a model of locomotion the way a child transports itself by crawling. I repeat that the pri- mitives drew and painted as best they could and not as they wanted to just as the child walks as he can and not as he wants to. And therefore I can not bring myself to believe that the realization of our present- day artistic ideals can be sought in good faith in the archives of primitive times. With the exception of one or two men like Picasso I feel that what these Pseudo-Primitives of the present are seeking is novelty, something that will break what has already been consecrated, to compel attention with the extraordinary even if they have to fall into extra- vagance. It does not seem to me that this is the logical consequence of progress in general and of painting in particular, because I do not see in it any- thing that signifies advancement, either in its tech- nique or in its arguments, neither in the impression it tries to produce nor in the ideas it tries to awaken. I do not see that this reversion to primitive art can be the natural result of the slow and laborious PSEUDO-PRIMITIVES SI evolution which has been operating in painting through long centuries. But I have to admit that humanity, at present, finds itself shaken by a terrible neurasthenia which unbalances its spirit in general, and particularly in art. And in these chaotic social conditions may perhaps be discovered the underlying cause of all the unrest that has found such a perverse and disconcerting expression in art. However, I feel very strongly that this whole movement obeys the spirit of imitation, and that most of those painters and sculptors who are to-day regard- ed as the most original and revolutionary of all, have simply discovered a fruitful source of inspiration in the works of the primitive races and much that appears so startling, such as the sculpture of Brancusi, of Maillol, Archipenko, and Lembruck, as well as the painting of Matisse, is very closely related to primitive African art and primitive Greek and Etrus- can art. Brancusi’s much discussed portrait of “Mile. Pogany” as well as his “Une Muse” is obviously re- lated to the fine art of ancient Benin and to early Greek primitive sculpture. This indebtedness to the past is very apparent in the work of Henri Matisse who of all these men is the one who has given the greatest impetus to this movement. Like Gauguin he was an academic draughtsman of the most approved type, saturated with the principles of the schools. After the exhibi- tions held a few years ago of Cezanne’s paintings he saw a new light and changed his whole style of paint- ing; gathering all the energies of his indisputable talent and forcing them into the service of the new ideal he shot into instant prominence in the artistic firmament. If Cezanne is a descendant of Greco by artistic affiliations and Gauguin from the South American and 32 IS IT ABTf Tahiti primitives, the art of Matisse seems to be of Etruscan and Persian origin. The resemblance of his work to the specimens of Etruscan art in the Museum of the Louvre, with which he is very familiar, shows this. The painters and sculptors of this new movement appear to wish to do in their art what they have seen acomplished in other manifestations of the fine arts, namely: what Wagner did in Music, what Ibsen did in Dramatic Literature, what Eodin did in Sculpture, what Tolstoi, did in the Novel, what Maeterlinck, Nietzsche and other thinkers have realized in their different fields. But it seems to me that they forget that these revo- lutionaries are ‘Hrue personalities’’ and that they have worked spontaneously; that they have not walked backwards ; that they have not sought the ideal outside of themselves, but in their own souls, and have carried it within themselves, as the torrent does not seek motion, but carries it within itself and communicates it. In the work of these men there is not premeditation, but inspiration. They do not especially desire to break with anything or anybody, but they are consequent with their own spirit. Now individuality is that quality particular to a thing or person by which it is known and singularized. That being the case it follows that it is not trans- missible. This person who has the gift of individuality is original, for this originality is just what charcterizes it, and one of the conditions of originality is its spon- taneity, which is not sought, but is wholly unconscious, a kind of trade mark that nature has impressed in the individual to establish his differential. Those who follow the original man as desciples are nothing but counterfeiters of that trade mark, and as they lack the genius of the master, in their avidity PSEUDO-PRIMITIVES S3 for originality, they imitate and exaggerate his defects without assimilating his virtues, and they fall into ridicule and die in oblivion. These disciples do not understand that in the mas- ter, in the original man, there exists a close relation- ship between the defects and beauties of his work, as if they would complete each other, or as if they would complete his individuality. This is the very thing the followers of any master have not understood, and least of all those who follow the trail of Cezanne and Gauguin, and their vain endeavors to walk in the foot- steps of these two masters of modern art has resulted in a multiplication of such confusion and futility as we have scarcely ever seen before in the whole history of art. However, it is quite possible that many of these men proceed in good faith, with a deep conviction that they are on the right path, that they are redeeming art and enlightening Humanity, and like Don Quixote they establish the Golden Age in the past and not in the present nor in the future. But it occurs to me to ask: Is not Art a manifestation of the spirit of the epoch in which it is produced, and must it not cor- respond to the hopes, doubts, sufferings and ideals of that epoch? If so, do these sentiments make us regret the past and oblige us to look into the future and to struggle for it? To my understanding the further removed we are from the past by time, the further we are from it in our manner of being. The form of man has modified itself, and his senses and his organs of perception have suffered the same modifications. It seems to me quite impossible that we should see and regard Nature to- day in the same way that, not only the primitive men but those of the last century, saw and regarded it. The great phenomena of Nature no longer are to IS IT ART? SJ, us expressions of the anger of Heaven; nor do we regard epidemics of Disease as the visitations of the Gods ; nor are the natural forces of the universe repre- sented by Gods. The people of to-day do not feel like the men of yesterday; life reacts differently upon them; they have not the same aspirations, nor the same preoccupations. No, even the atmosphere of to- day is not the same as that of thousand years ago, scientists tell us. What will be the result of all these attempts to recreate a new art out of the art of a period so remote that we can hardly envisage the circumstances of its creation? It is quite impossible to predict. We must consider the chief exponents of this movement as in- vestigators and not as expounders of new doctrines, and their chief service to their generation may well consist in their revelation of the fact that what has hitherto been regarded as belonging solely to the domain of anthropology must henceforth be considered also as art and that the latter is always conditioned by the state of civilizations in which it is produced. And after all, this movement which appears to us so anomalous and orderless may be the precursor of something we are as yet unable to suspect. What it seems to lack is the crystallizing force of a superior genius who will bring into solution all these contrary elements, who will pronounce the Fiat Lux that shall bring order out of chaos. Paul Ce2anne Woman with Rosaiy Paul Gauguin Sous les Palmiers Pablo Picasso Portrait of M. Kahnweiler Henri Matisse La Madras Rouge Marcel Duchamp Nude Descendirg Stairway Wilhelm Lembruck The Kneeling Woman Jacques Villon N. E. MONTROSS Modem American Paintings EARLY CHINESE PAINTINGS, POTTERY AND BRONZES MONTROSS PRINTS REPRODUCTIONS OF PAINTINGS BY SOME OF THE LEADING AMERICAN ARTISTS $1.50 EACH POSTPAID A BOOKLET ENTITLED Fifty American Pictures CONTAINING 50 REPRODUCTIONS OP THE PRINTS WITH A LIST OF THOSE THUS FAR PUBLISHED WILL BE SENT POSTPAID ON RECEIPT OF 25 CENTS MONTROSS GALLERY 550 FIFTH AVENUE (above 45 st.) 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