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THE LONDON
MERCURY
_Editor_--J. C. SQUIRE _Assistant-Editor_--EDWARD SHANKS
Vol. I No. 4 February 1920
EDITORIAL NOTES
An interesting exchange of opinions about modern art took place in the
_Times_ last month. The art-critic stated that modern English artists
were afraid of ugliness; Sir Sidney Colvin replied that so far was this
from being the truth "that the prevalent malady of the time, at least
among those artists and critics who arrogate to themselves the title
of 'modern,' was a much less becoming form of cowardice--namely, the
fear of beauty. Because the beauty-blind may be taken in by prettiness,
and because a new fashion in critical theory has come over from
France (to perish, as I have seen dozens of such theories perish in
their day), nothing, in the circles to which I refer, is attempted or
applauded which either bears any resemblance to nature or records any
predilection of the mind except for what is shrieking and dissonant
in colour and jumbled and jarring, like a kind of insane geometry, in
form. Of all things such 'modernity' is doubtless doomed soonest to be
ancient, or not to give it so honourable a name, at least obsolete,
discarded, and unregretted."
* * * * *
That there are many English artists who are in a sense afraid of
ugliness, in other words, who will only make pretty imitations of
things recognised as beautiful, is not to be denied: it might almost be
said that artists may be divided into those who have an unreasonable
fear of ugliness and those who have a reprehensible love of it. Many
difficult questions are involved in such a discussion: often two
disputing parties will be found to be fundamentally in agreement. The
_Times_ critic was emphasising the truth that unoriginality is bad; Sir
Sidney Colvin the equal truth that bogus originality is bad. But his
remarks reminded us of a great many observations we have all recently
heard with respect to certain tendencies to be observed in contemporary
art or pseudo-art. The elderly and many of the soberer young are
alarmed at much that they see painted or published. What does it all
mean? they ask. Are the world's artists rushing over a steep place into
the sea? Is there some new revelation in what looks at first sight like
obscure rubbish? Are these noisy rioters really the young? Do they
really hate everything that has ever been considered true? Will the
whole of the coming generation be captured by them? Mingled with the
dislike there is a great deal of bewilderment. Men doubt themselves.
After all, new artistic developments have often been incomprehensible;
these things are undeniably incomprehensible, so perhaps they are new
artistic developments. Those who are tired of strife shiver, wrap their
coats around them, prepare to retire into corners where the cold blast
cannot reach them. But we really do not think that they should be so
depressed, or that more vigorous men like Sir Sidney Colvin should be
so alarmed: a rational diagnosis of the situation dissipates these
apparent dangers.
* * * * *
Now we had better begin by premising that in the sphere of the fine
arts we are not (these things are never taken for granted) denying the
value of modern developments and the possibility of later ones. Not
all the technical experiments of modern intellectual artists (akin
to experiments in new media) may be fruitful, but at the centre of
most movements, however extravagant, may be found an original artist
who has either a peculiar way of looking at the world (El Greco is an
example) or desires to experiment with some method in order to find out
what results may accrue from it. But it is not a good thing to base a
theory on the mannerisms of an original artist; it is still worse to
build a convention on his unsuccessful experiments; and worst of all,
perhaps, for an artist to paint not what he sees as he sees it through
the medium of his temperament, but what some philosophical critic, with
a distaste for both Nature and humanity, tells him to paint. A painter
with intelligence, however, will soon tire of something which produces
results which do not interest him; and the painting of foolish pictures
by people who desire merely to attract attention is to some extent
limited because anything that would deceive anybody involves a good
deal of time and trouble. The fine arts will look after themselves;
few members of the public will pay large sums for pictures that convey
nothing to them. The printed word is in a rather different category.
The world is always full of ineffective people who have a desire to
write: a thing which can be done at any moment by anyone who has pen,
ink, and paper. They also desire to attract attention by their writing.
In our time "stunts" for their assistance have been discovered which
have never been hit upon before.
* * * * *
The various stunts with which we are now familiar have spread over
the whole world with a rapidity that no genuine spiritual movement
or technical discovery has ever equalled. Just before the war that
vivacious Southerner, Signor Marinetti, introduced us to the type-page,
which consisted of capital letters and notes of exclamation tumbled
about in apparent confusion. The first large English enterprise of
the Futurist-Vorticist-Cubist kind was (though it contained normal
patches) the magenta magazine _Blast_. It succumbed shortly after a
hostile critic, consulting his Webster, had discovered the definition:
"Blast:--a flatulent disease of sheep." But it died to give place to
countless smaller magazines and books containing bewildering designs
and extraordinary poems. The drawings and, to the eye which can
take in only their typography, the poems are indistinguishable from
others which are being published all over the world. The _blagueurs_
attach themselves to anything which will give them publicity. There
is something pathetic about the way in which, wherever the political
Bolsheviks get into office, they print the verses and cartoons of the
artistic anarchists. They don't understand them; all they know is that
the bourgeois dislike them; so in Munich last Easter, and (we daresay)
in Moscow now, there is an excellent opening for those who, for all
anyone would be able to say to the contrary, have only to scratch out
the old titles of their interlocked triangles and write underneath
"Uprising of Proletariat," or some such thing. The Vorticists and
verslibrists exist from Spain to Sweden. We saw this month a most
beautifully produced volume from Tiflis. The words, scattered about
in the Paris-and-London style, were in Georgian and Russian; but
no translation was necessary; when one was supplied, the words and
the lack of sense were precisely what we expected. They might have
been Italian or English; and in the illustrations, mingled with the
parallelograms, could be seen fragments of wasp-waisted "nuts" in
opera-hats and shirt fronts, such as never were seen in Tiflis, where
their heads are clad with fur. In a recent number of the _Monthly
Chapbook_ Mr. Flint, giving specimens of good and bad contemporary
verse, quoted one gentleman who begins a poem with:
éo ié iu ié
é é ié io ié
ui ui io iè
aéoé iaoé.
And another poet who writes:
vrron -- on -- on -- on -- on -- on
vrrr vrrr vrrr
hihihi.
It isn't really serious; but is any of this kind of thing serious?
And is this mere noise at bottom sillier than much of the free verse
to which some superficial meaning can be attached? We quote from an
American review which, as a whole, is sensible and good these lines
from a poem called _Autumn Night_:
The moon is as complacent as a frog.
She sits in the sky like a blind white stone,
And does not even see Love
As she caresses his face
With her contemptuous light.
She reaches her long white shivering fingers into the bowels of
men.
* * * * *
She is Death enjoying Life,
Innocently,
Lasciviously.
Of that kind of thing, usually done with a little less force in the
images, but always meandering, stupid, and utterly unrhythmical, good
American journals have lately been full. It has ceased to be amusing;
but we don't think that anybody need be alarmed; nobody can like it,
and in the end those who, from restlessness or fear, have pretended to
will revolt against a diet of wind and sawdust and return to something
more palatable.
* * * * *
For the simple truth is that the trick of incomprehensibility is the
best trick that has ever been invented for the benefit of writers
who, if they can feel or think, do not know how to translate their
thoughts and feelings into the language of art. Twenty years ago the
swarm of useless young writers discoursed on common themes in common
metres imitatively, after the manner of Tennyson or of Swinburne or
of Verlaine. If they favoured dignity and nobility they wrote sonnets
beginning:
Under the high invulnerable stars,
or plays like Savonarola Brown's; if Nature was their theme we heard of
The blackbird's descant from the bough.
The virtuous wrote of love in the manner of:
Your brows are calm and virginal,
warming to:
Your mouth is red as red, red roses are.
The sham rake-hells festooned their hectic amours with references
to purple breasts, absinthe, Messalina, and Semiramis: the banality
was plain to see. But Signor Marinetti and his congeners--we
had been gently acclimatised to great obscurity by artists like
Mallarmé--provided these poets with a priceless gift. Let rhythm go,
let sense go: put down in barbarous sequence any incongruous images
that come into your head: even, if you like, put down sheer gibberish:
if possible, deceive yourself, and you will deceive others. Produce
a work so opaque that it cannot be seen through. The innocents will
either wildly protest against these dangerous revolutionaries--a
much more pleasing rôle to find oneself in than that of harmless
mediocrity--or else they will knit their brows with the reflection "if
this young man expresses himself in thoughts too deep for me, why what
a very, very, very deep young man this deep young man must be." But we
have noticed that most of these dealers in chaos soon tire. Those who
have something in them (and any young man is liable to be infected by a
current fashion) get through, none the worse: those who have not flag
and stop.
* * * * *
In our second number we called attention, as many before us have
called attention, to the scandalous state of the American copyright
laws whereunder British authors have been put to immense inconvenience
and loss, and which have resulted in the early books of almost every
important British author being, in America, beyond his control. Since
we wrote the American Senate has come to a decision which greatly
ameliorates the conditions as they affect books published here since
the war. It has been clear that during the war, owing to the delays of
mails, it has often been impossible for English publishers and authors
to secure American copyright even where American publication could
easily be arranged for--copies for deposit could not be got across
sufficiently quickly, and the time-limit of thirty days from English
publication expired. Under the new decision--which is largely due
to the efforts of Major G. H. Putnam--protection is secured for all
British books of which the American copyright has been lost during the
war. The Act has been amended: friendly alien authors have been given
American copyright on works of which copyright lapsed during the war;
the concession extends to works issued within fifteen months after the
war, whatever the end of the war may be defined to be. During that
fifteen months authors may take steps to establish their copyright;
after that period, as we understand it, British authors and publishers
will have a longer period (_i.e._, four months) than before in which to
secure their rights, provided a complete copy of the English edition
has been deposited in the Copyright Office not more than sixty days
after publication. We suppose, though we await further information,
that the fact that a book, presumed non-copyright, has been published
in America during the war will not prevent its being copyrighted; but
if this be so what will happen to a pirated edition (assuming such to
exist) which was legally permissible before the new amendment?
* * * * *
An important step has been made in the development of the literary
relations of the two countries. But these are still far from perfect.
It may not be possible to make the domestic copyright laws of the two
countries the same, but it should not be impossible for each country
to extend to the books of the other a simultaneous and automatic
copyright on publication. American books should be automatically
copyright here when they appear in America; English books should be
automatically copyrighted in America when they appear here. There is
room for discussion as to the length of term of copyright to be granted
to foreigners; but a basis for mutual agreement would not be difficult
to find. We trust that Major Putnam will not flag in the good work, and
that English authors will co-operate to the best of their ability.
* * * * *