live in fear of a Zeppelin raid. In my opinion, half the inhabitants of
London constantly though secretly hope it. We feel that with a bomb or
two tumbling about our heads we shall be “in it.” To read the newspapers
is like having a surfeit of the kind of book which is called “The Great
War of 19—.” I have read dozens of them and they move my imagination
almost as much as the reports—some of them, such as are well-written,
like Mr. Wells’s _War in the Air_, even more.
The result that we must pray for is a greater concreteness and reality
in our writing. We have developed an inhuman literary point of view
which is fundamentally insincere and which is never more ugly or less
convincing than when our poets try to be “modern.” Such poets as Emile
Verhaeren—now a refugee in London—treat factories and so forth, the
typical products, they think, of modern life, purely as romantic
apparitions, much as the romantic writers treated mountains and deserts,
excuses for rhetoric and flamboyant description. They have never felt
the reality of them, because modern life in its rapidity has
outdistanced the poet’s mind in his attempt to conceive it.
I hold no brief for “modern poetry” in that sort of sense: I do not hold
it necessary to write about these things. But if you will compose upon a
factory or a railway-station, you must feel what factories and
railway-stations really are; you must not take refuge in a romantic
description of lights and roaring machinery. The perpetually breaking
high note of the Futurists is merely a rather useless attempt to deal
with a difficulty that we all know. Perhaps the war will bring us rather
suddenly and jarringly in touch with reality. It is certain that the
young men of the class from which literature chiefly comes, have now in
their minds a fixed and permanent thought which from time to time comes
up onto the surface of consciousness. This thought is the thought of
violent death. We have grown physically and morally soft in security;
but, as I write, affairs are reaching a crisis in France, fresh
regiments are being sent abroad. We each of us wonder which may be the
next to go.
This honest and undisguised fear—a man is wonderfully insensitive if he
does not feel it and a braggart if he will not admit it—has a powerful
and purifying effect on the spirit. Its spiritual action is comparable
to that of violent and maintained physical exercise. The flabby weight
of our emotions is being reduced and hardened: we have sweated away a
great many sick fancies and superfluous notions. The severe pressure of
training for war induces in us a love of reason, a taste for hard
thinking and exactitude and a capacity for discipline.
The art of war is fortunately an art that allows itself to be definitely
judged. Either you win your battles or you lose them. It is of no use to
say that Warmser was a great general whose subtle and esoteric methods
of making war have never been appreciated by a numskulled public.
Napoleon thrashed him and there is an end of argument. A soldier cannot
resignedly appeal from the fortunes of the field to the arbitrament of
the future.
The consideration of these facts leads us to wish that poetry were in
the same case; and we are beginning to feel both that poetry may become
a more active factor in normal life than hitherto and that a careful
criticism may remove it from the desert space of assertion and
undefended preference which it now inhabits. Possibly the war may help
to cure us of our ancient English muddle-headedness. We have awakened
with surprise to find our army an admirable and workmanlike machine. The
South African war rid us, in military affairs, of the incompetent
amateur and the obstructive official. Vague rumors of what the army had
learnt there even reached other departments of activity: possibly this
war will infect us all with a new energy and a new sense of reality. We
may learn how to reach our ends by taking thought and by cherishing
ideas instead of plunging on in a sublimely obstinate and indisciplined
muddle. As for our war-poetry—I must end where I began—it is merely a
sloughing of the old skin, a last discharge of the old disease.
New York Letter
GEORGE SOULE
Nature flowers in the spring, man in the fall. With the first of
November comes a bewilderment of elections, concerts, books, plays, new
magazines, bombs, exhibitions, and all the other things that seem to
have blossomed so futilely year after year. To set about the task of
discovering the significant in it all is more confusing than to attempt
to trace the origin of new species in a single May countryside.
Take the theatres, for instance. There is the usual increase in plays
which are so bad that even visiting travelling salesmen begin to suspect
their artistic integrity. There is Shaw’s _Pygmalion_, which some think
is second-rate Shavism well acted by Mrs. Campbell, and others believe
is a good play badly acted. There is Molnar’s _The Phantom Rival_, an
amusing and slender satire which is understood by one-quarter of the
audience, and applauded for its faults by the other three-quarters.
MacDonald Hastings, who aroused hopes with _The New Sin_, has descended
to a very bad second-rate in a vehicle for Nazimova called _That Sort_.
Elsie Ferguson has made a hit in _Outcasts_, written by Hubert Henry
Davies,—the author of the fascinating _Cousin Kate_,—as a vehicle for
Ethel Levey, the former star of unspeakable musical comedy in America
who has become a great actress in London. It is a play of sordid
“realism,” whose principal function seems to be to raise an almost
academic question of morals and then disclaim any moral intent by a
solution which in the opinion of most of the audience is either grossly
immoral or disgustingly moral. Everything is topsy-turvy.
Early in the season the Schubert organ created some amusement by
demanding the abolition of dramatic critics. Here are the managers, ran
the argument, responsible business men who put large sums of money into
new productions. Along comes your newspaper critic to the first night,
with a somewhat exalted standard of taste, a jaded appetite, and a
reputation for wit. Before the play is over he leaves, hastily writes a
column in which he exploits his own cleverness at the expense of the
play, and turns away many possible customers. This is not good business
ethics. If the play really is bad, let the public find it out gradually.
They may never find it out at all. If it is good, we really don’t need
the critics for publicity. The article was ingenuous and engaging. Most
of our critics are so undiscerning that we were glad to see them baited.
Perhaps as a result of this, Alan Dale and Acton Davies both left their
respective papers. But as if to heap coals of fire, the critics united
in a roar of praise for _The Beautiful Adventure_, a play so truly awful
that the most ingenious and expensive pushing could not even bluff the
public into liking it. It failed after a few precarious weeks.
Just now The Catholic Theatre Movement has created a diversion by
issuing their “White List” of plays and threatening to prosecute by law
the producers of “unclean” drama. They take occasion to compliment the
newspaper critics for abandoning to some extent artistic standards of
criticism and substituting moral standards. The movement will
undoubtedly tell against much undesirable filth, but it is needless to
say that it would be used with equal effectiveness against most works of
genius which might by some strange chance be produced.
Little Theatres are sprouting up by the handful. The Punch and Judy
Theatre is a clever imitation of the theatrical prototype, with benches
for seats, wall boxes for two only, and boy ushers. It is the personal
enterprize of Charles Hopkins, a Yale graduate who shows his enthusiasm
by combining not only the rôles of actor, manager, and producer, but
owner and playwright as well. He has not yet, however, put on any of his
own plays. Mrs. Hopkins, a really talented graduate of Ben Greet’s
company, plays the feminine leads. The Neighborhood Theatre is a
quasi-philanthropic undertaking with enough money behind it to aspire to
the new stage art in all its magnificence of the concrete dome and more
expensive settings. Perhaps the most interesting of all will be a new
theatre planned by the Washington Square villagers under the leadership
of a committee among whose members are Mr. and Mrs. Max Eastman and
Charles and Albert Boni. It will be supported principally by its own
subscribers at a very moderate expense, and will be as far as possible
from a philanthropic attempt to “elevate the stage.” It is the result
merely of a belief that here is a group of people who want to see more
intelligent drama than is ordinarily supplied, and that the dramatic
material and acting and producing ability are available. Plays by
American authors will be used as far as possible, but the standards will
not be lowered for the sake of encouraging either authors or propaganda.
Such a thing cannot avoid being at least a healthy experiment.
Pavlowa opened in the Metropolitan a week after Genée had given a
Red-Cross benefit in a vaudeville theatre. The conjunction was a
striking example of the marked inferiority of a romantic form to a
classic unless the romantic vehicle is done honestly and supremely well.
Genée gave in ten minutes more genuine æsthetic pleasure by her
perfection of line than Pavlowa in a whole evening of half-done work.
Pavlowa has proved often enough that she can be one of the goddesses of
the dance. Last year she had with her Cecceti, her ballet master, and
practiced with him constantly. Only by such external vigilance can
perfection be maintained. This year, presumably for reasons of economy,
Cecceti is not present. The company is much weakened by the absence of
the principal character dancers. The opening ballet was a second-rate
concoction with almost no real dancing in it. And to top off the insult,
a third of the program was devoted to ordinary ball-room dances, which
any number of cabaret performers in the United States can do better than
trained ballet people. It was the usual tragedy of the artist who tries
to popularize his work. An enthusiast sitting next me said: “We are now
seeing the funeral of good dancing in America. Those who want this sort
of thing will go to the restaurants. And the others will say, ‘If this
is ballet, give me baseball.’” But there is still hope. The original
Diaghilew company which plays yearly in London and Paris is coming next
season. Then we shall see romantic ballet at its highest.
Only one other event must be mentioned now. While various discontented
persons, perhaps anarchists, have been leaving bombs about public
buildings, the socialists have elected Meyer London to Congress. In
itself this is not of great significance. It is interesting to see,
however, that twelve thousand people went to the public reception to him
in Madison Square Garden. It is still more interesting to compare what
was said there with ordinary political buncombe. Mr. London began by
calling President Wilson one of the ablest men this country has
produced. He went on to say “The business of socialism is to give
intelligence to discontent.... When I take my seat in Congress I do not
expect to accomplish wonders. What I expect to do is to take to
Washington the message of the people, to give expression there to the
philosophy of socialism. I want to show them what the East side of New
York is and what the East side Jew is. I am confident that I will get
fair play. I will be given my opportunity, and I do not intend to abuse
it. Do not let yourselves be deceived by this victory. You are good
noise-makers, but you are poor organizers. Organize now for the next
campaign. Organize for victory, not by violence, but by the greatest of
all forces, the force of the human intellect. Give the people your
message clearly and make them think about it.”
If the ballot fails because of lack of intelligence, is it reasonable to
suppose that violence will succeed with the same material? Or that any
arrangement under the sun for the welfare of human beings can take the
place of individual human quality? “My friends, mankind is something to
be surpassed!”
The Theatre
“The Philanderer”
(_Chicago Little Theater_)
The most interesting thing about Shaw’s _Philanderer_ as it was put on
at The Little Theater the latter part of November, was the new treatment
it received at the hands of the scenic artists of that precious
institution. One is tempted to use the trite but pretty figure and say
that it was an instance of an old gem in a new setting, only modifying
it by the statement that _The Philanderer_ is merely a fake gem. The
luster it may have had in the eighteen-nineties is now almost entirely
worn away. In short, its fun is pointless. Ibsen, thanks largely to Mr.
Shaw’s active propaganda, is a household pet. Ibsen clubs are as
obsolete as Browning clubs; while the “new” woman as embodied in her
present-day sister, the feminist, is too familiar and too permanent a
figure to be the subject of effective satire. That the play still has
appeal for a modern audience is due wholly to its characters, and yet
these stage people are not real. They are no more than caricatures, each
effectively distorted and exaggerated in the drawing, each effectively
touched off in monochrome. To use another overworked phrase, they are
typically Shavian in that they are not characters but traits of
character. They are not real people; they are perambulating states of
mind, as are almost all of Shaw’s creations, and the more emotional,
rather than intellectual, the state of mind, the wider its appeal.
But neither Shaw nor the play is the thing in this discussion. The
setting of the play, subordinate, no doubt, in intention, but
predominating because of its novelty, is what interested most the eyes
of the layman brought up for years on the familiar conventions of the
ordinary-sized theater. The action demands interior settings, but
instead of the realistically-painted canvas walls and wooden doors, The
Little Theater gives us tinted backgrounds with rectangular openings for
entrances and exits. The first act is done in gray, the second and third
in blue, and the fourth in a soft green. The effect of people,
particularly of women, moving against such plain unrelieved tints is
pictorial in the extreme. Each successive movement, each new position is
a new picture. The curtains parting on the last act, showing the copper
tint of a samovar, a vase of delicate pink flowers, a white tablecloth,
a handsome dark woman pouring tea, all against a soft glowing green,
gave one the feeling of seeing an artfully-composed, skillfully-colored
canvas at a picture gallery. And it suggested, more successfully than
any other setting I have ever seen, the home of a person of refinement
and restraint. Less successful was the setting for the second and third
acts. The use of indigo in representing an Ibsen club may be satirical
and it may be subtle, but its effect on the spectator after an hour or
so is depressing, and in the general atmospheric gloom that increases as
the act goes on the sparkle of some of the brightest dialogue is lost.
On the whole, the workings out of this new idea in scenery is suggestive
in its effect and lovely in its pictorial quality, but until the novelty
wears off it obtrudes itself upon the interest that belongs rightly to
the play. Its cheapness should ingratiate it to the professional
producer. Naturally, the effect of one unrelieved tint in the settings
of a theater of ordinary size would be deadly in its monotony, but the
idea suggests of itself endless variation and improvements. After
leaving _The Philanderer_, with its obvious limitations, with its
uneven, at times amateurish acting, one cannot help wishing that our
every night plays had half the thought, half the taste, half the
imagination in their production that The Little Theater plays seem to
have.
SAMUEL KAPLAN.
Music
The Kneisel Quartet and Hofmannized Chopin
... And in the meantime war went on beyond the ocean. Strange, but this
absurd thought accompanied me as a shrill dissonance throughout the
concert. I could not help conjecturing what would be the result, if all
the warriors were brought together to listen to the Kneisel Quartet:
Would they not become ennobled, harmonized, pacified, humanized? Could
they go on with their dull work—for modern war gives no thrills for the
individual fighter—after Mozart’s Quartet in E Flat Major, which has the
soothing effect of a transparent vase? They might have found Brahms’s
Quintet suffering from this artist’s usual weakness—lack of sense of
_measure_,—but the Scherzo would certainly have elated the most avowed
anti-German. The four instruments performed their work so artistically
that one forgot their existence and heard “just music.” The only number
that could have aroused international complications was the insincere
grotesque of Zoltan Kodaly, who succeeded in misusing an excellent
source, Danuvian motives. “But this is Modern”, I was shrapnelled. Well,
call me a conservative, but if this is modern music, then, in the name
of Mozart and Beethoven, _Pereat!_
Still imagining a Marsian audience I was not dismayed even by the
appearance of the effeminate Chopin. For Josef Hofmann took the artistic
liberty of interpreting the gentle Pole in his own way, and the Scherzo
in B Flat Minor sounded as a virile volcanic charge. The pianist refuses
to take Chopin sentimentally, and he puts charming vigor even into the
moon-beamed, tear-strewn D Flat Nocturne, even into the frail ephemeral
E Minor Valse.
K.
Hofmann’s Concert
The spoiled child of the world’s pianism—Josef Hofmann—played Schumann’s
A Minor piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at two
concerts during the first week in November. Both performances were
masterly and splendid in musical values.
Since he left his cradle, Hofmann has had the world sitting at his
pianistic feet and fingers so that he has come to take the most vigorous
and sincere homage as a matter of fact; and, perhaps for this reason, he
occasionally fails to merit it. He is insolent to his worshippers and
furious with his critics. Long and copious praise has gone to his head.
His insolence is less poetic and far less handsome than Paderewski’s,
and Hofmann’s playing needs to reach magnificent proportions before one
is able to forget his bad-boyish disposition.
But one does forget. For his musicianship and key-wizardry are things of
great beauty. Despite the fact that his scorn sometimes leads him to
abuse the piano, in the way of crude smashing blows, there is (in the
Schumann work, for instance, which displays him at his best) never a
moment in which he loses a rythmic grasp that is deeply satisfying. And
when he chooses, and doesn’t lose his temper, he can bring forth
remarkable tonal beauties from the box of wood and wire. There is an
admirable drive in his art. It is vital and powerful. One’s regrets are
swallowed and quite forgotten in listening to his artistic qualities of
tone, rhythm, piano-color, and, in fact, of genuine music.
HERMAN SCHUCHERT.
Art
Rose Madder or Red?
WILLIAM SAPHIER
Physical usefulness predominates in the make-up of every real piece of
craftsmanship. Its lines and the beauty of its decoration make up its
value.
Art does not rely on physical usefulness, form, or decoration. It is its
suggestiveness, its appeal to the imagination, its drawing out of
sympathy or hatred, its arousing of new and deep emotion—this is what
gives the fine arts their importance in life. Art should act as a screen
for fine tragic acts, for great emotions. Nature should be the pigment
for the painter’s brush, but not his aim. He should dilute it with his
blood and marrow and fling it on the canvas with determination.
Thus I pondered as I entered the twenty-seventh exhibition of American
Oil Paintings and Sculpture at the Chicago Art Institute. Wandering from
canvas to canvas, from one prize-winner to another, I felt all my hope
for a miracle vanish. They are so real, so true to life, so bereft of
imagination, that one wonders why anybody ever took the trouble to paint
them.
Just look at these flowers, trees, cows, and nudes. I have seen them
many, many times exactly the same way and under the same circumstances
in life. They are “pretty” and will undoubtedly make a good decoration
in a middle-class home. This may be a worthy thing to do, but why should
it be called art? I think this is our punishment for great achievements
in the industrial field. No nation can go on building the fastest
railroads, the tallest skyscrapers, the largest factories, the fastest
automobiles, without paying for it by a loss of its finer æsthetic
senses.
But I am getting away from the exhibition. It has become the fashion to
be disappointed with exhibitions both here and abroad—and with good
reason. As there are few good artists, the chances of getting them on a
jury is slight. The result is apparent: good pieces of craftsmanship are
hung along with fine pieces of art, and the prizes intended for fine art
go to good craftsmanship. In saying this I do not wish to join the
popular sport of hitting the jury and getting a round of applause. But
how can one escape these conclusions if he compares the prize-winner, _A
Nude_, by Richard E. Miller, with “_Under the Bough_,” by Arthur B.
Davis, whose rhythmically-moving figures and beautiful colors transport
one to fairyland? The figures remind me of Hodler, the foremost painter
today in Switzerland, who is sixty years old and younger than the
youngest. Or compare the prize with _Thomas and his Red Coat_, by Robert
Henri. What simple forms and colors—what a thorough understanding of a
child and his world! Or _The Widow_, by Charles W. Hawthorne. These are
works of great simplicity, understanding, imagination, and
individuality; they are monuments to some fine feeling, dream, thought,
or incident in the life of their creators.
As for the other prize winners—the disjointed color spots serving as
garden flowers and the chocolate box cover-design—I shall not discuss
them. The meaning of such stuff and the reason for awarding is too
obscure.
Outside the pictures mentioned above the following are worth seeing:
_The Venetian Blind_, by Frederic C. Frieseke; _Dance of the Hours_, by
Louis F. Berneker; _Winter Logging_, by George Elmer Brown; _Through the
Trees_, by Frank T. Hutchins; _The Harbor_, by Jonas Lie; _The Garden_,
by Jerome S. Blum; _Procession of the Redentore Venice_, by Grace
Ravlin; _The Ox Team_, by Chauncey F. Ryder; _Smeaton’s Quay, St.
Ive’s_, by Hayley Lever; _The Fledgling_, by Grace H. Turnbull. _A
Hudson River Holiday_, by Gifford Beal, looks much like a department
store. In fact you may find everything in this exhibition from a flag to
a mountain—and all the popular colors. The only thing that is missing is
a “For Sale” sign, with a “marked-down” price.
Seven pieces of sculpture by Stanislaw Szukalski, whose work the readers
of THE LITTLE REVIEW had a chance to see reproduced in the last number,
make up the most interesting part of the exhibition.
The original obscuring of the works of Grace Ravlin, Grace H. Turnbull,
Johansen, and Blum by the hanging committee deserves praise. But I think
if they really wanted to do something unusual they might have thought of
something better. For instance, hang all the rejected ones in separate
rooms, marked “rejected,” and let the visitors see and judge for
themselves. This would give the exhibition a bigger meaning. As it is,
it means confusion; and confusion asks persistently in this case: are
the fine arts anything in particular or just a mixture of craftsmanship,
cleverness (the usual companion of emptiness) and some undigested ideas?
Life is a learning to die.—_Plato._
Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!—_Dostoevsky._
Book Discussion
A Watteauesque Enthusiast
_The Enchantment of Art_, by Duncan Phillips. [John Lane Company,
New York.]