to health. The Eve of your civilized conception makes us nearly all
misogynists. The old Eve, who shocked you in my studio, will
perhaps seem less odious to you some day. I have perhaps been
unable to do more than suggest my world, which seems unreal to you.
It is a far cry from the sketch to the realisation of the dream.
But even the suggestion of the happiness is like a foretaste of
Nirvana--only the Eve I have painted can stand naked before us.
Yours would always be shameless in the natural state, and, if
beautiful, the source of pain and evil.[22]
He had a profound admiration for Cézanne, and was often charged with
imitating him, and in some of his pictures there is a certain
resemblance in construction, but two painters could scarce be less alike
in the handling of color. Gauguin handled color for the pure joy of
it.[23] Cézanne used color as a mason uses bricks.
Gauguin’s admiration for Cézanne was not reciprocated.
“Gauguin likes your work immensely, and imitates you,” a friend once
said to Cézanne.
“Eh! he does not understand me,” was the angry response. “I never have
and never will accept a lack of modelling or graduation; that is
nonsense. Gauguin is not a painter; he produces simply Chinese figures.”
* * * * *
Gauguin was a dreamer; Cézanne, in his way, was quite an exact thinker,
for instance, he explained his ideas of form and color as follows:
Everything in nature is modelled on the lines of the _sphere_, the
_cone_, and the _cylinder_, and one must understand how to paint
these simple figures, one can then paint anything. Design and color
are not distinct; to precisely the extent that one paints, one
draws; the more the color harmonizes, the clearer and purer the
design. When the color is at its finest, the form also attains its
perfection. Contrasts and harmonies of tones--that is the secret of
drawing and modelling.[24]
In the suggestion of the lines of the _sphere_, the _cone_, and the
_cylinder_, as the _elements_ of all art, one recognizes the _alphabet
of cubism_. But in reducing drawing to these elements Cézanne, without
knowing it, simply repeated what Albert Durer printed in book form
nearly four hundred years ago, and what the Chinese and Japanese had
discovered centuries earlier.[25]
The fact that the work of four men so different, Cézanne, Henri
Rousseau, VanGogh, Gauguin, began to be appreciated about the same time,
shows how ripe the Paris art world was for the reaction from
Impressionism--for a great movement in _creative_ and _decorative_ art.
* * * * *
Matisse taught drawing and for a time--from 1895 to 1899--painted along
conventional lines. Influenced by Cézanne he then broke with the
academic and sought new light effects, effects quite different from
those of the Impressionists.
He sought to break with all ancient laws, and his use of color became
and still is largely his own.[26]
While his coloring is always interesting and his drawing facile, there
is at times something about his work that is not satisfying, an
atmosphere of superficiality. He is described, however, by those who
know him as a painter of almost bourgeois earnestness and sincerity,
taking himself and his work most seriously.
At the same time many of his canvasses give the impression of having
been executed in a spirit of sheer audacity.
* * * * *
To be sure, there is a rhythm and swing to some of his moving figures
that is delightful, delightful in the elemental simplicity of the
drawing and the seemingly--but only seemingly--naive coloring.
Yet even with these canvases there is often the feeling, “With so much
skill, why did he not do better?”--a feeling of disappointment, of
dissatisfaction.
One is disposed to agree with the opinion that Matisse’s “true gifts are
those of address, of _souplesse_, of quick assimilation, of limited but
easily acquired knowledge--essentially feminine gifts.”[A]
_“On a beaucoup vanté le goût d’Henri Matisse. Il n’est pas niable,
mais d’une qualité secondaire. C’est le goût d’une modiste; son
amour de la conleur vaut un amour du chiffon.”_
He lives in a simple country house in a suburb out of Paris. His studio
is painted white, within and without, with immense windows.[27]
I found not a long-haired, slovenly-dressed, eccentric man, as I
had imagined, but a fresh, healthy, robust, blonde gentleman, who
looked even more German than French, and whose simple and
unaffected cordiality put me directly at my ease.
Concerning his early experiences, Matisse said: “I began at the
Ecole des Beaux Arts. When I opened my studio, years after, for
some time I painted just like any one else. But things didn’t go at
all, and I was very unhappy. Then, little by little, I began to
paint as I felt. One cannot do successful work which has much
feeling unless one sees the subject very simply, and one must do
this in order to express one’s self as clearly as possible.
[Illustration: MATISSE
The Dance]
“I studied in the schools mornings, and I copied at the Louvre in
the afternoons for ten years. I made copies for the Government, but
when I introduced some of my own emotional impressions, or personal
translations of the pictures, the Government did not care to buy;
it only wanted a photographic copy.”
Of his present methods he said: “I certainly do think of harmony
and color, and of composition, too. Drawing is for me the art of
being able to express myself with line. When an artist or student
draws a nude figure with painstaking care, the result is drawing,
and not emotion. A true artist cannot see color which is not
harmonious. Otherwise it is a _moyen_, or recipe. An artist should
express his feeling with the harmony or idea of color which he
possesses naturally. He should not copy the walls, or objects on a
table, but he should, above all, express a vision of color, the
harmony of which corresponds to his feeling. And, above all, one
must be honest with one’s self.
“If one _feels no emotion_, one should not paint. When I came in
here to work this morning I had no emotion, so I took a horseback
ride. When I returned I felt like painting, and had all the emotion
I wanted.
“I never use pastels or water colors, and I only make studies from
models, not to use in a picture--_mais pour me nourrir_--to
strengthen my knowledge; and I never work from a previous sketch or
study, but from memory. I now draw with feeling, and not
anatomically. I know how to draw correctly, having studied form so
long.
“I always use a preliminary canvas the same size for a sketch as
for a finished picture, and I always begin with color. With large
canvases this is more fatiguing, but more logical. I may have the
same sentiment I obtained in the first, but this lacks solidity,
and a decorative sense. I never retouch a sketch; I take a new
canvas the same size, as I may change the composition somewhat. But
I always strive to give the same _feeling_, while carrying it on
further. A picture should, for me, always be decorative. While
working _I never try to think, only to feel_.
“I have a class of sixty pupils and make them draw accurately, as a
student always should do at the beginning. I do not encourage them
to work as I do now.”
When asked about a clay model of a nude woman with abnormal legs,
he picked up a small Javanese statue with a head all out of
proportion to the body and asked:
“Is not that beautiful?”
His interviewer answered, “I see no beauty where there is lack of
proportion. To my mind no sculpture has ever equaled that of the
Greeks, unless it be Michael Angelo’s.”
He replied: “But there you are, back to the classic, the formal. We
of today are trying to express ourselves _today_--_now_--the
_twentieth century_--and not to copy what the Greeks saw and felt
in art over two thousand years ago. The Greek sculptors always
followed a set, fixed form, and never showed any sentiment. The
very early Greeks and the Primitives only worked from the basis of
emotion, but this grew cold, and disappeared in the following
centuries. It makes no difference what are the proportions, _if
there is feeling_. And if the sculptor who modeled this makes me
think only of a dwarf, then he has failed to express the beauty
which should overpower all lack of proportion, and this is only
done through or by means of his emotions.
“My favorite masters are Goya, Durer, Rembrandt, Corot, and Manet.
I often go to the Louvre, and there I study Chardin’s work more
than any other; I go there to study his technic.”
His palette was a large one, and so chaotic and disorderly were the
vivid colors on it that a close resemblance could be traced to some
of his pictures.
“I never mix much; I use small brushes and never more than twelve
colors. I use black to cool the blue.
“I seldom paint portraits; and, if I do, only in a decorative
manner. I can see them in no other way.”
One’s ideas of the man and of his work are entirely opposed to each
other: The latter abnormal to the last degree, and the man an
ordinary, healthy individual, such as one meets by the dozen every
day. On this point Matisse showed some emotion.
“Oh, do tell the American people that I am a normal man; that I am
a devoted husband and father; that I have three fine children; that
I go to the theater, ride horseback, have a comfortable home, a
fine garden that I love, flowers, etc., just like any man.”
As if to bear out this description of himself, he took me to the
salon in his perfectly normal house, to see a normal copy which he
had made at the Louvre, and he bade me good-by and invited me to
call again like a perfectly normal gentleman.[28]
Matisse differs from Cézanne, VanGogh, Gauguin, in the accentuation of
_feeling_ as distinguished from observation. While the three last named
sought fresh inspiration from close and ever closer contact with
nature, he seeks his inspiration in his own emotions.
It is this trait that makes him one of the leaders of
Post-Impressionism, as well as a Fauve.
* * * * *
From the foregoing it is clear that _Fauvism_ does not mean a particular
mode or technic, like Classicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism,
etc., etc. It means a _mood_ rather than a _mode_. Every painter in
revolt against prevailing taste and standards was and is a _Fauve_.
Not all Post-Impressionists are Fauves, but many are so called, for
instance, the following:[29]
Odilon Redon, Othon Friez, Picasso (the founder of Cubism), Van Dongen,
André Derain, Vlaminck, Marquet, George Braque, Raoul Dufy, Robert
Delauney, M’lle Laurencin, Jean Metzinger, Pierre Girieud, Verhoeven.
Of the above four are well known Cubists; Redon is a poetic personality
quite apart; while the others exhibit marked individualities in their
work.
Les Fauves in Germany are “Die Wilden,” embracing the “Brücke” of
Dresden, the “Neue Sezession” of Berlin, the “Neue Vereinigung” of
Munich.[30]
Those of Russia are Larionoff, P. Kuznezoff, Sarjan, Denissow, Kantsch,
Schalowsky, Maschkoff, Frau Gontscharof, von Wisen, W. and D. Burljuk,
Kanabe, Jakulof; and others who live in foreign countries, such as
Schereczowa, Paris; Kandinsky Werefkina, Jawlensky, Bechteyeff, Genin in
Munich.[31]
Among the best known English artists who might fairly be classed as
“Fauves” are Ferguson, Peploe, Lewis, Wyndhover Lewis, Duncan Grant,
Mrs. Bell, Frederic Etchells, Miss Etchells, Eric Gill, Spencer F. Gore,
and a man who has done heroic service for the new movement, Roger Fry.
There are, however, comparatively speaking, so few “Fauves” in England
that the guns of the critics rust on the racks; while in America they
are so scattered they have as yet attracted no attention by concerted
action.
Almost the only man in this country who has persistently painted in
Cubist fashion for any length of time is Arthur Dove, one of whose
pictures is reproduced.
When asked how he came to paint as he does Dove said:
After having come to the conclusion that there were a few
principles existent in all good art from the earliest examples we
have, through the Masters to the present, I set about it to analyze
these principles as they are found in works of art and in nature.
One of these principles which seemed most evident was the choice of
the simple motif. This same law held in nature, a few forms and a
few colors sufficed for the creation of an object.
Consequently I gave up my more disorderly methods (impressionism);
in other words, I gave up trying to express an idea by stating
innumerable little facts, the statement of facts having no more to
do with the art of painting than statistics with literature.
He then refers to “that perfect sense of order which exists in the early
Chinese painting,” and goes on:
The first step was to choose from nature a motif in color, and with
that motif to paint from nature, the form still being objective.
The second step was to apply this same principle to form, the
actual dependence upon the object (literal to representation)
disappearing, and the means of expression becoming purely
subjective.
After working for sometime in this way, I no longer observed in the
old way, and not only began to think _subjectively_, but also to
remember certain sensations _purely through their form and color_,
that is by certain shapes, planes, light, or character lines
determined by the meeting of such planes.
With the introduction of the line motif the expression grew more
plastic, and the struggle with the means became less evident.
[Illustration: DOVE
Based on Leaf Forms and Spaces]
Referring to the painting reproduced he said:
It is a choice of three colors, red, yellow, and green, and three
forms selected from trees and the spaces between them that to me
were expressive of the movement of the thing which I felt.
As to going further and explaining what I felt, that would be quite
as stupid as to play on an instrument before deaf persons. The deaf
person is simply not sensitive to sound and cannot appreciate; and
a person who is not sensitive to form and color as such would be
quite as helpless.
The majority of people seem to be in the position of deaf persons.
They see others listening intently, and apparently enjoying
something, and because they fail to hear, they at once draw the
false conclusion that the trouble is with the instrument or the
performers.
In November last a group of young Americans held an exhibition of very
modern work in The MacDowell Club in New York. The exhibitors were
Oliver Chaffee, Konrad Cramer, Andrew Dasburg, Grace Johnson, Arthur
Lee, Henry L. McFee, Paul Rohland, William Zorach.
IV
A FUTILE PROTEST
The Cubist pictures in the Salon d’Automne, 1912, was the occasion of
the following letter from M. Lempué, painter and doyen du Conseil
municipal de la Ville de Paris, addressed M. Bérard, Sous-Secrétaire
d’Etat des Beaux-Arts.[32]
If the voice of a municipal counsellor could reach you, I would beg
you, would pray you to go and take a turn around the Autumn Salon.
Go there, sir, and although you are a minister, I trust that you
will come away as much disgusted as are many people whom I know,
and I hope, also, that you will say to yourself in an undertone:
“Have I indeed the right to loan a public building to a lot of
malefactors who conduct themselves in the world of art as do the
_apaches_ in ordinary life?”
You will ask yourself, Mr. Minister, in leaving the place, if
nature and the human form have ever before suffered such outrages;
you will admit with regret that in this Salon the most trivial
uglinesses and vulgarities that can be imagined are there displayed
and accumulated; and you will again ask yourself, Mr. Minister, if
the dignity of the Government of which you form part is not
injured, inasmuch as it appears to take under its protection such a
scandal by sheltering horrors like these in a national building.
The Government of the Republic, as it seems to me, ought to be more
careful and more respectful of the artistic dignity of France.
A year ago, and for another reason, I wrote to your predecessor,
who, by the way, took no notice of my letter; but what is
astonishing--does he not let everybody think that he is a
meridional, whereas he was born nowhere else than at Montmartre?
A friend whispers to me that you are from Orthez; we are,
therefore, fellow-townsmen, for that is almost as if you came from
Montrejeau; so then, “Dious bibant!” (Dieu vivant!) it will not be
long before you will make known to the Belgian, Frantz Jourdain,
who has very modestly set for himself the mission of reforming
French art, and who, in order to thoroughly demonstrate his ability
to do so, has deposited--I will not say offal--but the store of
“La Samaritaine” almost opposite the Louvre, which fact is a sure
proof of the superiority of his monstrosity of a structure over the
beautiful architecture of the Renaissance. Please, therefore, make
known to this architect that in the future he may locate his
reforms and his reformers where he pleases, but not again in a
public building, and for so doing, all those who have taste and
love for beautiful things will applaud you.
Please accept, Mr. Minister, the assurance of my highest regards.
Lempué.
* * * * *
The Committee of the Autumn Salon, in reply, made the following
statement:
The committee of the Autumn Salon considers that the only reply
which it can make to the especially severe attacks that have been
made on it this year is to make announcement of the principle that
directs it:
“To admit all efforts of conscientious art, whatever they may be,
however personal, and however strange they may seem to the ancient
formulae.”
The Autumn Salon is not and does not wish to be the conservator of
a school with a fixed formula; it wishes, rather, to remain the
ground of generous combat and of the emulation necessary in a
country like ours, in order to bring out and fructify both artists
and works of art.
The Government, whose rôle is not to direct, but to encourage the
artistic effort of the nation, can consider only in the most kindly
way a Salon which has been the first to give reception to many
artists now celebrated, which has given a place hitherto unknown to
decorative art, and which, before all other expositions, has placed
music and literature on a par with painting and sculpture.
* * * * *
Then the newspapers published the following item of news:
M. J. L. Breton, deputy from Cherbourg, proposes to put to the
Assistant-Secretary of State for the Beaux Arts, in the course of
the next discussion of his budget, a question regarding the
“scandal” of the Autumn Salon, and to ask him not to allow the use
of the Grand Palais for such manifestations, which discredit
French art in our national palaces.
This is the question which was put to the consulting commission
charged with giving its advice regarding the multiple concessions
for the Grand Palais in 1913.
M. Pascal, of the Institute, who presented the question, concluded
unfavorably. After a long and lively discussion, the commission
ranged itself by a large majority on the side of the proponent.
Let us recall the protests that have been addressed to the Autumn
Salon. They were the subject, a few weeks ago, of a letter from Mr.
Lampué, dean of the municipal council, who protested against the
invasion of _cubism_ into the galleries of the palace of
expositions.
It is now up to M. Léon Bérard, Assistant-Secretary of State for
the Beaux Arts, to take final action.
* * * * *
On varnishing day, Mr. Gabriel Mourey wrote in the Journal:
“What a pity it is that there is no law permitting the taking of
legal action against painters who cultivate hatred of beauty in the
public mind. These painters are the advance-guard artists and the
Cubists.” M. Mourey neglected to tell us if the legal action which
he proposes to us would be civil or penal. In our opinion, it would
be necessary to make a distinction: The rich painters might be
condemned to pay a penalty, and, so that the Government might not
be liable to lose its rights where there is nothing, the poor
painters might be hung up high and short.
Oh, tolerance! oh, progress! oh, the twentieth century!
In connection with the controversy “L’Art Décoratif” quoted the
following letter from Boucher to his pupil Fragonard: “My dear
Fragonard: You are going to see in Italy the works of Raphael, Michael
Angelo, and their imitators; I say to you in confidence and as a friend,
_if you take these people seriously you are lost_.”
* * * * *
Not the least interesting and amusing feature of the lively article from
which the above extracts are taken is its own denunciation of the
cubists _en bloc_.
[Illustration: WEREFKIN
The Country Road]
[Illustration: BECHTEJEFF
Fight of the Amazons]
It resolutely assails the more orthodox critics for what they say about
all the moderns _it likes_ and then it echoes their language in its own
condemnation of a body of men who are striving earnestly in their way to
do things.
* * * * *
_“Oh! tolerance, oh! progress!_
_Oh! twentieth century!”_
* * * * *
One has only to group the conflicting opinions of great painters and
critics to see how much depends upon the point of view and the personal
equation.
To say certain pictures are worthless is a matter of individual taste
and judgment; they may be worthless to me and not to you, just as
clothes one man likes another would refuse to wear.
But to say a school or a movement, irrespective of particular works, is
a worthless movement involves not one’s taste but one’s philosophy of
life; it involves the proposition that a movement in art that challenges
the attention of the art-world _is so devoid of force of any kind_ that
it is unworthy attention--an obvious contradiction.
Cubism has produced a lot of inane, uninteresting, and ugly pictures,
pictures hopelessly bad in both line and color, but it has also produced
pictures that are fine in line and color; but whether a particular
picture is good or bad is of no importance whatsoever in comparison with
the larger and more vital question:
_What is the relation of Cubism to the art of today and tomorrow?_
* * * * *
When the _Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts_ was founded in 1890 in a
spirit of revolt against the old Salon _Société des Artistes
Français_--which dates its expositions from 1673--the schism was
complete and the movement was denounced as revolutionary. The art world
was divided into two bitterly hostile camps. The two Salons seemed
absolutely irreconcilable.
Now they exhibit side by side in practically the same building. The
visitor can stand in the main gallery of the one and gaze into the
galleries of the other. The only distinctions are separate catalogues
and an extra charge of a franc or two if you wish to pass from the one
to the other.
* * * * *
Passing from the old Salon to the newer, one still has--to a slight
degree--the feeling of passing from older and more conservative pictures
to a newer, lighter, and somewhat more modern collection. And there is a
difference but it is so slight that casual visitors do not notice it. In
fact nine out of ten who visit the two Salons would think they were in
but one exhibition, selected and arranged by the same committee, were it
not for the additional fee and the two catalogues.
There is no reason today why the two Salons should not coalesce and make
one exhibition.
In less than twenty-five years the older has absorbed much of what was
good in the revolutionary force of the younger, and so much of the
revolutionary enthusiasm of the younger has subsided that the members of
the new _Société_ fight side by side with the members of the old
_against the two more radical exhibitions_, the _Salon d’Automne_,
organized in 1903, and the _Société des Artistes Independents_,
organized in 1884.
* * * * *
In time the Salon d’Automne will become quite as conservative as the two
older Salons and there will be no reason why it should not exhibit and
coalesce with the older.
What is happening in Paris has happened in Munich. The Munich
Secessionists, once denounced as aesthetic anarchists, have so far
subsided that they exhibit with the academic painters, retaining a faint
show of identity by having the word “Secessionist” over the doors of the
few rooms they fill.