drawings may very possibly be altogether 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 meaning of this
personal form of shorthand, and the appending of an objective title
to what is intended as a subjective 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 supposed to be a subjective mood.
I think it may safely be said that in no case does this mood
manifest itself 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 intelligible 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 expression this new form is as yet outside of
the domain of art.
But that makes the attitude of the _observer_ the test whether a given
product is or is not art, while the true test is the attitude of the
_producer_.
Whether a given work is or is not art is _determined_ and _forever
fixed_ at the time of its production. If art to him who creates it, it
is art to all humanity for all time; neither a man’s neighbors nor
future generations can deprive it of its character.
* * * * *
Quite a good many years ago I made the attempt, in lecture and book
form, to define art.[40]
What is Art? The question is as old as man himself, for we have no
records of men without some manifestation of the art impulse....
Man is the _combination_ of _thought_ and _symbol_; thought
striving to express itself, and symbol, the means whereby it
achieves that end. The symbol may be sound, word, or song; or it
may be line, form, or structure; it matters not. A cry is the
language of the child; speech is the every-day utterance of the
man; the heart of the singer bursts forth in song; the musician
speaks in harmonies, the painter in line and color, the sculptor in
form, the architect in structure, the poet in rhyme and rhythm--and
each is silent save in his own way....
Now what is the distinction between _thought_ expression which _is
art_ and _thought_ expression which is _not art_?
In its broadest significance, and in its very essence, _art is
delight in thought and symbol_.
Mark the union--art is delight in _both_ the thought _and_ the
symbol. Without the double delight--the combination of these two
quite distinct delights, there can be no art.
To the writer of prose there may come a beautiful fancy; he
delights in it and hastens to record his thought. He may write the
most flowing, the most perfect prose, but as he writes he is still
occupied with his thought; his sole object is to find words which
will but express it. The same fancy comes to the poet; he, too,
delights in it, and seeks to record it; but when the poet touches
pen to paper he is seized with a new and an entirely distinct
delight, a delight _in his method of expressing_ his thought; he
may even permit his delight in his symbol, the flow, rhythm and
ring of rhyme, to sweep him onward in forgetfulness of his first
fancy--literature is filled with such examples.
Now and then a writer of prose expresses himself so finely, writes
so well, that we feel instinctively and immediately not only the
delight in the thought, but also a certain amount of delight in the
manner of expressing the thought, in the style, ... and to the
extent of the _double_ delight such prose is art, for art, as we
shall see, is by no means confined to the five so-called fine arts.
No hard and fast line can be drawn between that which is art and
that which is not art, the one fades imperceptibly into the other.
And farther on in the same little volume:[41]
The current notions of art are such and the current notions of
labor are such that it may seem to most of you as though any
attempt to discuss the two together could result only in a waste of
words; yet time was when art and labor were so intimately united in
the great domain of human effort that the one almost invariably
implied more or less of the other; and the time will yet be when
there will be no labor without at least some art, even as there is
now and ever has been no art without at least some labor.
Art lies not in the employment, but in the _manner_ of the
employment of the powers of nature for an end; not in the task, but
in the _attitude_ of the worker towards his task.
* * * * *
Whether a Cubist painting is or is not art does not depend upon the
opinion of either critic or multitude; if it did it would be art to one
man and not to another, art to one generation and not to another--an
illogical conclusion.
[Illustration: KLEE
House by the Brook]
[Illustration: VAN REES
Still Life]
Most Cubist pictures are plainly the work of men who are profoundly
moved by an idea and who are striving to express that idea in a highly
original manner. It may be the manner they have chosen is so abstract,
so scientifically theoretical, that it will in the end--if pursued--kill
the imagination, stifle all delight, and so result in failure as _art
expression_; but so long as the men take sincere delight in both what
they are trying to say and their manner of utterance, it is impossible
to deny the character of art to their works.
In proportion to their originality and daring, there may be more of
living and vital art in what they are doing than in the art of the
academic painter who follows in the footsteps of others without any
particular effort.
In other words, it is quite conceivable there may be more of vital and
living art in a movement doomed to failure than in a movement that has
achieved success and become stagnant.
_The vitality lies in the element of earnest striving rather than in the
direction the striving takes._
VI
THE THEORY OF CUBISM
The art that is at hand is a highly _subjective_ art as distinguished
from the highly _objective_ art of the Impressionist and Realist, but no
man can say just what forms this new art will assume.
Cubism is one attempt, Futurism is another, Compositional painting is
another; there will be many more attempts before freedom of expression
is attained.
Cubism is interesting because it accentuates the value of planes and
shows what can be done with elemental propositions in drawing. But the
student or painter who turns to Cubism because he thinks it is to become
a fad and will pay, runs the risk of making a great mistake; he would
better stick to older methods.
* * * * *
The Orphists have been mentioned; there were no Orphist pictures in the
International Exhibition. The movement is based on the purely practical
proposition that color in itself, and color alone without drawing, may
be beautiful. So they just place lines and masses of color on a canvas
and frame the canvas.
It sounds absurd, yet the theory is the very foundation of wall
decoration, of interior furnishing, of dressmaking--the mere
juxtaposition of masses of color, with or without pattern.
The Orphist “picture” may not be much of a picture in the accepted sense
of the term, but it may afford pleasure as a color combination and may
be of very real value to the decorator, the furnisher, the dressmaker,
the scene-painter, the costumer.
The theory is not new. So long as man has loved color he has used it
irrespective of pattern.
One part of the theory of the Cubists is as old as that of the Orphists.
It is simply that the painter can do with line and color what the
composer does with sound. In other words they demand the same freedom in
the use of line and color that every great composer has in the use of
sound.
If, for instance, a great musician composes a pastoral symphony does he
imitate the mooing of cows, the bleating of lambs, the rippling of
brooks? Such attempts would be recognized as cheap in the extreme.
“Very well,” the Cubist says, “if I paint a pastoral symphony why should
I so much as suggest cows, sheep, landscape, brook? Why should people
insist upon _seeing_ in my painting what they cannot _hear_ in Mozart’s
or Beethoven’s music?”
* * * * *
The comparison which Picabia is fondest of making is that with absolute
music. The rules of musical composition, he points out, are sufficiently
hampering in themselves to the composer’s mood, or call it inspiration.
Words, as of songs, still further confine his vision of melody, even
though they give in the beginning the impression that evokes the mood.
Songs without words, the expression of the impression made on him by a
great poem without the necessity of following in musical form the
literary form of the poet, leave him far freer, give his subjectivity
far wider scope. Modern composers have rebelled against the old fetters;
modern painters have begun to feel the same need of a freer, an absolute
method of expression. Hence, “post-impressionism,” which refuses
altogether to be bound by objectivity, by literal reproduction of the
object seen, in connection with the mood, the after-impression, received
and fixed on the canvas. A composer may be inspired by a walk in the
country, says M. Picabia, and produce a production of the landscape
scene, of its details of form and color? No; he expresses it in sound
waves, he translates it into an expression of the impression, the mood.
And as there are absolute sound waves, so there are absolute waves of
color and form. Modern music has won its way; this modern painting, too,
will find appreciation and understanding in the days to come.
* * * * *
The Cubists have set themselves a hard task. It is a good deal easier to
_sing_ an _emotion_ than _paint_ one. It is a good deal easier to
_paint_ an _object_ than _sing_ one--therein lies the trouble.
Yet in the beginning both music and painting were imitative. Music
imitated natural sounds; drawing and painting imitated natural objects.
But soon men began to sing for the pleasure of singing and play on
instruments for the pleasure of playing, and the imitation of natural
sounds was left far behind as primitive and elemental, and music tended
to become more and more expressive of emotions, elemental emotions at
first, finer and purer emotions later, until in the western world
abstract purity was reached in Beethoven.
Since Beethoven there has been a reaction to more imitative music, as in
the operas of Wagner.
While music departed farther and farther from imitation of natural
sounds, drawing and painting progressed toward the more perfect
representation of natural objects.
Or rather painting developed along two distinct lines--one the more
perfect representation of objects _for the sake of the representation_;
the other compositions of line and color--not
[Illustration: BLOCH
Summer Night]
[Illustration: BLOCH
The Duel]
imitative--for the sake of the pleasure afforded _by the pattern and the
color scheme_.
This second development parallels that of music--compositions of line
and color, like compositions of sound for the pleasure they give, and
not for the associations they arouse.
Strange as it may sound, it is nevertheless true, that four-fifths of
the pleasure we get in our daily lives out of line and color is not from
the _imitative_ development, the _picture_ side, but from the
_non-imitative_, the _abstract_ side.
Our clothes, our homes, our public buildings, our cities, our landscapes
are made beautiful by the use of line and color in patterns and
masses--in harmonious composition. It is only here and there that we
come in contact with either line or color used imitatively.
We all know how distressingly tiresome a wall-paper becomes if it is
made up of imitative scenes--that is, a series of pictures, and the
better the pictures the sooner we tire of the paper.
While a paper that contains no imitative spots, or in which the
imitative features are so subdued and conventionalized we _feel_ them
rather than _see_ them, may be restful and pleasing; and a wall that is
a monotone if bordered by wainscoting and frieze in monotones, may wear
the best of all.
* * * * *
But while the great, the practical use of line and color followed
parallel lines with sound and got farther and farther away from
imitative features, _the art_ of painting, as it is commonly called,
developed in just the opposite direction, it became more and more
imitative, until of late years it would seem that the last word has been
said in the reproduction of natural objects and natural light and color
effects.
Of course the _last_ word has not been said, and never will be said so
long as _individuals_ are born, but _so much_ has been said that it is
not surprising there is a reaction, nor is it surprising that one phase
of this reaction should be an attempt to use line and color as the
decorator and the dressmaker and a thousand others use them, to express
and kindle pleasurable emotions.
In short it is not surprising that the painter of pictures should awaken
to the realization of the fact that others use and have used, from the
beginning, line and color to make delightful compositions that have no
relation to natural objects, as the musician uses sound to make
delightful compositions that have no relation to natural noises.
* * * * *
As a rule women have a finer instinct for the use and arrangement of
color than painters. Few wives of painters would trust their husbands to
decorate their dinner tables.
Look at the gruesome and ugly “still lifes” done by painters of renown.
I saw one the other day of some fish on a platter by an American painter
famous for such things. If his wife had found that platter of dead and
clammy fish in her drawing room she would have exclaimed, “For goodness
sake, how did that get in here? Take it back to the kitchen.”
* * * * *
Look at the naive and absurd compositions of flowers and fruit that
painters put together to paint; no woman of taste would permit them on
her tea table.
I know a charming woman whose dinner tables are a dream of beauty,
veritable compositions in which flowers and fruits and lights and every
detail are far more thoughtfully considered than are the details in most
pictures. In short, without knowing it she creates a work of art each
time she entertains. Imagine what her table would be if left to an
artist or a committee of artists--or her husband!
Most painters’ studios are either devoid of all color arrangement or
positively ugly.
So far as _color_ goes many a portrait owes its success more to the
_modiste_ than the artist.
* * * * *
From the painting of color harmonies and line harmonies it is but a step
to insist that line and color composition may be used like sound
compositions to express one’s moods and emotions.
That is what these modern men are trying to do.
You may not think it is possible for them to succeed but why should you
ridicule the attempt?
The attempt is an ambitious one, it is an attempt to extend the sphere
of painting, and it may lead to new and beautiful things. Should we not
watch it with interest and sympathy even if you think it foredoomed to
failure?
* * * * *
Watch a painter preparing to paint a picture of still life. He
takes a vase of flowers and places it on a table; beside it he
poses, perhaps a brass bowl and some other objects, having regard
throughout for light and, above all, for proportion and color. That
is when he is _really painting_ his picture, when he is really
_composing_, receiving his impression, creating his subjective
mood. The objective part of his work is done; all that remains now
is to give expression to that impression, that mood. Instead of
thus allowing his inspiration to gain its full value and
significance, he sits down and reproduces it with a varying degree
of literalness. He becomes nothing more or less than a copyist, a
photographer of his own work. He kills within himself its
subjective values, or, at best, seeks to give them expression
filtered by objectivity. Or, again, consider the case of the
portrait painter. He studies sitters from every point of view,
gathering impressions. Then he begins to experiment with poses,
draperies, light effects, seeking to heighten the impression
already received from the sitter himself. At last he is content
with pose, draperies, background, lights--his picture is there. But
why, then, go to the trouble of painting it, of copying it? If the
work he has done, finished in all its details, is to benefit him,
he must proceed from it and beyond it. His real work then is to
communicate to others the mood awakened in him.[42]
* * * * *
In another interview Picabia said:
You of New York should be quick to understand me and my fellow
painters. Your New York is the cubist, the futurist city. It
expresses in its architecture, its life, its spirit, the modern
thought. You have passed through all the old schools, and are
futurists in word and deed and thought. You have been affected by
all these schools just as we have been affected by our older
schools.
Because of your extreme modernity therefore, you should quickly
understand the studies which I have made since my arrival in New
York. They express the spirit of New York as I feel it, and the
crowded streets of your city as I feel them, their surging, their
unrest, their commercialism, and their atmospheric charm.
You see no form? No substance? Is it that I go out into your city
and see nothing? I see much, much more, perhaps, than you who are
used to it see. I see your stupendous skyscrapers, your mammoth
buildings and marvellous subways, a thousand evidences of your
great wealth on all sides. The tens of thousands of workers and
toilers, your alert and shrewd-looking shop girls, all hurrying
somewhere. I see your theater crowds at night gleaming, fluttering,
smilingly happy, smartly gowned. There you have the spirit of
modernity again.
But I do not paint these things which my eye sees. I paint that
which my brain, my soul, sees. I walk from the Battery to Central
Park. I mingle with your workers, and your Fifth Avenue mondaines.
My brain gets the impression of each movement; there is the driving
hurry of the former, their breathless haste to reach the place of
their work in the morning and their equal haste to reach their
homes at night. There is the languid grace of the latter, emanating
a subtle perfume, a more subtle sensuousness.
I hear every language in the world spoken, the staccato of the New
Yorker, the soft cadences of the Latin people, the heavy rumble of
the Teuton, and the ensemble remains in my soul as the ensemble of
some great opera.
At night from your harbor I look at your mammoth buildings. I see
your city as a city of aerial lights and shadows; the streets are
your shadows. Your harbor in the daylight shows the shipping
[Illustration: HERBIN
Landscape]
of a world, the flags of all countries add their color to that
given by your sky, your waters, and your painted craft of every
size.
I absorb these impressions. I am in no hurry to put them on canvas.
I let them remain in my brain, and then when the spirit of creation
is at flood-tide, I improvise my pictures as a musician improvises
music. The harmonies of my studies grow and take form under my
brush, as the musician’s harmonies grow under his fingers. His
music is from his brain and his soul just as my studies are from my
brain and soul. Is this not clear to you?
* * * * *
You say all this cannot be done.
That is precisely the question, and one thing certain, it cannot and
will not be done, unless some one _tries_ to do it.
It is just as legitimate to attempt to express one’s emotions by the use
of line and color as by the use of sound as in music, or by the use of
motion as in pantomime.
One man says, “I will paint the portrait of a beautiful woman.”
A second says, “I will not paint her portrait, but I will put on canvas
a composition of colors so joyous it will express my admiration for
her.”
A third says, “I will compose a sonata or a symphony or a ‘song without
words’ to express my love for her.”
The public accepts without question the work of the first and third--the
portrait painter and the musician--but rejects the work of the
second--the painter of harmonies. Why? Because he does not copy the
features and the dress of the woman.
Picabia again says:
Art, art, what is art? Is it copying faithfully a person’s face? A
landscape? No, that is machinery. Painting Nature as she is, is not
art, it is mechanical genius. The old masters turned out by hand
the most perfect models, the most faithful copies of what they saw.
That all their paintings are not alike is due to the fact that no
two men see the same things the same way. Those old masters were,
and their modern followers are, faithful depicters of the actual,
but I do not call that art today, because we have outgrown it. It
is old, and only the new should live. Creating a picture without
models is art.
They were successful, those old masters; they filled a place in our
life that cannot be filled otherwise, but we have outgrown them. It
is a most excellent thing to keep their paintings in the art
museums as curiosities for us and for those who will come after us.
Their paintings are to us what the alphabet is to the child.
We moderns, if so you think of us, express the spirit of the modern
time, the twentieth century. And we express it on canvas the way
the great composers express it in their music.
There is plenty of clear expression and fine enthusiasm in those three
paragraphs.
* * * * *
There is, however, another side to Cubism and one not so easy to
understand.
Painting color harmonies for the sake of their emotional effect is easy
of comprehension. But when the Cubist sets out to convey the impression,
not of the surfaces, but of the very substance of things, he is
attempting something very different from what has heretofore been
considered within the sphere of painting. Possibly he is attempting
something painting cannot do.
The theory is so abstract and so scientific it comes near paralyzing the
art. It is _too coldly logical_ and unemotional to produce great art,
for great art is and must be fundamentally _emotional_.
Of Picasso, the founder and leading exponent of Cubism, a sympathetic
writer says:
His whole tendency is a negation of the main tenets of the gospel
of Cézanne whose conception of form he rejects, together 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 confrère, Marius De Zayas, who studied
the raison d’être of this work, together with Picasso. Describing
his process of aesthetic 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 intention 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 spectacle 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 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 perceives, but deals with all those which, according to
him, constitute the individuality of form; and with his peculiar
fantasy he develops and transforms them.