mysterious stage. I am still under the spell of the oriental atmosphere,
not yet cooled off for objective criticism. What Florence Kiper Frank
has done with the biblical subject may terrify the orthodox student of
the Bible, but I greeted her daring heresy and free manipulation of
epochs and styles. She has skilfully blended the bloodthirsty, gloating
outcries of Deborah’s Song with the idyllic lyrics of Solomon’s Songs,
and has presented in _Jael_ a composite type, a mixture of the savage
tent-woman, of the passionate yet gentle Shulamite, and of the eternal
jealous female. The result, as far as the creation of an atmosphere
goes, is a positive success.
A word about the staging. Maurice Browne, on the privilege of a pioneer,
may be congratulated on the progress he has made in leaving behind
mouldy conventions and approaching the state where he can produce pure
aesthetic emotions. The three one-act plays on the present bill,
regardless of their merits or demerits, demonstrate the great
possibilities of an artistic stage manager, who can do away with
elaborate accessories and produce suggestive illusions with the aid of
an ultramarine background and calico apple blossoms. Yet, as in all
pioneering, there are signs of hesitation and of half-measures. I am
sure that the effect of _Jael_ would not in the least diminish (it would
rather be intensified), if we were spared the inevitable
storm-pyrotechnics. The verses in themselves imply the idea of battle
and tempest, and Miss Kiper in the title rôle has the voice and diction
to serve the purpose.
K.
Harold Bauer in Chicago
HERMAN SCHUCHERT
There yet remain certain pianists and other opinionated craftsmen in
music who will say, when approached on the subject of Harold Bauer’s
piano playing: “Oh, yes; but you know Bauer is—well, shall we say?—a
monotonist. His playing is all of one style—beautiful tone, to be sure;
but, oh, such a sameness! He shades beautifully—yes, surely, but it’s
all too colorless.” And it probably never occurs to these critics that a
pianist who uses an entirely beautiful tone, who shades delicately, and
who is definitely individual in his playing, might not seem monotonous
to the admirers of true piano-artistry. And it is quite certain that
these carpers failed to attend Bauer’s last Sunday afternoon recital in
Orchestra Hall, when and where the above composite quotation was put to
shame.
The program was headed by that most unequal set of little
pieces—interesting, dull, graceful, and often clumsy:—Brahm’s Waltzes.
The Brahms faddists may sacrifice all the credit to their idol, but he
deserves only a part of it; for Bauer made these waltzes float as
lightly and pleasantly as the material permitted, and invested them with
all possible contrast and pulse. There was no lack of what pianists call
“point,” either in this opening number or in the remainder of the
program; and it is this quality of “point,” which is the season more in
evidence in Bauer’s work than ever before, which makes the carpers
appear rather uninformed. “Point” is nothing mysterious; it means
definite and crisp rhythm, brightness of tone designed to contrast with
richness and warmth of tone, sharp shadings artistically brought out,
and a deeply satisfying precision in tempi. This man’s work deserves
this inclusive term. Whatever lack there might have been in seasons past
(there has been a fragile foundation for the criticism mentioned at the
beginning of this appreciation, when, as late as three years ago, his
tonal ideals apparently did not include great brilliance), this Sunday
recital went far to establish the fact that Bauer has a happy variety of
tone-colors at his command, which variety includes no little brilliance.
Sheer facility and digital expertness have never seemed to occupy the
attention of this master-pianist, except insofar as such facility and
expertness would give expression to purely musical content; and now if
the carpers continue to shrug their shoulders at the praise of Bauer, it
will be because they miss the usual bombast and key-swatting of esteemed
mediocrity, and certainly not because of any inadequacy of technic for
musical purposes, or lack of pianistic lustre. No mediocrity of a
technic-worshipper or piano-eater ever gave a performance of Beethoven’s
Opus 3 that could compare with that of Bauer on Sunday afternoon; for he
then projected a deeply significant art, particularly in the first
movement of the sonata, which must be inexplicable in words. Schumann’s
_Scenes from Childhood_ were given a highly imaginative treatment—a
treatment which penetrated even the academics. And Schumann’s
Toccata—that battered veteran of many an ivory struggle—ceased for once
to be an endurance stunt, and hummed forth (as the composer hoped and
indicated) as a strangely beautiful bit of music. Bauer’s playing of
this will remain long in the awakened music-receptacles. So will his
interpretation of his own arrangement of César Franck’s Prelude, Choral,
and Fugue—which are three movements vieing with each other for supreme
religious solidity—and his nonchalant handling of the tricky D-flat
Study of Liszt. The Chopin Scherzo in C-sharp minor closed a program
which would surely have been sombre and sleepy under the fingers of any
less than a pianistic musician. In certain splendid moments Bauer seems
like a high priest performing a tonal miracle, or like a potent magician
weaving curious and impossible dream-fabrics. And, with all pleasant
fancies put aside, he is an exponent of modern pianism at its best.
In music a light blue is like a flute, a darker blue a ’cello, a
still darker a thunderous double bass; and the darkest blue of
all—an organ.—_Kandinsky._
Color is a power which directly influences the soul. Color is the
key-board, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with
many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one
key or another, to cause vibrations of the soul.—_Kandinsky._
A Ferrer School in Chicago
DR. RUDOLF VON LIEBICH
The Havasupai Indian mother says: “I must not beat my boy. If I do, I
will break his will.” Unlike her pale-faced friends, she is not obsessed
with the mania for governing. We, in our insane subservience to
traditions, continue to train our children to obey. Slaves they shall
be; that is the slogan. We no longer whip men; we whip children only
because they are weaker than we are. So, a child is the slave in
successive stages of home, church, school, government, and either boss
or “superior officer.” Could Europe be at war unless its men were made
molluscous by discipline and their mental paralysis completed through
_respectability_?
Children are born materialists, poets, and joy-worshippers. We tame them
and they grow up philistines, supernaturalists, and respectable
believers in the disinterested love of dullness. Instead of teaching
them theories and superstitions, we should tell them that they are parts
of the universe; that the carbon, iron, sulphur, phosphorus, oxygen,
hydrogen, nitrogen, the zero-gases, and the dozen other elements of
which our bodies are made are also the main elements of sun, moon, and
stars,—of the whole material universe. The next step might be to show
the child, through actual experiments, the known physical and chemical
properties of these elements, thus preparing its mind for the greatest
of all poetries—the poetry of evolution. These things need but be shown,
not laboriously learned by rote; they need only to be told, not to be
taught; and if the child’s healthy inquisitiveness has not been ruined
by repression, it will delight in feeling the pull of the magnet; in
watching the electric spark that unites oxygen and hydrogen into water;
in drawing the marvelous beauties of snow flakes and other crystal
formations; in watching and aiding the growth of birds, beasts, flowers,
or fruits; in the thrill of blended voices or in other forms of
voluntary co-operation. All these things, all the realities need but be
shown to delight the untainted mind of childhood; while daily free
association with other children will soon give to each child a practical
working knowledge of ethics (quite impossible to attain under the
boss-system of the government schoolmistress) from which, as a basis,
the errors of our economic and social systems can be pointed out and
discussed. In the minds and hearts of these free children, ideals can
then be formulated which will tend toward their development into the
free society of the future, whose coming their own efforts will hasten.
For it is only through the successive enslavement of each succeeding
generation that governments can retain their powers.
Such should be some of the activities of a Ferrer or Modern School, free
from the noxious taint of authority, superstition, or respectability. If
we cannot do better let us begin, at least, with a Sunday school.
However that may be, and whatever the future of such a school, all those
interested in establishing it are cordially invited to communicate with
the editor of THE LITTLE REVIEW, with William Thurston Brown, 1125 N.
Hoyne Ave., with Anthony Udell, 817½ N. Clark St., or with the writer,
1240 Morse Ave.
The Old Spirit and the New Ways in Art
WILLIAM SAPHIER
Full of visions and ideals and eager to express them in their own way, a
group of striving young painters and sculptors in this city is working
industriously without regard for applause from either the crowd or the
few. Just as there are religious and social rebels—people who refuse to
accept the old dogmas and habits merely because they were successful at
a certain time and fit for a certain period in human history—these young
artists refuse to adopt methods and views of the past for the purpose of
expressing their views on modern subjects.
In striving to realize the new idea in form and color they are of
necessity passing through that period in which the intellect discerns
and style is chosen—the period of experiment. And if they do not achieve
as great a success as the old masters, they certainly work in the spirit
of a Monet or a Rembrandt. We print this month reproductions of work
done by four of these artists. They have nothing in common except that
they are all trying to express themselves in their own way.
Jerome S. Blum, the oldest and best known of the group, is an
extraordinary painter of the usual. He does not rely on a dramatic
subject, or on a sensational technic, to arouse interest in his work. It
is his unusual way of looking at people and nature, and his vigorous and
interesting color schemes, that have made his paintings notable. Mr.
Blum is far too imaginative to be natural, far too poetic to be “real.”
All his work strikes one as a spontaneous expression of almost childish
delight in color.
_The Orator_ is the work of Stanislaw Szukalski, a boy of nineteen, who
comes from Russian Poland. He studied at the Krakau Academy, where he
received two gold medals and five other prizes. On entering his studio
your amazement grows as you wander from one thought or emotion to
another in plaster. Each one grips and holds you vigorously.
_Impressions of Praying_, _Sleeping_, _Hurling_, and _Bondage_, a few
very interesting portraits of Max Krammer and Professor Chiio, and also
a full figure of Victor Hugo tell of the spiritual insight of this young
sculptor—the unexpected in every one. His works are full of life and
imagination. The fact that some of our able nonentities have
characterized them as caricatures proves how narrow-minded some of our
sculptors are today.
C. Raymond Johnson is only twenty-three years old, and in all the work
he has done so far purity, brilliance of color and spaciousness
predominate. It is the suggestion in his present work of great
possibilities in the near future that makes them interesting. The one in
this issue shows the highly decorative effects of his ideas. Besides
painting Mr. Johnson finds time to experiment with colored lighting and
the making of most original posters for the Chicago Little Theatre.
Christian Abrahamsen, the young and independent portrait painter, has
done some very remarkable work. His portraits are the result of
penetrating study of his subject and adaptation on the part of the
painter to the moods of the sitter. He varies his style with his
subject. His portrait of Michael Murphy sparkles with life and vigor and
holds your attention as few of the portraits of older painters can.
Beside portraits Mr. Abrahamsen paints sunny landscapes in the open air
and under clear skies. The large canvas filled with the freshness,
strength, and beauty of a clearing in northern Wisconsin, reproduced in
this issue of THE LITTLE REVIEW, represents some of the work done last
summer.
[Illustration: JEROME S. BLUM, _The Trickster_.]
[Illustration: STANISLAW SZUKALSKI, _The Orator._]
[Illustration: C. RAYMOND JOHNSON.]
[Illustration: CHRISTIAN ABRAHAMSEN, _A Clearing in Northern
Wisconsin._]
To name is to destroy. To suggest is to create.—_Stéphane
Mallarmé._
Art is a form of exaggeration, and selection, which is the very
spirit of art, is nothing more than an intensified ode of
over-emphasis.—_Oscar Wilde._
Book Discussion
Vachel Lindsay’s Books
_The Congo and Other Poems_, by Vachel Lindsay. [The Macmillan
Company, New York.]
It is not too much to say that many of us are watching Vachel Lindsay
with the undisguised hope in our hearts that he may yet prove to be the
“Great American Poet.” He has come so fast and far on the road to art
and sanity since the early days when he drew minute, and seemingly
pathological, maps of the territories of heaven, and grinning grotesques
of the Demon Rum! He has carved his own way with so huge and careless a
hand! And his work, in spite of its strangeness, is so deeply rooted in
the crude but stirring consciousness that is America to-day! Surely
there is ground for hope.
Like every artist who creates a new form, Mr. Lindsay has had to educate
his public. And the task is not by any means accomplished yet. We have
had to overcome an instinctive feeling that poetry should be dignified,
and to look the fact in the face that it must first of all be telling,
and that in cases where these two elements conflict, dignity is a
secondary consideration. We have been rudely jostled out of our academic
position that poetry must be condensed, poignant, and literary, and we
have been shown that by going back to the primitive conception—which
included as the principal element the half-chant of the bard—true poetry
may be diffuse, full of endless iterations and strangely impassioned
over crude and even external objects. So much we have learned, and after
the first shock of surprise, learned gladly. It has opened to us whole
new reaches of enjoyment. We hope sincerely that we are not yet done
with Mr. Lindsay’s educative process.
_The Congo_ is the title poem of his new volume. To describe the poem
adequately would require almost as much space as the nine pages it
occupies. So it must suffice to say that it is perilously near great
poetry, broad in sweep, imaginative, full of fire and color,
psychological—and very strange. Much in the same vein are _The Firemen’s
Ball_ and _The Santa Fe Trail_, which appeared originally in _Poetry_.
Several of the poems in this volume, among them _Darling Daughter of
Babylon_ and _I Went Down Into the Desert_, are already familiar to
readers of THE LITTLE REVIEW, as they were first published in the June
number. The volume contains also a delightful section of poems for
children, and a group dealing with the present European war.
Both _The Congo_ and Mr. Lindsay’s earlier volume, _General Booth Enters
Heaven_, are extraordinarily interesting books. Every mind which is
truly alive to-day should know at least one of them.
_Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty_, by Nicholas
Vachel Lindsay.
[Mitchell Kennerley, New York.]
Almost simultaneously with _The Congo_ has appeared a prose volume by
Mr. Lindsay, _Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty_. It is an
account, in the form of a diary, of a walk through Missouri and Kansas,
and into Colorado. Its value is almost purely personal. To anyone who is
interested in Mr. Lindsay’s striking personality, this book will serve
as a spiritual Baedeker. As literature its value is comparatively
slight. It contains, however, one of his most striking poems, _The
Kallyope Yell_, which appeared originally in _The Forum_. This alone is
worth the price of the volume.
EUNICE TIETJENS.
Pumpernickel Philosophy
_The Man of Genius_, by Herman Tuerck. [The Macmillan Company, New
York.]
Professor Tuerck, a very normal German, has been writing critical essays
since the end of the eighties, and he has not changed a bit—the same
good old idealist of the sissy category. In this book he makes a study
of Genius, and comes to the magnificent conclusion that the chief
characteristics of a genius must be goodliness, loving kindness,
respect, and loyalty to existing institutions, obedience to the law,
objectivity, and truth. Naturally, those who do not possess these
delicacies are villains. The professor demonstrates two groups of
thinkers, one in angelic white, the other in devilish black. Among the
first, the real geniuses, we find beside Christ, Buddha, Shakespeare,
Goethe, Byron, also Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon. But oh, Mr. Wilson,
what German atrocities! Mr. Tuerck mercilessly disfigures his victims
and pastes upon them with his saliva accurate, uniform labels. In
_Hamlet_, in _Faust_, in _Manfred_, in the mentioned law-givers and
warriors, the author manages to discover goody-goody traits of exemplary
burghers. In the Black Gallery we face the lugubrious sinners—Stirner,
Nietzsche, and Ibsen. “Woe to him who follows these modern antisophers!”
cries Mr. Tuerck, for they are enemies of humanity, of the state, of
society, of reality, of truth, for they are selfish and subjective. “The
Devil, the Father of Lies, is great and Friedrich Nietzsche is his
prophet.”
A word of reassurance for Mr. Thomas Hardy. This Sauerkraut-gem, _The
Man of Genius_, has had _seven_ editions in Germany, and has aroused
wide enthusiasm there, as witnessed by the numerous press-notices
exaltingly praising the great idealist Tuerck, written by professors,
Geheimraths, Hofraths, catholics, protestants, and even by socialists!
Now, pray, ought there be any fear for the Nietzscheanization of the
Fatherland?
K.
Kilmer’s Confession
_Trees, and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer. [George H. Doran Company,
New York.]
Mr. Kilmer furnishes the following prose account of his convictions: “I
am catholic in my tastes and Catholic in religion, am socially a
democrat and politically a Democrat. I am a special writer on the staff
of the _New York Times Sunday Magazine_, the _Times Review of Books_ and
the _Literary Digest_. I am bored by Feminism, Futurism, Free Love.”
This is perhaps a more succinct expression of his facility of faith than
can be found in his verse. Readers should thank him for it, because it
renders unnecessary any further attempt to discover what he believes.
At the opening of the volume, Mr. Kilmer quotes the following stanza
from Coventry Patmore:
Mine is no horse with wings, to gain
The region of the Spheral chime
He does but drag a rumbling wain,
Cheered by the coupled bells of rhyme.
This, too, is useful, because it frankly warns us against looking in his
verse for anything which is not there.
Within his self-imposed limitations, Mr. Kilmer has done good work. The
amusing couplets about _Servant Girl and Grocer’s Boy_ have pleased
countless newspaper readers, _The Twelve-Forty-Five_ is a graphic
description of the feeling produced by a late suburban train, _To a
Young Poet Who Killed Himself_ is an obvious rebuke to the small-hearted
versifier, and _Old Poets_ is a comfortable exposition of the philosophy
of comfort. The religious poems will probably not be moving to anyone
who does not share Mr. Kilmer’s creed.
Mr. Kilmer’s work is glossy with a simplicity more easy-going than
profound. Though he is young himself, he obviously does not sympathize
with young poets, of whom he writes:
There is no peace to be taken
With poets who are young,
For they worry about the wars to be fought
And the songs that must be sung.
His ideal is that of the “old poet”:—
But the old man knows that he’s in his chair
And that God’s on His throne in the sky.
So he sits by his fire in comfort
And he lets the world spin by.
G. S.
Hilarious Iconoclasm
_Art_, by Clive Bell. [Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.]
It is an exquisite pleasure to disagree with Clive Bell! Like a fierce
Hun he whirls through the art galleries of Europe, and smashes all
venerated masterpieces into a heap of rubbish, sparing but the Byzantine
Primitives and some of the Post-Impressionists. Between these two epochs
he sees a hideous gap; not more than one in a hundred of the works
produced between 1450 and 1850 is he willing to accept as a work of art.
It naturally hurts to witness the slaughter of your old friends, such as
Michelangelo, Velasquez, Whistler; but our Attila performs his massacre
so beautifully, with such a charming sense of humor, that you cannot
help admiring the paradoxical feats. What but a good-humored smile will
provoke in you such a prank, e. g.: “Nietzsche’s preposterous nonsense
knocked the bottom out of nonsense more preposterous and far more vile”?
The best part of it is the fact that the author does not attempt to
convince you in anything, for neither is he convinced in the
infallibility of his hypotheses. The book is a relucent gem among the
recent dull and heavy works of art.
Comments of an Idler on Three New Books
_Eris: A Dramatic Allegory_, by Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff (Moffatt,
Yard), is, we are told on the cover, “full of vigorous enthusiasm, and
embodies the philosophy of Henri Bergson,” to whom on a flyleaf the book
is duly dedicated. It is in careful rhythmic blank verse; a dialogue,
principally, between “Man” and “Thought,” with “Past” and “Future” now
and then interrupting. The allegory is prefaced by a portrait of the
author by Helleu; we trust an unfair one. A strangely bovine expression
greets us from under a plumed black hat and from over shoulders and arms
drawn like a Goops. Helleu made lovely things once; why this?
In _Eris_ we find Man hurling defiance at Thought, who taunts him, “You
cannot vanquish me while Life endures.” Discussion between them on this
point covers some forty pages of melodious argument. Six of these (and
they are consecutive) form a fairly comprehensive guide-book to a trip
around the world, as Man, distracted, stops off at many well-known
points seeking to escape pursuing Thought.
In Venice I spread sail with Capulet
And plied an oar across the green lagoons
The soft air vibrant with the minstrels’ song:
I dreamed in Pisa’s woodland and the gulf
Of Lerici, where once again I heard
The lyrich echo of pure Shelley’s voice.
On Pæstum’s glory and on Dougga’s mount
I studied metope and fluted frieze—
And so on. “Man” finally reaches Mount Parnassus—
The mighty throne of Zeus
Hides like a cloud-veiled mist within the heavens;
I am so near divinity it seems
That I could tread the pathway of the stars;
but “Thought” comes hurrying along, two pages later. Man cries to him
desperately:
Envelope me within the cosmic heart
Freed of my separate hideous entity,
Blown with the wingéd dust from whence I came!
They struggle together, and Man plunges over the cliff. Thought,
“assuming a sudden intenser magnitude, rises out of the dust of Man”
(the stage directions seem a little confused here) and shouts:
At last to conquer after æons of strife—
The reeling stars man’s silent sepulchre.
There are graceful lines and pictures, occasionally a good simile.
Technically the lines are too smooth, too neatly finished, each in its
little five-iambic jacket. The lyrics lack singing quality. There is a
tedious list, two pages, of famous ladies—Helen, Sappho, Salammbo, from
Eve to the Virgin Mary—as Man cries to Past, “What woman are you in
disguise?” Swinburne did this gorgeously somewhere, making each speak;
but these do not—they do not even live.