Part 1

CUBISTS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM

Cubists and Post-Impressionism

BY

ARTHUR JEROME EDDY

Author of “Delight, the Soul of Art,” “Recollections and Impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler,” etc.

With Twenty-three Reproductions in Color of Cubist and Post-Impressionist Paintings, and Forty-six Half-Tone Illustrations

CHICAGO

A. C. McCLURG & CO.

1914

Copyright

A. C. McClurg & Co.

1914

Published March, 1914

W. F. HAL. PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO

_TO THAT SPIRIT_ _the beating of whose restless wings is heard in every land_

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. A Sensation 1

II. Post-Impressionism 11

III. Les Fauves 33

IV. A Futile Protest 50

V. What is Cubism? 60

VI. The Theory of Cubism 90

VII. The New Art in Munich 110

VIII. Color Music 140

IX. Esoragoto 147

X. Ugliness 154

XI. Futurism 164

XII. Virile-Impressionism 191

XIII. Sculpture 202

XIV. In Conclusion 207

Appendix I. Exhibitions at 291 Fifth Avenue 211

Appendix II. Two Comments 214

Bibliography 223

Index 239

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

BALLA, _Dog and person in movement_ 164

BECHTEJEFF, _Fight of the Amazons_ 53

BLOCH, _Summer night_ 92

_The duel_ 93

BOCCIONI, _Head, houses, light_ 184

_Spiral expansion of muscles in action_ 204

BRANCUSI, _M’lle Poganey_ 202

CARDOZA, SOUSA, _Marine_ 4

_Leap of the rabbit_ 84

_Stronghold_ 148

CÉZANNE, _Portrait of self_ 26

_Village street_ 27

_Still life_ 36

CHABAUD, _The laborer_ 16

_Cemetery gates_ 108

CHARMY, _Landscape_ 200

DERAIN, _Forest at Martigues_ 154

DOVE, _Based on leaf forms and spaces_ 48

DUCHAMP, _Chess players_ 64

_King and queen_ 72

ERBSLOH, _Young woman_ 207

GAUGUIN, _Portrait of self_ 128

_Farmyard_ 129

_Scene in Tahiti_ 132

GIRIEUD, _Woman seated_ 141

GLEIZES, _Man on balcony_ _Frontispiece_

_Original drawing for man on balcony_ 70

GRIS, _Still life_ 133

HERBIN, _Landscape_ 96

_Still life_ 186

JAWLENSKY, _Head of a girl_ 158

KANDINSKY, _Village street_ 20

_Landscape with two poplars_ 105

_Improvisation No. 29_ 116

_Improvisation No. 30_ 124

KLEE, _House by the brook_ 88

KROLL, _Brooklyn Bridge_ 198

_Still life_ 210

LEGER, _The chimneys_ 61

LEHMBRUCK, _Kneeling woman_ 203

MARC, _The steer_ 104

MATISSE, _The dance_ 44

_Woman in red madras_ 112

_Portrait heads_ 205

_Back of woman_ 206

METZINGER, _The taster_ 60

MÜNTER, _The boat ride_ 172

_The white wall_ 173

PICABIA, _Dance at the spring_ 68

PICASSO, _Woman with mandolin_ 74

_The poet_ 75

_Drawing_ 100

_Old woman_ 140

ROUSSEAU, _Portrait of self_ 12

_Landscape_ 13

RUSSOLO, _Rebellion_ 178

SEGONZAC, _Pasturage_ 182

_Forest_ 192

SEVERINI, _The milliner_ 80

VAN GOGH, _Portrait of self_ 40

_Cafe_ 56

_Woman with frying pan_ 120

_Chair with pipe_ 121

VAN REES, _Still life_ 89

_Maternity_ 168

VILLON, _Young girl_ 32

VLAMINCK, _Village_ 136

WEREFKIN, _The country road_ 52

ZAK, _The shepherd_ 8

CUBISTS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM

ALAS! ALAS!!

“It is unlikely that any painters will ever again have to face the hostility which was manifested against the Impressionists. The repetition of such a phenomenon would be impossible. The case of the Impressionists, in which withering scorn yielded place to admiration, has put criticism on its guard. It will surely stand as a warning, and ought to prevent the recurrence of a similar outburst of indignation against the innovators and independents whom time may yet bring forth.”

--“Manet and the French Impressionists,” by Theodore Duret, pp. 180, 181.

Cubists and Post-Impressionism

I

A SENSATION

Since the exhibit at the Columbian Exposition (1893) nothing has happened in the world of American art so stimulating as the recent INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF MODERN ART. New York and Chicago, spring of 1913.[1]

“Stimulating” is the word, for while the recent exhibition may have lacked some of the good, solidly painted pictures found in the earlier, it contained so much that was fresh, new, original--eccentric, if you prefer--that it gave our art-world food for thought--and heated controversy.

* * * * *

Art thrives on controversy--like every human endeavor. The fiercer the controversy the _surer_, the _sounder_, the _saner_ the outcome.

* * * * *

Perfection is unattainable. As man in his loftiest flight stretches forth his hand to seize a star he drops back to earth. The finer, the purer the development of any art the more certain the reaction, the return to elemental conditions--to begin over again.

* * * * *

The young sculptor looks at the chaste perfection of Greek sculpture and says, “What is the use? I will do something different.” The young painter looks at the great painters of yesterday and exclaims, “What is the use? I cannot excel them in their way; I must do something in my own way.” It is the same in business; the young merchant studies the methods of the successful men in his line and says, “It is idle for me to copy their methods. I will do something different, something in my own way,” and he displays his goods differently, advertises differently, conducts his business differently, and _if successful_ is hailed as a genius, if a failure he is regarded as a visionary or an eccentric--the result making all the difference in the world in the verdict of the public.

Painting today is a terrible problem to an absolutely sincere, honest, and yet ambitious mind.

Fired to set forth something of his very own, to avoid plagiarism and give the world something it has never yet received, the artist, in whatever direction he advances, finds the horizon bounded by a great master whom he cannot hope to surpass. Well, indeed, may he ask what is the use of trying to do what Van Eyck, Botticelli, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Veronese, Michael Angelo, Velasquez--nay, even what Constable, Corot, Claude Monet, and Signac have done to perfection?

In despair at surpassing the limits set by the great masters of progress he harks back, as the pre-Raphaelites did, to the painters before Raphael. Alas, Fra Lippi and Taddeo Gaddi are soon found to be too sophisticated. He goes back farther, to Giotto, to Orcagna, even to the Egyptians, and with the same result. At last he takes his courage in his hands and, throwing overboard the whole cargo of art history, ancient and modern, he seeks to forget that picture was ever painted, and with eyes freed from traditional vision he seeks to recreate the barbaric art of infancy.

Call this man an extremist if you like, but do not lightly dub him insincere and charlatan. He is the counterpart in art of the extremist in politics, the man who has no patience with palliative measures, who demands the whole loaf and nothing but the loaf, who kicks savagely away the fragments of bread tendered him by the moderate and respectable. A dangerous man he may be, but he is no trifler; and, if he succeeds in his purpose, as extremists sometimes do, the whipped world at his feet hails him as reformer and benefactor of humanity.[2]

* * * * *

The Columbian Exposition gave American art a tremendous impetus forward, but of late it has been getting a little smug; the International Exhibition came and gave our complacency a severe jolt.

The net result is that American art has received another impulse forward; it will do bigger and finer and saner things. It will not copy the eccentricities, the exaggerations, the morbid enthusiasms of the recent exhibition, because America as yet is not given to eccentricities and morbidness--though it may be to a youthful habit of exaggeration. America is essentially sane and healthful--say quite practical--in its outlook, hence it will absorb all that is good in the extreme modern movement and reject what is bad.

Neither our students nor our painters will be carried off their feet but they will be helped onward. They will be helped in their technic, and they will see things from new angles, they will be more independent, in short they will be better and bigger painters.

They will not be Cubists, Orphists, or Futurists, but they will absorb all there is of good in Cubism, Orphism, Futurism--and other “isms;” and bear in mind it is the _ist_ who is always blazing a trail somewhere; he may lose himself in the dense undergrowth of his theories but he at least marks a path others have not trodden.

The recent exhibition was not an isolated movement. There are no _isolated_ movements in life. The International Exhibition was just as inevitable as the Progressive political convention of 1912 in Chicago.

The world is filled with ferment--ferment of new ideas, ferment of originality and individuality, of assertion of independence. This is true in religion, science, politics as well as in art. It is true in business. _New thought_ is everywhere. The most radical suggestions are debated at the dinner table. In politics what would have been considered socialistic twenty years ago is accepted today as reasonable. To the conservative masses these new departures may seem like a wild overturning of all that is sacred, but there is no need for fear; all that _is really sound_ will gain in the end.

* * * * *

Neither Cubism, Futurism nor any other “ism” troubles the really great painter; it is the little fellow who fumes and swears.

The poise of the great man is not at all disturbed by the eccentric and the bizarre; on the contrary he looks with a curious eye to see if something of value may not be found.

Whistler would not have painted Cubist pictures, but having known the man I can say that nothing there may be of good in Cubism would have gotten by the penetrating vision of that great painter.

It is characteristic of the little man to ridicule or resent everything he does not understand; it is characteristic of the great man to be silent in the presence of what he does not understand.

* * * * *

Just now the older men are violently opposed to the newer; there is no attempt at understanding and there is abundant ridicule instead of sympathy.

This is inevitable and quite in accord with human nature, but it is a pity. The old and the new are not rivals; the new is simply a departure from the old, simply an attempt to do something different with line and color. The older men should watch the younger with keenest interest; they may feel sure the new is foredoomed to failure, but that is no cause for rejoicing; on the contrary the older man should always be sorry to see the soaring flights of youth come to grief.

* * * * *

Because a man buys a few Cubist pictures it must not be assumed he is a believer in Cubism.

Because a man has a few books on socialism or anarchism in his library we do not assume he is a socialist, or an anarchist; on the contrary it is commonly assumed he is simply broadly and sanely interested in social and political theories. The radical may not convince me he is right, but he may show me I am wrong.

The man who flies into a passion at pictures because they are not like the pictures he owns is on a par with the man who flies into a passion at books because they are not like the books he owns--the world is filled with such men, unreceptive, unresponsive; many intelligent in their narrow way, but bigoted.

To most men a new idea is a greater shock than a cold plunge in winter.

Personally I have no more interest in Cubism than in any other “ism,” but failure to react to new impressions is a sure sign of age. I would hate to be so old that a new picture or a new idea would frighten me.

I would like to own Raphaels and Titians and Rembrandts and Velasquezes, but I can’t afford it. I say I would like to _own_ them; no, I would not, for I have the conviction that no man has _the right_ to appropriate to himself the work of the great masters. Their paintings belong to the world and should be in public places for the enjoyment and instruction of _all_.

It is the high privilege of the private buyer to buy the works of _new men_, and by encouraging them disclose a Rembrandt, a Hals, a Millet, a Corot, a Manet, but when the public begins to want the pictures the private buyer, instead of bidding against the public, should step one side; his task is done, his opportunity has passed.

* * * * *

Most men buy pictures not because they want them, but because some one else wants them.

The man who gives half a million for a Rembrandt does so not because he knows or cares anything about the picture, but solely because he is made to believe some one else wants it $450,000 worth.

Read this:

The crowning event of the day was the sale of Rembrandt’s “Bathsheba.” The bidding started at 150,000 francs and within a couple of minutes a perfect whirlwind of bids had carried the price to 500,000 francs offered by a dealer, Mr. Trotti.

Already the smaller fry among the bidders had been eliminated and the contest was circumscribed to a small group, Messrs. Duveen, Wildenstein, Tedesco, Muller and Trotti being the most ardent in the battle.

“Six hundred thousand!” cried Mr. Duveen.

“Six hundred and fifty thousand,” said Mr. Wildenstein.

Mr. Duveen replied with a nod which meant the addition of another 50,000. Then with bids of 10,000 and 25,000 the price mounted, the struggle developing into a duel between Mr. Wildenstein and Mr. Duveen. Eight hundred thousand francs was reached and left behind; 900,000 francs in turn was passed.

“Nine hundred and fifty thousand,” rapped out Mr. Duveen.

“Nine hundred and sixty thousand,” responded Mr. Wildenstein.

Then came “nine hundred and seventy thousand” and “nine hundred and eighty thousand.” By this time the entire gathering was spellbound by the spectacle of the gladiatorial contest for the picture.

“Nine hundred and ninety thousand,” said Mr. Wildenstein.

There was an instant of silence.

“A million!”

Every eye turned from the speaker, Mr. Duveen, to gaze on Mr. Wildenstein expectantly. Then there was silence, signifying his withdrawal from the fight.

A mighty hubbub arose. The Rembrandt had been knocked down to Mr. Duveen for a million francs, or, with the commission, 1,100,000 francs. Never has such a price been given for a Rembrandt.

This is not dealing in art, it is art on the horse-block.

Here is the record of that one painting:

1734--Sold at Antwerp for $ 109

1791--Sold at Paris for 240

1814--Sold at London for 525

1830--Sold at London for 790

1831--Sold at London for 792

1832--Sold at London for 1,260

1841--Sold at Paris for 1,576

1913--Sold at Paris for 220,000

* * * * *

During the exhibition in New York and Chicago the pictures were the one topic of conversation; for the time being it was worth while to dine out; society became almost animated.

I recall one delightful and irascible old gentleman, critic and painter, who had not had a fresh appreciation for twenty-five years. For him art ended with the Barbizon school. Whistler, Monet, Degas had no sure places.

* * * * *

We all have the courage of _others_’ convictions.

The new, however good, is always queer; the old, however bad, is never strange.

Most people laugh at new pictures because they are afraid if they don’t laugh at the pictures, other people will laugh at _them_.

Now and then a man laughs at a queer picture because he can’t help it, _he_ is a _joy_.

Laughter is the honest emotion of the child, on the grown-up it is often a mark of ignorance.

It is so easy to ridicule what one does not understand and _dares_ not like.

Laughter never stops to think--if it did there would be less laughter.

If you _feel_ like laughing at a picture, laugh by all means, it will do you good, but be sure you _really feel_ like laughing, and to make sure ask yourself this question, “If that picture were the only one in the room and I were alone with it would it strike me as laughable?”

* * * * *

It always takes just about so many years. What happened with the Barbizon School happened with Impressionism; what happened with Impressionism, will happen with Post-Impressionism; what will happen with Post-Impressionism will surely happen with post-post-Impressionism, and so on. One movement follows another, as season follows season. Life is rhythm.

Each generation thinks itself unique in its experiences.

We go to an exhibition of cubist pictures and we think nothing like that ever happened before, hence we feel safe in denouncing them.

We admit England was wrong when it ridiculed Turner, that France was wrong when it ridiculed Corot, that Paris was wrong when it derided Millet, Manet, Monet, Degas, and a host of other great men, but _we_ are _not_ wrong when _we_ deride the new men. Why? Because we think they are newer and stranger than the men named.

We accept Wagner as a genius, but Strauss--oh, no, he is _too_ strange, but there are stranger composers than Strauss already at work and we must travel fast to keep up with the procession.[3]

Be very sure the Cubists, the Futurists, and all the other queer “ists” would not make the impression they are making if there were not a good reason for it, if the times were not ripe for a change.

* * * * *

Broadly speaking we are changing from the _perfections_ of Impressionism to the _imperfections_ of Post-Impressionism; from the _achievements_ of a school, a movement, that has done the best it could, to the _attempts_, the _experiments_, the _gropings_, of new men along new lines.

It is the purpose of this book to describe some of the changes that are taking place and _try_ to explain them in plain, every-day terms.

The curse of art literature and professional art criticism is _art-jargon_.

Every department of human activity from sport to science, baseball to philosophy, speedily develops its own jargon and the tendency is for the jargon to become denser and denser and so more and more obscure its subject, until some man with horse-sense--like Huxley in science and William James in philosophy--restores the use of every-day English.

Some jargon like that of the baseball reporter is intensely vivid and amusing, it is language in the making, but the jargon of the art critic is deadly, it is neither vivid nor interesting--it is simply hypnotic. It is only when the critic gets so angry he forgets his jargon that he becomes intelligible--and betrays himself.

The reputation of many a preacher, many an orator, depends wholly upon his command of jargon, his ability to utter endless phrases which are either stock ideas, old as the hills, or which _sound_ as if they meant something but on analysis prove quite barren.

II

POST-IMPRESSIONISM

Post-Impressionism means exactly what the prefix means--the art-development _following_ Impressionism. It does not mean a further, or a higher, or a more subtle form of Impressionism, but it means something radically different, it means a _reaction_ from Impressionism.

* * * * *

The evolution of the new movement has been logical and inevitable.