Part 9

From the fact that the object is truly transubstantiated, so that the most accustomed eye has some difficulty in discovering it, a great charm results. The picture which only surrenders itself slowly seems always to wait until we interrogate it, as though it reserved an infinity of replies to an infinity of questions.[44]

By way of comment on this paragraph:

Why should we deny to painting one of the greatest charms of poetry--_elusiveness_?

Great poetry is _rarely_ superficially plain to the casual reader.

Great music is _never_ superficially plain to the casual hearer.

But the attitude of the public is that great painting shall always be superficially plain to the casual observer.

A painter may paint things every one understands at a glance, but is it not his _right_, if he wishes, to paint things no one understands but himself?

In other words, what right have _we_ to say to the poet, “If you don’t write things we understand you are no poet,” or to the painter, “If you don’t paint things we understand you are no painter?”

The only difference between poet and painter is that one uses a _pen_, the other a _brush_ to express _himself_.

* * * * *

Without employing any allegorical or symbolical literary artifice, merely by inflections of lines and colors, a painter can show, _in the same picture_, a Chinese city, a French town, together with mountains, oceans, fauna, and flora, and nations with their histories and their desires--all that separates them in external reality. Distance or time, concrete fact, or pure conception, nothing refuses to be uttered in the language of the painter, as in that of the poet, the musician, or the scientist.

Here is a most significant statement of a _truth_ and an assertion of _freedom_.

We all know how the poet in a dozen lines may give us glimpses of the universe; he may leap from flower to star, from city to city, nation to nation, age to age; nothing confines him, he knows no restraint.

In one short poem he may give us glimpses of the four quarters of the globe--of Athens, London, Chicago, Pekin. His imagination knows no bounds, his art is unlimited.

For the first time in the history of painting painters are systematically claiming the same independence, the same right to _express themselves freely_ in each canvas, to paint in the one picture _if they see fit_ glimpses of different countries, cities, scenes, different times as well as places; to use them and suggest them as freely as the poet does to _express a mood_--and why not?

But the painter must be sure of his mood, and be doubly sure that what he is trying to say _requires_ a wealth of illustration, otherwise his painting will be but a fantastic jumble,

just as many poems lose themselves in not a _wealth_ but a _confused mass_ of irrelevant illustrations.

* * * * *

The _assertion_ of freedom is one thing, the _exercise_ of it is quite another.

The point is that, fundamentally, there is no reason why a painter should not show in one canvas things and events unrelated in either space or time, leaving the observer to work out the more or less hidden meaning of it all.

There is no reason why he should be tied down to the realistic painting of an apple or an apple tree if he prefers to paint some flight of the imagination into which apple and apple tree enter together with strange glimpses of temples and pyramids, playing children and armed battalions, weeping women and fighting men.

Read the foregoing lines once more. Eight objects are mentioned--apple, apple tree, temples, pyramids, children, battalions, weeping women, fighting men--by no possibility could these strangely diverse objects be found grouped together in actual life, yet it is safe to say that _as you read them_ no feeling of utter incongruity was experienced. On the contrary your imagination unconsciously created a picture, vague and indistinct because fleeting, which combined them all, possibly a strange, poetic scene with orchards and playing children, temples and pyramids in the distance, with armed battalions, weeping women and fighting men passing by in clouds or fanciful shapes.

Thousands of such pictures are painted every year and they are mostly rather poor works of the imagination.

There is, however, no reason why the same freedom, the same arbitrary indifference to actualities, should not be exercised in the painting of good pictures.

No reason why, for instance, painters should not _experiment freely with all the so-called laws of art_, and that is what the Cubists and others of the moderns are doing.

* * * * *

That the ultimate aim of painting is to touch the crowd we have admitted; but painting must not address the crowd in the language of the crowd; it must employ its own language, in order to move, dominate, and direct the crowd, not in order to be understood. It is so with religions and philosophies. The artist who concedes nothing, who does not explain himself and relates nothing, accumulates an internal strength whose radiance shines on every hand.

It is in consummating ourselves within ourselves that we shall purify humanity; it is by increasing our own riches that we shall enrich others; it is by kindling the heart of the star for our own pleasure that we shall exalt the universe.

* * * * *

To explain Cubism, or any attempt in art to suppress the objective, one must fall back on music.

Grieg calls a certain composition “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Not for a moment did he attempt realistically to suggest a hall, a mountain, a king or any object; to have done so would have been folly. And if that particular composition were played for the first time before a body of keen musicians, no title mentioned, and not a word said about its being a part of the Peer Gynt suite, no two would agree as to what the composer had in mind, though many might have very interesting impressions regarding the _mood of the composer in writing it_.

But once understand it is part of the Peer Gynt suite and once told it is “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the weird and fascinating music explains itself, it is recognized as a wonderfully successful attempt to realize an impressive scene by a combination of sounds.

* * * * *

The veriest tyro in music feels the cheapness of imitative music, the imitation of the nightingale, the ripple of notes to imitate a rippling brook, the beating of a drum to imitate thunder, the tremolo of violins to represent fright, etc., etc.

From such bald attempts at realism to the abstract beauty of a symphony by Beethoven is a vast interval.

The severely logical composer will not name his symphony for fear of suggesting ideas that will interfere with the pure enjoyment of his abstract conception. There have been painters--like Whistler--who preferred to call their works “Harmonies” or “Arrangements” or “Studies” rather than subject their canvases to a clamoring horde of suggestions by choosing names that must inevitably divert the observer.

However at times a name helps, it at least puts us on the right track, it enables us to measure the piece of music or the picture by the artist’s intention. If it is utterly impossible for the best and most sympathetic minds after long study to find any suggestion of the title in the work, it means either the artist has been unsuccessful in conveying his idea in sound or in line and color, or--what often happens--he has carelessly and arbitrarily chosen a title after his work was finished, a title that imperfectly fits his original impulse.

* * * * *

It is most disappointing to hear a man go into raptures over what he cannot explain.

The greatest enemies of the moderns are their friends. But there have been published a number of books in German and French that are well worth reading if approached with an open mind.

If read with preconceived notions and prejudices the result will be very irritating. Several artists, notably Kandinsky, have taken the utmost pains to explain in print what they believe and what they are trying to do.

But it is often quite as difficult to understand some of the things the painters write about their work as it is to understand their pictures; but this is because some of the new men carry their theories so far it is hard for the layman to follow, however earnest and sympathetic his efforts.

But because we do not understand what a man says is no good reason for calling him an ignoramus.

The trouble _may_ be with him, it is _probably_ with us. At all events each re-reading, like each re-scrutiny of the pictures, yields clearer results.

To a man _really and profoundly interested_ in art nothing has occurred in many a generation so full of significance, so worthy one’s earnest attention, as the present new movements--all the more interesting because changing so rapidly and because some of them are certain to be so fleeting.

The art institute which does not secure and preserve some examples illustrative of the extraordinary upheaval in the art world is derelict--as derelict as a natural history museum would be if it passed over indifferently the evidence of some mysterious upheaval in nature.

* * * * *

When a man stands before a cubist painting or an improvisation by Kandinsky and says he sees all sorts of things in it, do not take him too seriously; he is like members of those extraordinary Browning Clubs who destroy our enjoyment of the poetry by reading into each line things the poet never dreamed.

* * * * *

The Cubists and most of the moderns are very young men, what they _think_ is of far less interest than what they _do_.

What a young man does is often of vital importance, what he thinks may be of no importance at all--save to himself.

Moved by the most naive theories and enthusiasms youth

will do wonderful things, things the sober reflection of age would fear to do.

One of the charms of the Cubists is their child-like faith in the absolute supremacy of their art; this faith is interesting in them because it leads them to produce works that cause us to stop and look and think, but when their followers indulge the same blind faith in print their utterances are mostly incoherent and boresome.

* * * * *

The violent partisan who sees all sorts of things in the modern painting is at one extreme, the violent opponent who sees nothing at all is at the other--let them fight it out.

The truth lies midway, that there is _something_ worth finding in even the most extravagant attempts of the new movement no thoughtful man will deny. The very fact the paintings attract such crowds and excite so much controversy proves there is _something_ for serious investigation; the something may not turn out to be of overwhelming importance, but it will have its influence upon the future of art.

No one for a moment doubts that the exhibitions held in New York, Chicago, and Boston are destined to have a very great effect upon American art, especially upon the art of the men most bitterly opposed to Cubism, and everything akin to Cubism. The academic has received a severe but healthful jolt.

Whatever affects us has, at least, the merit of _affecting_ us, and whatever moves us to do better work, whether in an old way or a new way, has the merit of _affecting us for good_.

VII

THE NEW ART IN MUNICH

“WE cling more closely to the old masters; what we are doing is simply the natural development of their principles and their methods,” said a well-known painter of Munich while speaking of the Cubists and other moderns of Paris, and the words had direct reference to the head of a woman, by Jawlenski, reproduced herein in color.

It would be difficult to convince the casual observer that this head has any relationship to portraits by Titian, _and yet_--

* * * * *

The Cubists are also equally quick to demonstrate the logical connection between their works and those of the old masters, tracing the connection through Courbet, El Greco, and so on.

The truth, of course, is that _everything_ modern is a development of _something_ ancient, that _nothing_ exists _unrelated_.

Art is as _continuous_ as everything else in life and nature.

One thing flows inevitably out of another.

* * * * *

Sorolla and Zoloaga are the children of Velasquez. Puvis de Chavannes may seem nearer Raphael and the Italian Primitives than Degas and Manet, but he is simply the fruition of one collateral line, while Degas is the fruition of another, and Manet of another--_they are all painters_, and the art of painting admits endless variations in theory and technic.

* * * * *

It is, therefore, true that every modern experiment, however strange, may trace its genealogy to the Old Masters and through them to the Primitives, and through them to the Cave Painters.

So that when a Munich artist argues that the strange heads of Jawlensky and the still stranger compositions of Kandinsky are based upon the best there is in Italian art, the proposition in its broad significance may be conceded and plenty of room be still left for startling differences between the art of Venice in the sixteenth century and that of Munich in the twentieth.

* * * * *

There is, however, some slight but tangible foundation for the assertion that the work of the extreme men of Munich is closer to that of the Old Masters than the work of the extreme men of Paris, in that most of the former paint more _solidly_ and _substantially_, while most of the latter paint more _lightly_ and _superficially_--just about the difference that exists between the two cities, the two environments. The worker in Munich cannot help being influenced by the _German_ atmosphere, the worker in Paris cannot help being influenced by the _French_--in fact each is where he is because he finds the particular atmosphere congenial.

* * * * *

“The New Artists’ Federation,” in Munich, was founded in January, 1909, by Adolf Erbslöh, Alexej von Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Kanoldt, Alfred Kubin, Gabriele Münter, Marianna von Werefkin, Heinrich Schnabel, and Oskar Wittenstein. During the first year Paul Baum, Wladimir von Bechtejeff, Erma Bossi, Karl Hofer, Moissey Koga, and Albert Sacharoff joined. Paul Baum and Karl Hofer soon resigned their membership. In 1910 the Frenchmen, Pierre Girieud and Le Fauconnier, became members, and in 1911 Franz Marc and Otto Fischer, followed in 1912 by Alexander Mogilewsky.

The first exhibition was held in the winter of 1909 in the Modern Gallery, Munich. Indignation and derisive laughter, and insults from the press were the outward result. Still the seed scattered was not lost. Similar exhibitions were held in many cities of Germany and Switzerland. Everywhere they met with opposition, but also made some friends at each place.

The second exhibition, held in the fall of the following year, brought the members into contact with a large number of outside artists, some of whom have become of great importance in the new art, and most of whom were, up to that time, unknown in Germany. These were the Germans, Hermann Haller, Bernhard Hoetger, Eugen Kahler, Adolf Nieder; the Frenchmen, Georges Bracque, André Derain, Kees Van Dongen, Francisco Durio, Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault, and Maurice de Vlaminck; finally, the Russians, Mogilewsky, David and Wladimir Burljuk, and Seraphim Sudbinin. This was the first exhibition at which it was possible to rightly estimate the development and the international character of the new movement.

The preparations for the exhibition in the year 1911 led to a split. Some of the members insisted that, as regarded their works, the custom of a jury should be dispensed with, while others were in favor of having the entries rigidly judged in order to insure proper selection. Kandinsky, Kubin, Marc, and Gabriele Münter in consequence announced their withdrawal from the federation. Thus a difference of opinion and convictions was openly vented that had existed in secret for quite a time. The members named, under the name of “Redaktion des Blauen Reiters,” opened a separate exhibition and have since continued to work under this banner.

The New Artists’ Federation, since its third exhibition in 1912, has held a series of exhibits of the works of individual artists in its rooms at Munich, and its members are represented at nearly all important exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland.[45]

* * * * *

The key-note of the modern movement in art is _expression of self_; that is, the expression of one’s _inner self_ as distinguished from the representation of the outer world.

* * * * *

I have before me six of Jawlensky’s heads, painted a year or so apart. They range from almost conventional portrait studies in strong impressionistic manner to heads very like Matisse’s “Madras Rouge,” thence to the head reproduced, which was the last painted.

The series shows an interesting development of the painter’s _convictions_, his technic remains essentially the same, facile and competent, only the latest picture places a much greater stress upon his resources.

It was apparent from things in his studio, canvases ten or twelve years old, that he could have made a commercial success as a painter of portraits.

* * * * *

To say that Jawlensky’s latest heads with their strange, expressive, exaggerated eyes are not wholly new one has only to turn to any work on Greek painting wherein are reproduced some of the encaustic and tempera portraits found in the Fayum some twenty-odd years ago.

* * * * *

When asked why he preferred his latest work to the earlier, Jawlensky said:

“I have put more of myself into them; they are more expressive of what I feel.”

And he went on to say the development seemed to him natural and logical. He could not understand why the heads should strike others as queer or laughable since they were the products of absolute sincerity.

Of his work a friendly critic says:

Jawlensky, formerly an officer in the Russian army, resigned a captain’s commission and turned to painting. Today he looks back into an artistic past rich in changes and just as rich in successes achieved. Gauguin, VanGogh and Cézanne have given much to him; more recently, oriental and primitive art, Byzantine pictures and antique German woodcarvings have not been without influence on him. His color is peculiarly his own, with its limpidity, its bloom, and bold modulations, the spontaneous, expressive force of which have a most refreshing effect. In its soft and surprising beauty one may perhaps discover a distinctly Russian quality. It is almost an injustice toward this artist’s pictures to reproduce them colorless. His still-life pictures excel in composition and charm by their color effects. In his landscapes a peculiar mood finds expression, always striking, always original, and often with great simplicity and beauty. His heads and half figures might be termed snapshots of the soul: a pose, a motion, a glance of the eye, retained by the briefest and most effective means. Here, too, a conscious simplifying and exaggeration becomes more and more evident. For this artist, art itself has the grace of a gesture; the soul part immediately becomes expression, and thus is shown everywhere the creative quality of an impulsive nature that owes its best to the inspiration of the moment, and from it proceeds to work with a most happy facility.[46]

* * * * *

Marianna von Werefkin, a Russian, uses water color, gouache, and prefers the mystery of the night to daylight. Her pictures are interesting human documents. She does not seek startling or novel pictured effects.

* * * * *

There is another and almost unknown artist, P. Klee, who is very highly esteemed by the most advanced men. There is certainly an exquisite refinement to his line; it is so alive it scintillates.

Gabriele Münter has a vision of things quite her own, a sense of humor and of life that penetrates beneath the surface, and that manifests itself in a technic that is, one might say, almost nonchalant.

A. Bloch is a young American, living in Munich, who has allied himself with the Blue Knights and made an impression by his very personal expressions. He was given a one-man exhibition in Berlin in December last, and his pictures were highly praised in a well-written article in the Berlin _Borsen-Courier_. Absolute and unswerving fidelity to one’s ideals is the only sure road to success, and this sort of sincerity is manifest in the work of Bloch.

Franz Marc is in a class by himself. He is the animal painter of the Blue Knights, and his pictures have a fairly steady sale notwithstanding they are extreme in conception and execution. Animal forms and their phases of composition seem to appeal to him, but he often uses the forms as arbitrarily as Matisse uses his nudes to secure an effect of life or grace. His color is always delightful, and there is a flow, a rhythm to his pictures that is fascinating.

In an article in “Der Blaue Reiter” he says:

It is remarkable how _spiritual_ acquisitions are valued so differently by men as compared with _material_. If someone conquers a new colony for his country everybody applauds; if, however, someone has the _inspiration_ to give to mankind a new and purely spiritual value, it is rejected with scorn and indignation, the gift is suspected, and the people try to suppress and crush it. Is not this a frightful condition?

And speaking of the new movement in art, which he considers a _spiritual_ offering to the public, he says:

The public is against us, with scorn and abuse it refuses our pictures; but we may be right. They may not want our gifts, but perhaps they cannot help accepting them. We have the consciousness that our world of ideas is no card house with which we play, but it contains the vital elements of a _movement_ the vibrations of which are felt today _the world_ over.

In the orthodox sense these men may or may not be religious--I do not know--but one thing is certain, there is an immense amount of religious power in their propaganda.

* * * * *

The most extreme man not only of Munich but of the entire modern art movement is Wassily Kandinsky, also a Russian.

There was one of his Improvisations in the International Exhibition.[47]

It did not hang with the Cubists, not even in the large room with Matisse and other radical men. Evidently those in charge of the hanging did not know what to make of it or what to do with it, so they side-tracked it on a wall that was partly in shadow. Visitors who paused to look at it dismissed it as meaningless splotches of paint, and passed on.

There is this to be said for the public, that with no word of explanation one of Kandinsky’s Improvisations does seem--_at first glance_--the last word in extravagance; on fourth or fifth glance it appears to have a charm of color that is fascinating; on _study_ it begins to _sound_ like color music.

* * * * *