Part 21

His second large Synchromie, exposed in the _Salon des Independants_ in March 1914, was more complicated and more sensitively organised, both as to movement and to colour, than his first. By his colour rhythms he strove to incorporate into his painting the quality of duration: that is, he sought to have his picture develop into time like music. The ambition was commendable although he wrongly asserted that older painting extends itself strictly into space. A Rubens, while presenting itself to the spectator at one glance, is nevertheless more than a block-manifestation of forms, for it never reveals itself fully until after many periods of study. In the old painters there is a definite formal foundation on which the canvas is rhythmically built, and as a rule this formal figure is repeated in miniature many times throughout the canvas. These form-echoes are defined and complete linear orders, and into them rhythm is introduced. In Russell the process is reversed: with him the rhythm brings about the order. In Rubens there is a distinct and conscious development of line, but no development of form. Russell, in his later canvases, sets down a central form which dictates both the continuity of the picture and its formal complications. His generating centre is not like a motif whose character imprints itself on all its developments, but rather like a seed out of which the different forms grow--a directing centre which inspires and orders its environment. In fine, the surrounding forms are not a development of the central one, but a result of it. This type of composition corresponds to the melodic composition in music.

In the later works of Macdonald-Wright the motif form of composition is achieved. In Cezanne there are forms whose parallels are repeated in varied development throughout the work and are rhythmically ordered into blocks. But while these forms resemble motif repetition, they are not generated by rhythm but united by it. In Macdonald-Wright's canvases the rhythmic continuation of a central form constitute the movement of the picture as well as the final character of it. In his Arm Organisation in Blue-Green one can discern near the centre a small and arbitrary interpretation of the constructional form of the human arm. The movement of these forms throws off other lines and forms which, through many variations and counter-statements, reconstruct the arm in a larger way. Again these lines of the larger arm, in conjunction with the lines of the smaller one, evoke a further set of forms which break into parts each of which is a continuation or a restatement of the original arm motif, varied and developed.

Macdonald-Wright holds that the forms which we have experienced in our contact with nature are more expressive and diverse than those which are born of the inventive intelligence. But, while it is true that every realisation of _aesthetic movement_ or of the _rhythm_ of form is based on the movement of the human body, it is not true that the human body is a necessary foundation for form alone. However, Macdonald-Wright, in interpreting the human form, makes use merely of the direction and counterpoise of volume; he does not indulge in the depiction of limbs and torso: the body is only his inspiration to abstraction. He changes and shifts its forms out of any superficial resemblance to nature. In his desire to cling to a solid and immutable foundation we recognise an artist who realises how meagre is the incentive to create abstract compositions. With centuries of tradition urging him to a realistic rendering of the life about him, he finds it difficult to break entirely with realism and to create without referring to materiality. Perhaps some day he will even forgo the inspiration found in the combined forms in nature. His work is tending toward that ultimate freedom, as also is Russell's.

Such a development, however, cannot be definitely predicted, but one can say, without dogmatism, that in the future their work will become surer, their compositions of a higher and more complete order. With their knowledge of the fundamentals of rhythmic organisation, which is well in advance of that of the other painters of today, their progress seems assured. Their postulates are too definite to permit of the introduction of literary or musical transcendentalism; and their _apports_ are too significant to permit of any retrogression toward metaphysics or drama. Their palette has become co-ordinated and rationalised. Their composition is founded on the human body in movement. And their colour, in its plastic sense, takes into consideration space, light and form. These factors represent their technical assets. With these painters comes into being an art divorced from all the entanglements of photography, of piecemeal creation, of inharmonic gropings, of literature and of data hunting.

But they must not be regarded merely as inventors of new pictorial methods, for their discoveries have already taken significant aesthetic form. As Renoir completed the first cycle of modern art which was ushered in by Turner and Delacroix, so have the Synchromists completed the cycle of which Cezanne is the archaic father. They have discovered the concrete means wherewith to bring about his desires. It remains now for the painters of today and of the future to realise more fully the dreams of a higher art history. With the Synchromists there is no system or method other than a purely personal one. The word Synchromism, adopted by them to avoid obnoxious classification under a foreign banner, means simply "with colour." It does not explain a mannerism or indicate a special trait, as do Cubism, Futurism and Neo-Impressionism. It is as open as the term musician. As a school it can never exist. Indeed it is the first graphic art the application of whose principles cannot be learned by a course of instruction. Artists employing its means must depend entirely on their own ability to create. In Synchromist pictures the good or bad results cannot be obscured by the introduction of foreign elements, as in the case of pictures wherein nature is copied. Russell and Macdonald-Wright have already repudiated the appellation of Synchromist and call themselves merely "painters," for, since Cezanne, painting means, not the art of tinting drawing or of correctly imitating natural objects, but the art which expresses itself only with the medium inherent in it--colour.

All significant painting to come must necessarily make use of Synchromist means, although form and composition--that is, the creative expression--may be as arbitrary or personal as the artist desires. In the Synchromists' latest prospectus are to be found the following comments: "In our painting colour becomes the generating function. Painting being the art of colour, any quality of a picture not expressed by colour is not painting. An art whose ambition it is to be pure should express itself only with means inherent in that art. The relation of spacial emotions and of the emotions of density and transparency which we wish to express, dictates to us the colours most capable of transmitting these sensations to the spectator. In thus creating the subjective emotion of depth and rhythm we achieve the dreams of painters who talk of drawing the spectator into the centre of the picture; but instead of his being drawn there merely by intellectual processes he is enveloped in the picture by tactile sensation. We limit ourselves to the expression of plastic emotions. We can no longer conceive of the stupid juxtapositions of colours devoid of any rhythmic interlinking as art organisations." The Synchromists do not pretend to have invented new qualities for art but to have brought to painting a new vision which permits them to express the old qualities with a greater potency than formerly.

XIV

THE LESSER MODERNS

Decadence is simply the inability to create new tissue. In painting it manifests itself in two ways: either in the endeavour of an artist to turn the attention from new and precise procedures to antiquated and irrelevant ones; or in the artist's desire to base his inspiration on the great work of an immediate forerunner rather than on the foundation of all vitality, nature. In neither case is new material being added to the sum of art. Decadence usually takes the form of a facile imitation of the surface aspect of a master, not infrequently making that master's _results_ prettier, more fluent and more attractive. This is a natural and inevitable consequence of copying the objective side of a great work which originally was the outgrowth of a profound aesthetic philosophy. Decadents, as a general rule, are sufficiently analytic to sense their own paucity of constructive genius. In recognising that nature can never inspire them to significant co-ordinations, they are content to accept, with slight modifications, the artistic standards of their predecessors. They vary the art that has gone before to meet the needs of their own temperaments. In many cases highly meritorious work results.

The word decadent is not wholly deprecatory. Often the decadent is a competent composer in the abstract. By presenting in an attractive way his own personal tastes, he sometimes makes his art both interesting and beautiful. His decadence lies in his retrogression from the point to which the art of his day has arrived and in his inability to introduce a new element to compensate for this retrogression. No amount of individuality can bridge this gap. Many painters, like Gauguin, have reacted against achievement but have possessed a tangential vitality which in itself has been a new contribution to aesthetic endeavour. Other painters, like Renoir, while introducing no innovations, have, by talented and comprehensive efforts, duplicated and improved upon the art of the latest creative masters and thereby pushed forward the highest standards. They are not decadents, for their work exhibits no deterioration. Even decadents may be excellent artists. Gaspar de Crayer was undoubtedly a great artist though an offshoot of Rubens; and Giampietrino and Cesare da Sesto were both solid and intelligent painters, though they did not rival their master, Leonardo da Vinci. There has undoubtedly been great sculpture since the Renaissance; but Michelangelo closed up for all time the plastic possibilities of clay and marble, and consequently, there being no new functioning element to be introduced into it, all sculpture since his day has been in the broad sense decadent.

Modern painting has had its decadents also--men who have attempted to revert to a sterile past or who have followed in the paths blazed by others without approaching the achievements of the painters imitated. This latter class has its usages, for it tends to lend impetus to the movement it follows. The men composing it are popularly called exponents, and the appellation is just. There are painters in all countries today who adhere to Impressionist methods, and thereby keep ever before us one of the great steps in the development of modern painting. Cezanne has undoubtedly been given greater consideration because of the many artists who follow his precepts. And the numerous imitators of Cubism have done much to focus on that movement the consideration it deserves. In a general way all the lesser modern painters, by their feverish activities, expositions and pamphleteering, have, despite their inherent lack of genuine importance, kept the world conscious of the fact that it is in the midst of a great aesthetic upheaval, that new forces are at work, that the older order is being supplanted.

Today nearly every country has a group of men striving toward the new vision. They cannot all be innovators of new methods. They cannot all carry forward the evolution of modern painting. But they can at least give momentum to the current ideals and turn out work which bears so much personal merit that it becomes deserving of more or less serious consideration. Degas and his circle are of this class, as are the Futurists who, though at bottom decadent, inasmuch as they turn their art back to illustration, are a force which cannot be ignored. In Dresden, Munich and Berlin are groups of modern men who have repudiated the academies and struck out into new fields. Russia has contributed many young artists to the present ideal. England has not been altogether impervious to the modern doctrines. America is represented by fully a score of artists animated by the new vitality. And in France there are a hundred painters at work tearing down the older idols. While few of these men can lay claim to introducing any intrinsically new and significant methods or forms into modern painting, their work in many instances, while being decadent in the strict sense, is nevertheless commendable. They are not great artists even in the sense that Monet, Manet, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso are great; but many of them are at least genuine artists.

One of the most conspicuous figures among the decadents is Wassily Kandinsky. In an age when all art was being arraigned before the tribunal of biology, physiology, and psychology, he came forward and attempted to drag it back into the murky medium of metaphysics. The generating forces of modern painting, however, rest on no metaphysical hypothesis. To attempt to define form by transcendental terms, or even to credit form with esoteric significance, reveals an ignorance of the principles of aesthetic emotion. Form in the art sense is a demonstrable proposition; it is answerable to physical laws. Michelangelo, El Greco, Giotto, Rubens, Cezanne and Renoir based composition on natural causes, and as each successive artist has approached intensity in organisation, he has come nearer and nearer to the rhythm which animates and controls corporeal existence. AEsthetic form, in order to become emotion-producing, must reflect the form which is most intimately associated with our sensitivities. It must primarily be physical. There is nothing mysterious about aesthetic rhythm, and any attempt to "spiritualise" the harmonies of art carries art so much further from the truth. The modern tendency to make objects abstract and to divest subject-matter of all its mimetic qualities, has led some critics and painters to the false conclusion that form itself is unrelated to recognisable phenomena. But even in the most abstract of the great painters, the form is concrete. In a broad sense it is susceptible of geometrical demonstration; and its intensity is in direct ratio to its proximation to human organisms. In fact, there are no moving forms in an aesthetic organisation which do not have their prototypes in the human body in action. Were this not true empathy would be impossible, and without empathy an artistic emotion is purely intellectual and associative. The greatest painters, past and present, have recognised this principle; and art which does not adhere to it is decadent both in the aesthetic and the intellectual sense.

Kandinsky exemplifies this kind of decadence. While the innovators up to Matisse had tried to discover in nature secrets which would aid them in plastic expression, Kandinsky has tried, by numerous articles and at least one complete book, to turn back the minds of painters to the supposedly mystical elements of form and colour. But although this artist is to be commended on his effort to make colour significant in a day when angular forms of brown and black were the keynote, his study of colour should have begun where Cezanne left off and not with the writings of Maeterlinck and the symbolist poets. Kandinsky recognises that colour has possibilities, but he ignores the fact that colour is one of the physical sciences, as definite as those of the quadrivium, that its inductive qualities have become classified and that its functioning is precise and answerable to natural laws. Consequently he cannot co-ordinate its governing principles, and, in an attempt to rationalise it he has sought refuge in music, an art which presents to him the same mystical difficulties. So long as he was under the healthy influence of Matisse his symbology was less evident; but when he adopted a metaphysical programme it all came to the surface.

Kandinsky's early "impressions" are heavy and insensitive "Fauve" pictures. His "compositions" for the most part are general statements of some rural scene in Matisse's manner; and his "improvisations" represent semi-abstract lines delimiting scientifically meaningless colours. In his book, The Art of Spiritual Harmony, he presents an elaborate explanation of the metaphysical basis for colour, but he fails to contribute any ideas not to be found in Delacroix and Seurat. And the pictures with which he complements the text have been surpassed, in their own manner, by the Chinese. There are isolated comments on colour theories which are separately sound, and there are explanatory generalisations; but a diligent search fails to reveal any statement which is precise and at the same time new. The book refers constantly to music, and there are undeniable evidences of literary thought; but nowhere is there an explanation of the plastic significance of colour. Kandinsky is a painter of moods, and as such encroaches upon the domain of music. He is a painter of the vision of an action without its objective integument, and as such he enters the realm of poetry. He is essentially pretty, and despite his idealistic nomenclature, he is at bottom illustrative and decorative. What he designates the "soul" is only associative memory, and his conception of composition is the breaking up of a flat surface into irregular compartments by lines and more or less pure colour. Like Scriabine he has overlooked the formal possibilities of colour and consequently has failed in any aesthetically emotional expression.

Kandinsky's attempts to create moods are largely failures because of the inherent limitations of his art medium. The arts may be synthesised when a profounder understanding of them has come about, but their functionality can never be interchanged. The art of literature will always be able to tell a story better than the greatest sculpture; and even a primitive song is more capable of producing a mood than the most highly organised painting. Kandinsky, for instance, fails to achieve what the Marseillaise achieves in music, namely: the dramatic presentation of an exhortation to action. Separate, for instance, the phrases of the original version. The first verse opens with a rousing appeal which culminates on "_patrie_," a word always welcome to the ear and heart of a Frenchman. Then the song acclaims the glory of the occasion and repeats dramatically the cause of the struggle--"_Contre nous de la tyrannie l'etendard sanglant est leve_." Then it recounts the tragedies which are befalling relatives and friends at the hands of the growling soldiers of the enemy; and suddenly, in an unexpected voice it calls, "_Aux armes, citoyens!_" ending in a patriotic and decisive flourish. The music throughout is subtly harmonised with the words: lively during the opening call; abated during the first statement of the cause; animated with its repetition; minor when the tragic words occur; vibrant and imitative of bugles during the call to arms; and highest in pitch at the end. This is the expression of the mood intensified.

Could painting extend itself into time and present singly and in sequence the visions of objective nature, dramatically synthesised with colour and line, it could perhaps influence people to emotion in the way music does. But the musical quality of time-extension is impossible in painting. And since a picture presents a simultaneous vision, which cannot be otherwise except through a subjective process, it is incapable of working from a prelude to a finale like music. Music is abstract, though firmly based on the rhythmic movement of all nature, yet it can produce moods by far more distant and far less tangible associations than can painting. But mood in music is no higher a quality than illustration in painting, and the highly creative artists ignore them both. The great composer is the one who, seeing beyond the associative theory in music, feels the deeper plasticity of movement and form: and his plasticity is this only preoccupation, just as the plastic element of colour is the great modern painter's chief concern. Kandinsky has only tried to introduce an unimportant element of one art into another art. While the procedure has a superficial taste of novelty it is no more creditable than if he had declared himself frankly for illustration and joined the ranks of Degas and his school. He has not probed into the pregnant recesses of painting and attempted to discover the meaning of form. He has contented himself with obscuring the delineations of natural objects in such a manner that the beholder feels led to decipher his cryptic realities. The suggestion of actuality is there, but there being no other strong attraction in the picture, aesthetic or otherwise, the spectator sets to work to penetrate its objective meaning. In the majority of cases he succeeds, and gains thereby a satisfaction similar to that of having solved a simple problem in fractions.

In painting moods, which he refers to as "spiritual impressions," "internal harmonies," "psychic effects" and "soul vibrations," Kandinsky does not attempt to depict the dynamic forces which produce moods, but strives to interpret his own emotional impressions by means of semi-symbolic and semi-naturalistic visions and by inspirational methods. Unable to ally the elements of colour and line to a given theme, he contents himself with giving us a chaotic impression by such means as he personally associates with his mood: and since this kind of association is largely individual, his depiction of the mood is incomprehensible to anyone not temperamentally and mentally at one with him. Did he understand the inherent psychological dramatic significance of colours and lines he could represent a universally moving vision, and thereby attain in a small degree the end for which he aims. But his feeling for colour especially is so vague and unscientific that it is, after all, a personal thing, and his graphic representation of a mood is little more than an individual and purely otiose expression. Even Carra, in his colourless Funeral of the Anarchist Galli, approaches nearer the creation of a mood than does Kandinsky in his best canvases, for in Carra there is exhibited a certain knowledge of the dramatic use of line which, when combined with recognisable subject-matter, augments the thematic drama.