Part 7

Still imagining a Marsian audience I was not dismayed even by the appearance of the effeminate Chopin. For Josef Hofmann took the artistic liberty of interpreting the gentle Pole in his own way, and the Scherzo in B Flat Minor sounded as a virile volcanic charge. The pianist refuses to take Chopin sentimentally, and he puts charming vigor even into the moon-beamed, tear-strewn D Flat Nocturne, even into the frail ephemeral E Minor Valse.

K.

Hofmann’s Concert

The spoiled child of the world’s pianism—Josef Hofmann—played Schumann’s A Minor piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at two concerts during the first week in November. Both performances were masterly and splendid in musical values.

Since he left his cradle, Hofmann has had the world sitting at his pianistic feet and fingers so that he has come to take the most vigorous and sincere homage as a matter of fact; and, perhaps for this reason, he occasionally fails to merit it. He is insolent to his worshippers and furious with his critics. Long and copious praise has gone to his head. His insolence is less poetic and far less handsome than Paderewski’s, and Hofmann’s playing needs to reach magnificent proportions before one is able to forget his bad-boyish disposition.

But one does forget. For his musicianship and key-wizardry are things of great beauty. Despite the fact that his scorn sometimes leads him to abuse the piano, in the way of crude smashing blows, there is (in the Schumann work, for instance, which displays him at his best) never a moment in which he loses a rythmic grasp that is deeply satisfying. And when he chooses, and doesn’t lose his temper, he can bring forth remarkable tonal beauties from the box of wood and wire. There is an admirable drive in his art. It is vital and powerful. One’s regrets are swallowed and quite forgotten in listening to his artistic qualities of tone, rhythm, piano-color, and, in fact, of genuine music.

HERMAN SCHUCHERT.

Art

Rose Madder or Red?

WILLIAM SAPHIER

Physical usefulness predominates in the make-up of every real piece of craftsmanship. Its lines and the beauty of its decoration make up its value.

Art does not rely on physical usefulness, form, or decoration. It is its suggestiveness, its appeal to the imagination, its drawing out of sympathy or hatred, its arousing of new and deep emotion—this is what gives the fine arts their importance in life. Art should act as a screen for fine tragic acts, for great emotions. Nature should be the pigment for the painter’s brush, but not his aim. He should dilute it with his blood and marrow and fling it on the canvas with determination.

Thus I pondered as I entered the twenty-seventh exhibition of American Oil Paintings and Sculpture at the Chicago Art Institute. Wandering from canvas to canvas, from one prize-winner to another, I felt all my hope for a miracle vanish. They are so real, so true to life, so bereft of imagination, that one wonders why anybody ever took the trouble to paint them.

Just look at these flowers, trees, cows, and nudes. I have seen them many, many times exactly the same way and under the same circumstances in life. They are “pretty” and will undoubtedly make a good decoration in a middle-class home. This may be a worthy thing to do, but why should it be called art? I think this is our punishment for great achievements in the industrial field. No nation can go on building the fastest railroads, the tallest skyscrapers, the largest factories, the fastest automobiles, without paying for it by a loss of its finer æsthetic senses.

But I am getting away from the exhibition. It has become the fashion to be disappointed with exhibitions both here and abroad—and with good reason. As there are few good artists, the chances of getting them on a jury is slight. The result is apparent: good pieces of craftsmanship are hung along with fine pieces of art, and the prizes intended for fine art go to good craftsmanship. In saying this I do not wish to join the popular sport of hitting the jury and getting a round of applause. But how can one escape these conclusions if he compares the prize-winner, _A Nude_, by Richard E. Miller, with “_Under the Bough_,” by Arthur B. Davis, whose rhythmically-moving figures and beautiful colors transport one to fairyland? The figures remind me of Hodler, the foremost painter today in Switzerland, who is sixty years old and younger than the youngest. Or compare the prize with _Thomas and his Red Coat_, by Robert Henri. What simple forms and colors—what a thorough understanding of a child and his world! Or _The Widow_, by Charles W. Hawthorne. These are works of great simplicity, understanding, imagination, and individuality; they are monuments to some fine feeling, dream, thought, or incident in the life of their creators.

As for the other prize winners—the disjointed color spots serving as garden flowers and the chocolate box cover-design—I shall not discuss them. The meaning of such stuff and the reason for awarding is too obscure.

Outside the pictures mentioned above the following are worth seeing: _The Venetian Blind_, by Frederic C. Frieseke; _Dance of the Hours_, by Louis F. Berneker; _Winter Logging_, by George Elmer Brown; _Through the Trees_, by Frank T. Hutchins; _The Harbor_, by Jonas Lie; _The Garden_, by Jerome S. Blum; _Procession of the Redentore Venice_, by Grace Ravlin; _The Ox Team_, by Chauncey F. Ryder; _Smeaton’s Quay, St. Ive’s_, by Hayley Lever; _The Fledgling_, by Grace H. Turnbull. _A Hudson River Holiday_, by Gifford Beal, looks much like a department store. In fact you may find everything in this exhibition from a flag to a mountain—and all the popular colors. The only thing that is missing is a “For Sale” sign, with a “marked-down” price.

Seven pieces of sculpture by Stanislaw Szukalski, whose work the readers of THE LITTLE REVIEW had a chance to see reproduced in the last number, make up the most interesting part of the exhibition.

The original obscuring of the works of Grace Ravlin, Grace H. Turnbull, Johansen, and Blum by the hanging committee deserves praise. But I think if they really wanted to do something unusual they might have thought of something better. For instance, hang all the rejected ones in separate rooms, marked “rejected,” and let the visitors see and judge for themselves. This would give the exhibition a bigger meaning. As it is, it means confusion; and confusion asks persistently in this case: are the fine arts anything in particular or just a mixture of craftsmanship, cleverness (the usual companion of emptiness) and some undigested ideas?

Life is a learning to die.—_Plato._

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!—_Dostoevsky._

Book Discussion

A Watteauesque Enthusiast

_The Enchantment of Art_, by Duncan Phillips. [John Lane Company, New York.]

To Mr. Phillips life is a _Fête Galante_ in Watteau’s style. He sees nothing but the elegant, the poetic, the joyous, the enchanting. I picture him in a powdered wig, clad in a gorgeous costume of the Louis XV. period, playfully lorgnetting life and art, and raving ecstatically over everybody and everything. I confess, an all-loving person looks suspicious to me; but Mr. Phillips’ book is so sincere, he adores things so pathetically, that I cannot help enjoying him. He becomes irritating only at such moments when he tries to be very much in earnest and breaks into absurd generalization. His credo is Impressionism—in life and in art—but what an elastic term is Impressionism to our dear enthusiast. Giotto, Titian, Da Vinci, Velasquez, Corot, and Dégas were impressionists, and so were Shakespeare, and Browning, and Keats, and Yeats, and Robert Bridges and who not! He loves them all, loves beautifully, touchingly, but he fails pitifully to define his beliefs. Why should he define? Why not be happy in enjoying good things without giving reasons, without strained endeavors to form classifications and definitions? Oh, those definitions! But we easily forgive the author his absurd statements, we can even sympathize with the pain he gets when contemplating the Futurists, whom he terms “lawless.” We forgive a lover everything, for we feel grateful to him for the moments of bliss that he generously shares with us. Truly, it is a book of religious joy.

K.

Old Virtues in New Forms

_The Age of Mother-Power_, by C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan). [Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.]

One is compelled to take Mrs. Gallichan seriously in her visioning of the future social status of men and of women in the world of sex; for the results of close observation, research, and computation strengthen the most reasonable prophecies. She is modest enough to state her big idea in simple terms. She points out that, since society had in its primitive days a long and up-tending period of mother-power, or female dominance; and, following that, a protracted season of masculine rule, which is only now awakening to feminine rebellion; it is clearly apparent that a new era is commencing, in which all the old virtues of mother-right will be re-established in new forms, with the distinctly modern addition of that solitary virtue of male despotism—father-protection. This is a theory—only a theory, if one wishes to preen one’s own prejudice—which the writer approaches and develops from various angles. She has fruitfully studied history, legend, folk-lore, savages, and other departments of human life. Her deductions are carefully and lucidly thought out, strongly original, and entirely worthy of attention.

HERMAN SCHUCHERT.

A Handbook of the War

_The Great War_, by Frank H. Simonds. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.]

The European war threatens to become a prolonged phenomenon. To the Trans-Atlantic public it is a keenly-felt tragedy; to us here it is an interesting spectacle, the audience being requested to remain neutral, to refrain from applause and disapproval. Even so, we are in need of a libretto. Frank H. Simonds supplies us with a comprehensive account of the first act of the drama. The lay reader is getting acquainted with the complexities of the pre-war events and with the further developments of the conflict down to the fall of Antwerp. The simple maps and the lucid comments make the book not only instructive, but also readable. You must read the book if you do not want to play the ignoramus in present-day floating, cinematographic history.

The New Reporting

_Insurgent Mexico_, by John Reed. [D. Appleton and Company, New York.]

“Who is John Reed?”, asked the newspapers when, forgetting for the moment their name-worshipping arrogance, they discovered that the best reports from Mexico were coming, not from the veteran correspondents, but from an unknown. The answer is that John Reed is the only “correspondent” that the Mexican mix-up or the present European struggle has yet brought to light, who has a really new and individual method of reporting. These are not dogmatic, cock-sure, crisis-solving “articles” from the front, but simple, vivid reporting of scenes and actions that have some reason for being reported. And John Reed is about the only reporter who has shown us that the Mexican people have visions of a future. The newspapers and those whose duty it seems to be to uphold the old idea are now crying that Reed’s simple realism is too slight to be of value as history, and that he does not “get beneath the surface”—but these people have still to see which kind of reporting can endure as history.

Incorrect Values

_Life and Law_, by Maude Glasgow. [G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.]

A secondary title—“The Development of the Exercise of the Sex Function Together with a Study of the Effect of Certain Natural and Human Laws and a Consideration of the Hygiene of Sex”—is evidence _per se_ that the book is inadequate and superficial. In less than two hundred pages no writer can more than hint at all these topics, and in trying to cover so much ground the author really covers nothing. She tells over old facts and frequently gives them what are now accepted as incorrect values. Her statements are as sweeping as the scare heads of the old quack medicine almanacs. She describes men as ignorant, intolerable, immoral monsters; and women as being universally down-trodden and the sexual victims of man’s unbridled appetite. The book is as full of “musts” and “shoulds” as the rules of an old-fashioned school master. The author tells nothing new; veers from science to sentimentality in a most disconcerting way; and adds nothing to the constantly-increasing library of valuable sex books.

MARY ADAMS STEARNS.

Sentence Reviews

_Abroad at Home_, by Julian Street. [The Century Company, New York.] So far as what he will write is concerned we don’t give a rap whether Shaw visits America or not. Yes, we don’t believe even _he_ could lay out the statisticians as Street does when he advises us on the purchase of pig iron; or display such fiendish glee at the chance of hurting the feelings of a professional Fair booster: or—well, every paragraph of every chapter is worth reading.

_Reminiscences of Tolstoy_, by Count Ilya Tolstoy. [The Century Company, New York.] The book is richly illustrated; this is its main value. Nothing is added to what we have known about Tolstoy’s personality; we have had numerous, perhaps too many, works on his intimate life; Sergeyenko nearly exhausted the subject. True, we gain considerable information about the great man’s son, Count Ilya, but, pray, who is interested in it?

_American Public Opinion_, by James Davenport Whelpley. [E. P. Dutton and Company, New York.] The name is misleading: the book presents a series of articles on American internal and foreign problems, written from the point of view of a conservative. Why call Mr. Whelpley’s personal opinion “American Public Opinion”? The articles on our foreign diplomacy are valuable; they reveal our infancy in this peculiarly European art.

_Jael_, by Florence Kiper Frank. [Chicago Little Theater.] The production of this play was treated subjectively in the last issue of this magazine. In the reading of it the verse impresses one in much the same manner as the viewing of the production. The two effects are so similar as to impress one with the coherence and wonderful worth of the Chicago Little Theatre in harmonizing the value of the play as literature with the importance of the production.

_The House of Deceit._ Anonymous. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.] Maurice Sangster had a “conviction in his heart that he was born to make a conflagration of the Thames”. He came to London and proceeded to attack the religious, political, and social institutions of the present day. He serves merely as a blind for the author, who, attacking almost everything under the sun, is not courageous enough to reveal his identity.

_The Mystery of the Oriental Rug_, by Dr. G. Griffin Lewis. [J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.] To the lover of Persian and Caucasian rugs the book will surely bring moments of exquisite joy. The author possesses both knowledge and taste, and he tells us curious things about the history of the oriental rug.

(_A number of reviews of important books are held over until next month because of lack of space._)

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