Chapter M: J. L. Breton, deputy from Cherbourg, proposes to put to the (4)

On the other hand, there can be little doubt that to some, though
they would hardly own it, color of any kind is more or less
unpleasant, and they would prefer to live in a monotonic world. One
must therefore be prepared for a great variety of opinions with
regard to any such art as that of mobile color. The majority of
people will probably derive a moderate but increasing pleasure from
it.

There are many to whom it at once provides a surpassingly
interesting source of enjoyment and education, and some to whom,
like my medical friend, it will open up an entirely new world of
sensations; and there are others, again, to whom it will be
supremely distasteful. It is well to recognize this to avoid
disappointment, and be prepared for very divergent expressions of
opinion about it.

Speaking broadly, it appeals most to those who have had an artistic
training into which color has entered, and it is less attractive to
those whose interests center in music. This is not what the author
personally expected. He imagined that the connection with music
being so close on some points, those who would take the greatest
interest in mobile color would be musicians; but, with some
striking exceptions among distinguished musicians, the musical
world, as far as it has yet come into contact with color-music, has
been at first inclined to see points of divergence rather than
those of analogy and to look upon the art as a possible rival. A
similar attitude is often adopted toward any new departure in
science or art, and there is no reason for resenting it; it merely
makes the cooperation of those among musicians who are able to take
a sympathetic view and welcome the endeavor to open up new fields
of investigation all the more valuable.

* * * * *

From time immemorial child and man have taken the keenest delight in fireworks and colored lights which are after all a species of light music.

Since the adoption of electricity for lighting it is comparatively easy to produce the most wonderful effects both indoors and out.

As yet little thought has been given to producing harmonious light effects on streets--save in advertising signs. For the most part the lighting is garish in the extreme, often positively painful to the eyes, but in time this will be corrected. Public authorities cooperating with private owners will work out schemes for lighting streets and shops that will yield charming effects.

* * * * *

Already much has been done in the theater, especially in Russia and Germany. The value of light effects is being recognized. Soft music is often played to enhance the effect of a tender or pathetic scene, and it is quite common for the lights to change in harmony.

By the use of light alone as an accompaniment to a love scene the same effect on the audience can be secured as by the use of soft music.

So far all this has been done crudely and for the most part unscientifically. Producer and electrician have worked together in a haphazard way, often with great success, sometimes with most disagreeable results.

The very term “stage lighting” is not inspiring, but the art of light music will be developed and be taught in theory and practice. Masters of the art will come and men will realize that it is just as great an art to satisfy the eye with light melodies as it is to please the ear with sound melodies.

There yet may be entertainments where only light music is played as there are concerts where only sound music is played.

And why not? Just ask yourself the question--Why not?

Of all the organs of sense the eye is the most delicate and the most wonderful. The ear responds to _air_ waves that travel at the rate of 1,100 _feet_ per second and vary in frequency from 16 to 32,000 per second. The musical notes vary from 32 to 5,000 beats per second.

The eye responds to _ether_ waves that travel at the rate of 182,000 _miles_ per second and vary in frequency from 400 millions millions--the lowest red of the spectrum--to 750 millions millions (red 400,000,000,000,000; violet 750,000,000,000,000) the highest violet.

* * * * *

Man has devoted ages to developing harmonies in the combination of air waves, and he has reduced sound music to a science.

He has devoted _all_ the ages of his being to the use of color in one way and another to please his eye, but only of late has he made any attempt to understand the _science_ of light and color music.

* * * * *

The _material_ civilization we _have_ attained in comparison with the _spiritual_ civilization we _should_ attain is fairly well indicated by the vast difference between the crude and natural art of _sound_ effects which is, so far, man’s most abstract achievement in art, and the incomparably finer and more ethereal art of light and color effects which will be one of the crowning achievements of man’s nobler future.

* * * * *

The painter of _easel_ pictures arrogates to himself the name artist and to his work the phrase _fine art_. He looks down upon the house painter, the dressmaker, and the interior decorator.

Yet as compared with those who clothe our bodies and decorate our homes in harmonies of line and color the painter of easel pictures cuts very little figure in life; he plays his part but much of his inspiration is drawn from the work of the other two.

It should never be forgotten that in all the great portraits of the world the clothes and the interiors that furnish the beautiful color schemes _preceded_ the pictures often by generations.

The costumer and the decorator work year in and year out, from generation to generation, throughout the centuries, with not so much as a thought of the painter in the corner with his little canvas, faithfully copying.

Now and then a great painter, a great sculptor, takes off his coat, turns workman for the moment and makes sculptures for buildings, paints pictures on walls, devises costumes, and contributes to making our environment more beautiful.

But not infrequently the sculptor and the painter upset the equilibrium of the work of others by doing things which are out of key or out of proportion. The “fine artist” _may_ bring the work of decorating to a standstill by painting spotty _easel_ pictures on walls that should be treated in harmony with the entire building and with its uses.

* * * * *

The time will come when art schools will teach pure color composition as well as drawing and the painting of pictures.

Why should not prizes be offered for color harmonies?

As it is now pupils are taught everything _except_ the use of color _for the sake of color_.

* * * * *

What is a “still life”? Simply a painting of a number of objects selected and arranged primarily for their color notes. Why not paint the notes without the fruit and dishes?

So far as the color harmony is concerned the _figure_ of an orange, an apple, a banana is not essential; in reality the photographic realization distracts. But the public is not accustomed to _pure_ color music, it is not accustomed to seeing canvases that contain only color harmonies with no suggestion of object or form, it demands that the note of yellow shall be a lemon or a banana, that the note of purple shall assume the shape of a plum and so on, and so on; yet all the time the enjoyment derived from a fine “still life” is from the harmony that results from the combination of colors, and in no sense from the objects arbitrarily and artificially grouped together.

* * * * *

The use of line and color _imitatively_ to depict objects is one thing.

The use of line and color _freely_ to produce pure line harmonies and pure color harmonies, with no reference to objects is quite another, and in a sense, a far higher art--a more abstract art.

It is toward the development of this more abstract art that the modern experiments are tending. The net result in the long run will be the education of a considerable fraction of the public to the appreciation of pure line and color music and a consequent demand for paintings that are simply pure line and color compositions.

With this development of a taste for a very abstract art all the arts and crafts are certain to be beneficially affected.

The study of line for the sake of line, and of color for the sake of color if systematically pursued will make all draftsmen greater masters of line, and all painters--to the humblest house painter--greater masters of color.

IX

ESORAGOTO

Neither the Cubists nor Kandinsky troubled a very distinguished Japanese expert who spent many days at the exhibition.

“The principles of all this are old, very old, in Japan.”

He was far more interested in the extreme drawings and paintings than in the more academic. Pointing to a drawing that seemed scarce more than a few careless strokes, he said, “That is quite in the spirit of the best Japanese art.”

Of the “King and Queen” he said, “I like that very much,” and so on, passing from one Cubist picture to another, commenting upon each seriously and intelligently.

* * * * *

To either copy or be in the slightest degree hampered by nature is a mark of inferiority in Chinese and Japanese art.

The very abstract art of the Orient has its elaborate conventions, but those conventions are all in the direction of _pure_ art, whereas the conventions of our art (music always excepted) are all in the direction of imitation.

It was a theory of the great Chinese teacher, Chinanpin, and
particularly enforced by him, that trees, plants, and grasses take
the form of a circle, called in art _Rin kan_; or a semi-circle,
_Han kan_; or an aggregation of half circles, called fish-scales,
_Gyo sin_; or a modification of these latter, called moving
fish-scales, _Go sin Katsu_.[61]

* * * * *

In regard to painting moving waters, whether deep or shallow, in
rivers or brooks, bays or oceans, Chinanpin declared it was
impossible for the eye to seize their exact forms because they are
ever changing and have no fixed, definite shape; therefore, they
cannot be sketched satisfactorily; yet, as moving water must be
represented in painting, it should be long and minutely
contemplated by the artist and its general character--whether
leaping in the brook, flowing in the river, roaring in the
cataract, surging in the ocean or lapping the shore--observed and
reflected upon, and after the eye and the memory are both
sufficiently trained and _the very soul of the artist is
saturated_, as it were, with this one subject, and he feels his
whole being calm and composed, he should retire to the privacy of
his studio and with the early morning sun to gladden his spirit
there attempt to reproduce the movement of the flow; _not by
copying what he has seen_, for the effect would be stiff and
wooden, but by symbolizing according to certain laws _what he feels
and remembers_.

* * * * *

It begins to be plain why the Japanese expert was profoundly interested in the modern pictures and drawings.

* * * * *

One of the most important principles in the art of Japanese
painting--indeed a fundamental and entirely distinctive
characteristic--is that called living movement, _sei do_, or
_Kokoro machi_, it being, so to say, the transfusion into the work
of _the felt nature_ of the thing to be painted by the artist.
Whatever the subject to be translated--whether river or tree, rock
or mountain, bird or flower, fish or animal--the artist at the
_moment of painting it must feel its very nature_, which, by the
magic of his art, he transfers into his work to remain forever,
affecting all who see it with the same sensations he experienced
when executing it.

This is not an imaginary principle, but a strictly enforced law of
Japanese painting. The student is insistently admonished to observe
it. Should his subject be a tree he is urged when painting it to
_feel_ the _strength_ which shoots through the branches and
sustains the limbs; or if a flower to try to _feel_ the grace with
which it expands or bows its blossoms. Indeed, nothing is more
constantly urged upon his attention than this great _underlying
principle_ that it is _impossible to express in art what one does
not first feel_.

* * * * *

“Waga kokoro waga te woyaku
Waga te waga kokoro ni ozuru.”
Our spirit must make our hand its servitor;
Our hand must respond to each behest of our spirit.

Stronghold]

The Japanese artist is taught that even to the placing of a dot in
the eyeball of a tiger, he must _first feel_ the savage, cruel,
feline character of the beast, and only under such influence should
he apply the brush. If he paint a storm he must at the moment
_realize_ passing over him the very tornado which tears up trees
from their roots and houses from their foundations. Should he
depict the seacoast with its cliffs and moving waters, at the
moment of putting the wave-bound rocks into the picture he must
_feel_ that they are being placed there to resist the fiercest
movement of the ocean, while to the waves in turn he must give an
irresistible power to carry all before them. Thus, by this
sentiment called living movement (_sei do_), _reality_ is imparted
to the inanimate object. This is one of the marvelous secrets of
Japanese painting handed down from the great Chinese painters and
based on psychological principles--_matter responsive to mind_.[62]

* * * * *

In the light of the foregoing, one begins to understand why Winslow Homer painted such wonderful realizations of the sea and rocky coasts--he _lived_ removed from men, his most intimate friends the rocks and waves.

One also begins to understand how painters who show great strength and promise in their earlier works, based upon surroundings they know, lose both strength and promise when, flushed by prosperity or attracted by tinsel and glitter, they establish their studios in cities and still try to paint the sea or the country.

* * * * *

Japanese artists are not bound down to the literal presentation of
things seen. They have a canon, called _esoragoto_, which literally
means an invented picture, or a picture into which certain fictions
are painted.

Every painting to be effective must be _esoragoto_; that is there
must enter therein certain artistic liberties. It should aim not so
much to reproduce the exact thing as its sentiment, called _kokoro
mochi_, which is the moving spirit of the scene; it must not be a
facsimile.

* * * * *

It is related that Okubo Shibutsu, famous for painting bamboo, was
requested to execute a kakemono representing a bamboo forest.
Consenting, he painted with all his well-known skill a picture in
which the entire bamboo grove was in red. The patron upon its
receipt marveled at the extraordinary skill with which the painting
had been executed, and, repairing to the artist’s residence, he
said:

“Master, I have come to thank you for the picture; but, excuse me,
you have painted the bamboo red.”

“Well,” cried the master, “in what color would you desire it?”

“In black, of course,” replied the patron.

“And who,” answered the artist, “ever saw a black-leaved bamboo?”

This story well illustrates _esoragoto_. The Japanese are so
accustomed to associate true color with what the _sumi_ [the black
so commonly used in Japan] stands for, that not only is fiction in
this respect permissible but actually missed when not employed.

* * * * *

_Esoragoto_ is a very good word for the Post-Impressionists to appropriate. We have no word in English and I know of none in French that is anywhere near its equivalent.

Impressionism is painting with a minimum of _esoragoto_; Post-Impressionism is painting with a maximum of _esoragoto_.

The pendulum in art and literature swings from less _esoragoto_ to more--from realistic transcription with a minimum of self, to idealistic compositions with a _maximum_ of self.

* * * * *

All the great art of the world is _esoragoto_.

The greatest paintings in the world are indoor not outdoor paintings--_in-self_ not _out-self_.

All the great Italian paintings and frescoes are creations of the imagination. The portraits of Velasquez, Rembrandt, Hals are _esoragoto_. They are the sitters idealized by the genius of the artists. They are far removed from photographic realism.

Why are the portraits of the same man or woman painted by different artists so unlike? Because each is more or less _esoragoto_--more or less the reflection of the painter rather than the sitter.

* * * * *

For a long time we have been so influenced by the theories of the Impressionists, the realists, the _plein-air_ school, that we resent it when an artist says, “I will paint something more beautiful than nature; I will paint nature herself more beautiful than she is. I will paint the spirit of nature. I will paint trees that do not look like trees, but will give you the feeling, the dignity, the power of trees. I will paint the earth, not as it looks, but in a way that will give you an impression of its fertility and fecundity. I will paint you flowers, not by faithfully copying them as they are in the field, but as they bloom and blossom in your memory. I will paint you men and women, not as you see them on the street and in the drawing room--superficial resemblances--but as they really are to you and to me, human beings the true significance of which is not expressed in the drooping of a moustache, the lifting of an eyebrow. I will paint them in black or brown or red or blue, or in gold or bronze, as does the sculptor; I will paint them in a way so strange you have never seen the like before, but I will make you _feel_ their _humanity_.”

* * * * *

To illustrate the arbitrary manner which the great oriental artists use colors to produce harmonious results irrespective of nature, I once used a number of old Chinese paintings borrowed from a famous collection--in each of which the hair of the figures was painted _blue_.

And why not? Black, brown, or flaxen would not have given the effect the painter desired, any more than C, D, or E would take the place of F in a chord.

The Oriental needs a note of blue and so paints the hair blue. And when one comes to think of it, next to some marvelous shades of red, blue hair is far more positive and picturesque than gray, or yellow, or any black but a glossy raven.

We never think of resenting a terra cotta horse in a print by Hokusai; it does not disturb us because we instinctively recognize the fact that a strong note of terra cotta is needed precisely where it is used--a terra cotta horse, or rock, or man, it matters not.

* * * * *

Human faces of gold, silver, bronze, even marble--that ugliest of all stones, in its natural state--do not worry us.

In fact when we look at marble sculpture we are in the attitude of the man who ordered the painting of the bamboo forest. We are so accustomed to seeing ghostly white marble busts and statues we actually resent it if the sculptor _stains_ or _colors_ the marble not to make it more realistic, but to make it _more beautiful_.

Yet all Greek sculpture was painted or treated with wax in such a manner the harshness of the stone was modified. The sensitive vision of the Greeks could not tolerate the cold, hard whiteness.

Much of our enjoyment of ancient sculpture is due to its discoloration, to what time and the elements have done to its surfaces.

* * * * *

Our appreciation of art will never be true until we can gaze with unprejudiced eye upon any combination of lines and colors the artist chooses to use.

So long as we demand that he shall use only those combinations we are accustomed to, just so long do _we_ by _our_ attitude check his development.

The average man is bewildered by the new and the strange; he is bewildered by new cities, new countries, new peoples, new pictures, new sculpture, new architecture, new music, new books, new ideas--because he is not used to them and does not understand them; he does not know whether to like them or not so he condemns them in order to make a pretense of knowing.

* * * * *

The rare man is not bewildered by the new and the strange at home or abroad, in art or life. He is interested and at once sets about learning and comprehending. He _loves_ the new and the strange _instinctively_ because they excite his curiosity and pique his intelligence. He loves to meet the new and the strange as an archeologist loves to find an inscription in an unknown tongue--for the hidden significance.

* * * * *

This chapter may be concluded appropriately by four warnings which Chinese wisdom pours into the ears of art students. Many of the modern painters should ponder these precepts.

“Ja, Kan, Zoku, Rai.”

“_Ja_ refers to attempted originality in a painting without the ability to give it character, departing from all law to produce something not reducible to any law or principle.

“_Kan_ is producing only superficial pleasing effect without any _power_ in the brush stroke--a characterless painting, to charm only the ignorant.

“_Zoku_ refers to the fault of painting from a mercenary motive only--thinking of money instead of art.

“_Rai_ is the base imitation of or copying or cribbing from others.”

X

UGLINESS

The modern movement is in the direction of greater freedom, freedom to produce beautiful things in one’s own way.

_Unhappily many of the things produced are not beautiful now_--not nearly so dignified and beautiful as thousands upon thousands of old pictures.

One’s _first_ impression on entering an exhibition of extreme modern works is not an impression of beauty but of _ugliness_.

There is no denying that, and it takes even the most impartial and sympathetic observer a long time to pick out the things which are fine in color and line and to readjust his notions of beauty.

Many of the pictures are brutal and most of them are crude, but while the first impression may be one of ugliness it is more, it is one of _exceeding vitality_.

There is nothing musty about the moderns, their canvases are so alive _they scream_.

As compared with the subdued tones of an academic exhibition a modern seems like a babel of discordant sounds, but the confusion is more apparent than real. By going day after day one gets accustomed to the newness, the freshness, the strangeness of it all and begins to understand and appreciate the one big, dominant note--_vitality_.

* * * * *

Then, too, when we say the _first_--and last for most people--impression is one of ugliness, we must not forget

DERAIN

Forest at Martigues
]

that our appreciations are primarily the result of environment and habit, and only secondarily, and with comparatively few, the result of intelligent discipline.

We like what we are accustomed to and dislike what we are not accustomed to. Few take the pains to discipline their likes and dislikes.

* * * * *

Seventy years ago public and critics thought Turner ugly in the extreme.

Sixty years ago public and critics thought Millet ugly in the extreme.

Fifty years ago public and critics thought Manet ugly in the extreme.

Forty years ago public and critics thought Monet ugly in the extreme.

Thirty years ago public and critics thought Cézanne ugly in the extreme.

Twenty years ago public and critics thought Gauguin ugly in the extreme.

Ten years ago public and critics thought VanGogh ugly in the extreme.

Today public and critics think the Cubists and nearly all the new men ugly in the extreme.

Each decade has its men in art, music, science, literature whose works at first seem ugly, only to win out in the long run.

Hence the danger in pronouncing this or that painting ugly; it may seem grotesque and hideous today; thirty years hence it may command thousands from men and museums eager to possess it. That has been the history of many great paintings.

* * * * *

Still we do have our notions regarding the ugly and the beautiful, and while our notions change and develop year by year they naturally control at each given moment; that is, we cannot say we _think_ a picture or a piece of music is beautiful today because the chances are we will think it beautiful a dozen years hence, any more than we can say we like olives on first tasting them, simply because most people come to like them after a time.

To the London public in 1840 the pictures of Turner were absurd.

To the Paris public in 1874 the pictures of the Impressionists were ridiculous.

To the New York public in 1913 the pictures of the Cubists were grotesque.

These several publics were not to blame; they could not help their impressions. They had been brought up on very different picture-food and did not like the taste of the new.

The attitude of the public was normal, logical, and sane. If the people had received the new men with wild acclamations of joy and called them great on first sight it would have meant such instability of opinion and character as to render the homage absolutely worthless.

In a sense, tenacity of opinion on the part of the public is the salvation of art as well as of morals; it is essential to substantial progress.

Therefore the everlasting conflict between the old and the new is a normal conflict; the clash between the public and new art, new music, new thought is a healthful clash, because the fiercer the conflict the more certain that what survives will be worth having.

* * * * *

The only excuse for an ugly picture is superb technic--and even then the excuse is not a very good one for the same technic should paint a beautiful thing.

There were plenty of ugly pictures in the exhibition; some were interesting on account of their technic, others were without any excuse at all--_just ugly_.

A great painter may paint things, a great writer may write things which no amount of good painting and no amount of good writing can excuse--there are plenty of such paintings and books in the world.

But because there were a number of ugly--ugly to the extent of being objectionable--pictures in the exhibition, that should not and does not detract from the merits of men who did not paint them.

An ugly work is a comment upon him who produces it and upon those who accept it. It is a golden opportunity, a touchstone to those who reject it.

* * * * *

There is a great deal of the ugly in the work of Matisse, mixed with a great deal of extraordinary technic. He is a good man to study, but a bad man to imitate--for that matter, the same, in a profounder sense, may be said of every man of ability.

Then, too, it should never be forgotten that _refinement_ is an essential element in all _great_ art.

* * * * *

The supreme justification of the new art is that its works shall tend toward the beautiful. If they make for ugliness their existence is without rhyme or reason. Many of the new men seem to forget this.

However, even the ugly, the grotesque, the hideous has its use. Any art may become so smug, so complacent, so conceited that it requires the shock of the ugly to stir it to new life.

After Bouguereau, Matisse was inevitable.

However, a very little of the ugly goes a long ways, a very little of Matisse at his worst is all that is needed as an antidote to Bouguereau.

Zola-like fidelity in depicting the ugly in life has its uses--and abuses.

* * * * *

It is easy enough to paint a conglomeration of angles and cubes, but it will be as hollow and meaningless as the pattern of an oilcloth unless it has sincerity behind it.

No doubt many of the new men lack sincerity. Doubtless not a few are inspired with simply the desire to create a sensation, but these men soon betray themselves.

The artist may not succeed in making _his_ meaning clear, but the public--yes, even the much despised public--will instinctively _feel_ whether there is _some_ meaning, _some_ intention worth finding out.

That was the secret of the success of the Cubist pictures. They attracted throngs because they were strange, but the throngs would never have gazed as they did unless behind the outward strangeness there had not been an inward seriousness of purpose.

“Those fellows are trying to do something,” was an expression often heard.

* * * * *

The papers would say, “They are simply making fun of the public,” but the public, generally speaking, did not feel that way.

A goodly section of the public made fun of the pictures, but very few people honestly felt the pictures made fun of the public--if anything they were rather too serious.

* * * * *

To return to the proposition that a Cubist picture--being so largely _esoragoto_--must be well painted.

Head of a Girl]

The painter of scenes and things is helped out by his subject.

The portrait of a beautiful woman may be very badly painted, but if it conveys the impression of a beautiful woman it is accepted.

The Cubist who tries to paint _his_ impression of a beautiful woman has no likeness to help him out; he must make his painting so beautiful in itself that those who see it will, without knowing why, get some of the enjoyment from the mere composition of line and color that the artist received from knowing the woman who inspired the picture.

To do this a man must be a greater master of line and color, a greater technician, than the average portrait painter.

* * * * *

Ask the average portrait painter to paint a composition of line and color, beautiful in itself without reference to any object, and not one in a hundred can do it.

The average portrait painter finds his compositions of line and color ready-made; he takes them as they come to him. He has little practice in _composing_ for himself.

* * * * *

However disconcerting the exhibition was to most painters it should have been stimulating to decorators and interior furnishers.

The older pictures are of little help to the decorator. On the contrary he rather dreads their presence on his walls. A room may be quite upset by a strong picture. To make the Leyland dining room harmonize with the “Princess from the Land of Porcelain” Whistler painted practically every inch of walls and ceilings, completely covering costly woodwork and old Spanish leather.

To rightly hold a Rembrandt a room must be subdued and rich in tone, otherwise the picture is a dead weight. The greater the picture, the more completely the surroundings must either rise to it or be completely subordinated to it.

It is not so with the more abstract Cubist pictures; they do not thrust a great landscape or a powerful personality into the room; they are not intended to thrust any object upon the attention of the visitor. Intended to express simply the mood or emotion of the painter, they are unobtrusive, as unobtrusive as a pattern of the wall covering, a rug, or a tapestry; in effect they are not unlike a tapestry, save they are essentially modern in feeling, and therefore fit into our modern rooms as tapestries--and often rugs--do not.

* * * * *

Imagine the editorial room of a live, up-to-date newspaper--say a typical yellow journal--hung with Titians and Rembrandts! The paper would be paralyzed, the editorial staff would be depressed by the dignity and the sobriety, by the old-world flavor.

Whereas a lot of Cubist, Futurist, Orphist pictures would be quite in keeping with modern journalistic methods, and stimulating in the extreme. In the picturesque language of current journalism, they would be “live stuff.”

* * * * *

It is worth noting in passing that the time is probably coming when about as many pictures will be bought for offices as for homes, and fewer and fewer will be bought for those graveyards of art--private galleries.

Why should men buy pictures and hang them where they are seldom seen, often in places where the light is so bad they cannot be seen?

Where do most men spend most of their time? In their places of business. Then why not make their places of business attractive and livable?

Every man knows how relaxing and delightful it would be if in the midst of a busy afternoon he could drop business for a moment and read an interesting book or listen to some good music. Well, we can’t do that; it takes too long to get into a book, and music is not at hand.

But we can turn from our desks and in a second lose ourselves in the contemplation of a beautiful picture.

* * * * *

The physician covers the walls of his office with prints of such pictures as Rembrandt’s “Lesson in Anatomy.” Ugh!

The lawyer covers the walls of his office with dusty lawbooks. Whew!

The manufacturer covers the walls of his office with prints of factories, machinery, goods, etc., etc. Shop! Shop! Shop!

No relief anywhere for man, patient, client, or customer.

Tired eyes that seek rest in change are met with the same old story--reflections of the daily grind.

Speaking from experience, I can say that next to getting out of an office for a brief respite, the contemplation of pictures yields the greatest rest, actually enabling one to do more work per day with less fatigue.

It is so refreshing to get up from one’s desk for only a few moments and be instantly transported far away on the wings of the imagination of a painter.

It is a rest, a complete rest, for the tired brain-cells, to lift one’s eyes from one’s work and gaze at a picture--the effect is like unto that of distant music wafted through the open window.

Of all men in the world, the busy American is most in need of pictures on the walls of his office--not one or two, but many. The busier he is, the more he needs; his walls should be a blaze of color.

* * * * *

Most of our bankers and corporation magnates spend large sums in “solid mahogany fittings.” Their offices resemble old-fashioned Pullman sleepers. Cost is the one impressive feature. Woodwork, furniture, rugs, everything to the inkstand are massive and--oppressive. Everything is admirably calculated to make work more burdensome; commercial and financial life more sombre.

Why not the reverse of all this? Why fit up an office so that it is about as inviting as a tomb?

Why not make it so attractive that a man will look forward each morning to entering it? Why not so inviting that friends and strangers will be glad to visit it?

Why should an office be a place where no one goes except for business? Why should not men say to one another, “Come in a minute; I have a new picture I want to show you”?

* * * * *

One has simply to enter the offices and school-rooms of any art institute to realize the hollowness of the pretense of love for the beautiful. Infinite pains are taken to arrange the pictures and sculpture in the galleries; once out of the galleries, and all feeling of art disappears; the offices and school-rooms are more sordid, barren, and uninviting than most shops and factories.

In other words, the very men who are supposed to be devoting their lives to the service of art, to making the world more beautiful, who promote exhibitions and urge people to buy pictures, are content to pass all their working lives amidst surroundings unrelieved by a single picture, unadorned by a single fresco.

There is a great opportunity for missionary work in this direction. Why should not the many organizations such as “Friends of American Art,” etc., whose disinterested purpose is to advance art, organize a movement the object of which will be to place, by loaning if necessary, pictures and small sculpture in the offices and business haunts of the busy American man, and so create a new demand for beautiful things?

Once fill a man’s office with pictures, he will be reluctant to let them go.

XI

FUTURISM

There were no Futurist pictures in the exhibition, but there were several more or less influenced by Futurism, notably the “Nude Descending the Stairs,” by Duchamp.

In many respects this was the least satisfactory of his pictures, because it is neither good Cubism nor good Futurism.

It is easy to distinguish a figure drawn in more or less Cubist fashion, at the right--the spectator’s right--of the confused mass of lines; it is quite easy, if the balance of the picture be covered.

The confused mass is just so many overlapping figures coming down the stairs. As a child exclaimed one day, “Why, I see them; there’s one on every step.” The Cubist drawing did not bother the child.

* * * * *

A sympathetic writer says of the picture:

M. Duchamp says in effect something like this: “If you paint a girl
coming downstairs, on any one step you will not show her moving. If
you paint a girl on every step, like Burne-Jones with the ‘Golden
Stair’ you have a crowd and still no movement. But if you get the
forms down to simplest and most essential, just swaying shoulders
and hip and knee, bent head and springy sole--and then show them on
every step and between all the steps, passing and always passing
one into the next, you give the sense of movement, as with a run of
arpeggios on the harp or a cadenza on the violin. You and your
friends don’t feel the movement--too bad, my friends and I do.” And
pure movement is what, after all, here was sought.

Pure movement, it will hardly be questioned, these men can give.

Dog and Person in Movement]

Picabia makes the lines in his “Dance at the Spring” leap and swing
and flicker like a fiddler’s bow. If he and others want, when they
choose, to abandon the last pretense of representation and convey
directly to you the way they feel mass and motion, as music conveys
inner experience always, who is to stop them?

* * * * *

Futurism had its beginning in Italy a few years ago. The first exhibition in Paris was held in February, 1912. One of its fundamental notions in painting is a certain theory regarding the painting of motion. It is that in order rightly, scientifically, to indicate motion on a canvas it is not sufficient to paint the figure of a man in an attitude of walking, but a series of more or less clearly outlined figures must be shown overlapping, a sort of cinematograph effect; very much as every painter shows a blur of spokes to indicate a wheel turning, if an individual is in motion there must be a blur of many overlapping individuals. (See the half-tone of the girl with the dog.)

The theory is interesting, it is based on recognized optical conditions, and no doubt the experiments will have their value. Some very interesting results have been obtained in photography already.

* * * * *

The program of the Futurists is, however, far more ambitious than the mere painting of motion effects. They have issued the following formal “Manifestoes”:

1. “Manifesto of Futurism,” February, 1909; written by F. T. Marinetti.[63]

2. “Manifesto of Futurist Painters,” April, 1910.

3. “Manifesto of Futurist Musicians,” May, 1911.

4. “Manifesto of the Futurist Woman,” March, 1912.

5. “Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture,” April, 1912.

6. “Manifesto of the Technic of Futurist Literature,” May, 1912. Supplement to same, August, 1912.

And every few months new declarations of faith are issued in Milan, each, if possible, more violent and extravagant than its forerunner.

If the public looked upon the Cubist pictures as “crazy,” what would it think of these manifestoes if printed in English and scattered broadcast?

The work of madmen!

So many madmen and visionaries have influenced the world by their utterances that we must not turn a deaf ear.

* * * * *

The Futurists are the anarchists of the art and literary world.

The Cubists, Orphists, and other extreme moderns all _reason from_ the past; the Futurists would _break with_ the past entirely--as if it were possible!

All who do not agree with them are _Pass-ists_, and every form of art and literature up to Futurism belongs to _Pass-ism_, and is therefore condemned.

* * * * *

There is much in Futurism that is repellant, just as there is much in Anarchism that is repellant.

When men push their opposition to established order to extremes, their hatred of the traditional and conventional is such they indulge in wild and foolish excesses; they even defy law and order and decency, and require curbing.

* * * * *

The unprejudiced reader will find a great deal that is suggestive in some of these Futurist declarations mixed with much that is philosophically and ethically unsound.

Take, for instance, some of the propositions regarding the technic of the literature of the future:

1. Use only the _infinite form_ of the verb, because only the infinite mood gives the sense of the _continuity of life_.

2. Abolish the use of the _adjective_ so that the noun _standing alone_ may speak for itself with all its force. The adjective implies modification, an arrest of judgment, meditation, and is, therefore, opposed to the _human vision dynamic_, to the _force_ and _energetic flow_ of human thought.

3. Abolish the _adverb_, which is a _superfluous refinement_, a fastidious hampering of human expression.

4. New _punctuation_: Adjectives and adverbs and conjunctive phrases being suppressed, punctuation goes with them naturally, in the varied continuity of a living style which creates itself without the use of absurd commas and periods. To accentuate certain movements and indicate their directions, certain mathematical and unusual signs will be used.

5. Abolish the “I” from literature, that is to say, _psychology_; replace the “I,” the ego, by the _matter_, the essence of which must be appreciated by intuitions. Heretofore the matter, the real substance of a book or a poem, has been obscured by the intervention of the ego of the writer, by the persistent “I” of the author, who is too much pre-occupied with himself and filled with prejudices and conceits in his own supreme wisdom. In short, writers use the subjects of the works as vehicles to exploit themselves.

(Here the Futurists certainly put their finger on one of the weak spots in literature.)

6. Revolution in _typographical_ appearance: Suppress the ornaments, fancy initials, &c., &c., of the presented printed page, which impede rather than assist the natural flow of expression. “We will employ on the same page three or four inks of different colors, and twenty different characters, if necessary: for example, italics to express rapid sensations; capitals for violent; &c., &c. New conception of the _graphic_ printed page.”

* * * * *

All of which sounds wildly extravagant, but in sum and substance it simply means the death of the, let us say, Henry James style and the apotheosis of the front page of the modern sensational journal.

And is it not true that the painfully involved and boresome style of Henry James--the adjectival and adverbial style, the style of endless qualifications, the assertion and amplification of the “ego” style--is rapidly becoming obsolete in fiction as it has long been obsolete in American journalism?

And is it not true that the _terse_, the _substantive_, the _journalistic_ style, together with the printed page in many colors and many types, is gaining vogue?

In even the matter of punctuation the painstaking use of the comma and the semicolon has yielded to the free use of the dash. Only a short time ago there appeared a lamentation by a well-known writer over the use of the dash in dialogue. He counted an unbelievable number on one page of a popular magazine, each of which, he thought, should have been replaced by one of the more orthodox signs.

But the orthodox signs are _too slow_. Modern conversation does not move in studied phrases and rounded periods; its sign is the _dash_, because the dash either breaks the thought abruptly or carries it over into the words of the next speaker.

* * * * *

Furthermore, before leaving the subject, it should be

Maternity]

noted that there is coming over our literature a profound, a radical change, _a change in the direction of terser, more forcible expression_; a change in the _direction of the elimination of superfluous words_, of _condensation_, to the end that the imagination and intelligence of the _reader_ will be called more and more into play.

It is conceivable that the reading public may become so _intelligent_ and so keenly _sensitive_ that _one word_ will suffice to convey a wealth of information or suggestion where _a page_ is now necessary.

Certain it is, if mankind is progressing at all, it is progressing in _that direction_.

* * * * *

The _rise_ of the _printed_ drama means the _fall_ of the _descriptive_ novel.

A few years ago no American publisher would risk the printing of a play; now every play of any merit and many of no merit are issued in book form.

The novelist devotes two-thirds of his book to descriptions of persons and places, and most of the remaining third to banal psychological analysis and comment. He leaves little to the imagination of the reader, who is told the color of the heroine’s eyes and hair, the number of her dimples, the length of her smile, the shape of her teeth, her make of face powder, together with endless references to her hats, gowns, shoes, parasols, etc., etc.

Usually the novelist has some young woman acquaintance in mind, and he _literally forces_ the woman he likes upon the reader, who may be in love with an entirely different type, and who, if left to himself, would find the girl he likes in the pages of the story.

The dramatist does nothing of the kind. “Mary Smith, age about twenty,” suffices for him. Shakespeare gives no more than the name.

As for description of places, “a room,” or “an office,” “a wood,” “a garden,” answers every purpose.

Managers and players have no trouble in building up both scenes and characters; the less “directions,” the more room for individual initiative.

Nor is the reader of a play troubled by entire absence of description and “directions.” His imagination supplements the dramatist’s, and he creates heroes and heroines to please himself.

That psychological _analysis_ is not only not essential to the psychological novel, but positively detrimental, is demonstrated by the entire absence of such analysis in so profound a psychological study as Hamlet. Paul Bourget is as obsolete as Henry James.

* * * * *

Bernard Shaw is the one conspicuous reactionary. He still exploits the ego, and writes as if his readers were fools--perhaps they are.

* * * * *

The popularity of the cinematograph lies not in the cheapness of the entertainment, nor in its _novelty_, which wore off long ago, but in the fact that it is _without words_ and each onlooker enjoys his own interpretation; from child to old man, every one in the audience is _his own playwright_, supplying his own dialogue as the scenes flicker on the curtain.

The best of modern plays leave much to the imagination of the audience. Words and bits of business absolutely necessary thirty years ago are considered childishly obvious nowadays, as is amply demonstrated in revivals of old plays.

Apparently the development is toward more action and less dialogue--more cinematograph, fewer words.

Scenery will become less and less obvious--save, of course, where it is intended to be of first importance. In the theater of the future there will be less and less on the stage to interfere with the _play--of the spectator’s_ imagination.

* * * * *

There is a precisely parallel tendency in print--more action, fewer words; more suggestion, less description.

The future novel will leave more and more to be supplied by the reader. Paragraphs, pages, whole chapters now deemed essential, will be omitted.

In books such as histories, philosophical works, scientific treatises, &c., &c., the skill and art of the printer will be exhausted to make the page not only attractive but expressive--_readable at a glance_, instead of, as now, to make the volumes as forbidding as possible.

The much-despised “yellow journal” of America has taught a valuable lesson in the _art of emphasis_, and its effect is seen not only in the make-up of newspapers but of periodicals, and will be felt in the make-up of books.[64]

* * * * *

In America the art of advertising has far outstripped the art of literature. The advertising pages of our periodicals are often more interesting and _always_ more _alive_ than the literary.

A magazine devotes pages to an article or a story every line of which betrays the writer’s evident desire to write as _many words_ as possible. In the advertising pages, to every square inch, the minds not of one but of three or four experts have been concentrated upon the attempt to express an idea in as _few words_ as possible and in such a manner it will stand out and be read with a minimum of trouble.

Why should not stories be told that way? Why should not all literature be written and printed that way?

The proposition may seem a startling one, but the _tendency is_ that way.

We find fault with our plays, our poetry, our fiction, our serious literature; we complain people prefer the _flashy_ periodical; well the word _flashy_ is doubly descriptive--it is commonly used to describe the _quality_ but it also measures _time_.

* * * * *

Meanwhile most of us underrate the intelligence of our readers and use more words than are necessary to carry our meanings.

The Futurists themselves use an abundance of words in advocating their cause, though their examples of Futurist literature contain many lines and pages that are written in strict accordance with their theories.

Marinette says in so many words, “Philosophy, science, politics, journalism, must still make use of the conventional syntax and punctuation; I am myself obliged to use them to explain my ideas.”

* * * * *

March 8, 1910, in the Theatre Chiarella, at Turin, before an audience of three thousand, the Futurist painters launched their first declaration of faith, “which contained,” to follow their own words, “all our profound disgusts and hatreds, our revolts against vulgarity, against academic and pedantic mediocrity, against the fanatic cult of what is antique.”

The Boat Ride]

The White Wall]

1. Our desire for the truth no longer contents itself with form and
color as heretofore understood.

2. What we wish to reproduce on the canvas is not an instant or a
moment of immobility of the universal force that surrounds us, but
_the sensation of that force itself_.

3. As a matter of fact everything moves, everything runs,
everything transforms rapidly. A profile is never immobile before
us, but it appears and disappears without ceasing.

Given the fact of the momentary persistence of the image on the
retina, objects in movement multiply, change form and follow like
vibrations in space. A running horse has not four legs, but twenty,
and their movements are triangular.

4. Nothing is absolute in painting. That which was a truth for the
painters of yesterday, is a lie for those of today. We declare, for
example, that a portrait should not resemble its sitter, and that
the painter carries in his own imagination the landscape he wishes
to place upon the canvas.

[On this point the Futurists and Cubists agree.]

5. To paint the human figure it is not necessary to paint the
_figure_ but simply to give its _envelopment_. Space does not
exist. Millions of miles separate us from the sun, yet that is no
reason why the house before us should not be encased in the solar
disk. In our work we can secure effects similar to those of the
X-ray. Opacity does not exist.