The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-04-18
REALISM IN ART is OPPOSED.

Boston Advertiser: What puzzles
and their works, which we are to see
at Copley hall shortly, is not so much
that they are queer and incoherent
themselves, but hat there should be
so man apparently intelligent and
reasonable people VINO are inclined to
take them seriously. In seeking an
explanation of this strange phenom-
enOn, it is we'll to remember that,
among art amateurs, in these days,
there are not a few who are in a state
of revolt against liberalism and real
ism, and who are ready to fly to the
other extreme Of art. 1t was Goethe
who said:
Nature is nothing but a goose; it
is for us to make something of her;
she only exists through u.s."
Eugene DelaCrOix had a similar the
DRY. In a conversation with Baude-
laire he expressed himself as follows;
Mature Is only a dictionary. Now
what is a dictionary? Not a book, but
a tool with which to make books. In
ii We look for words, their meaning
and their etymoIogy. All the elements
that compose a phrase or a narrative
are taken from it. but no one has ever
thought Of considering the dictionary
as a composition in the poetic sense OF
the word
According to Delacroix, a literal
transcription, in painting, no matter
how able, is no more worthy Of esteem
than g. photograph. 1t is a document,
which may be mastery in its way, but
still only a document. The painter Is
not an artist unless he is able to
Chasten and order, according to a per-
sonal idea, what he sees. The true
artist concentrates the interest. "in
surpressing useless or repulsive or
stupid details. His hand "~disposes
and establishes, adds and subtracts,
and employs only those objects that
are his own. He does not copy reali-
ty, he recasts it. His impression be-
comes synthetic and broad, it reflects
ats the lesson suggested by the spec
taCle of things.
Delacroix went still further. It did
not d~isplease him If a work was in
correct, so long as the lack Of exacti-
tude enabled the artist to give more
cohesion to his ensemble and more
nervous energy to the effect. Art
should be, above all, expressive. To
disengage and bring out the essentials
Of what he sees should be the aim of
the painted. To attain to this end one
must be daring. ITO be bold Is the
greatest sign of strength" OF this
bOldness the most magnificent exam
pie is Rubens. But one has the right
to be bold only when he has knowl-
edge. Before employing ~synthesis,
long n patient labor of analysis
must be made. ION ne'est jamais as
SEE savant," he cried.
Almost all the mOdernist move
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES, futurism,
cubism, Orphism-are, in the first
place, so many expressions Of revolt
against liberalism. The characteristic
of all revolts is that they go to ex-
tremes. In trying to get away from
im~personal realism, the insurgent ar
fist discards nature altogether, and
exalts himself at the expense of all
other considerations. Instead of try
ing to make it like, he aims to ex-
| press his WI emotions, without re-
gard to the aspect Of things seen. THIS
Is, in a word, the new ideal of the new
art. 1t is egotistic. It presupposes
the supreme importance of the artists
own personality. 1t will not meet the
man in the street halfway, but de-
mands tina he should learn a new Ian
guage in order to understand it.
There will always be a relatively
small number of amateurs who are
sufficiently advanced in their ideas to
take up with daring experiments,
which they think they understand,
and with the tendency of which they
are more or less in sympathy, no mat
ter how illogical or eccentric they may
be. This accounts for the position to-
day of such men as Roger Fry and
Christian Brinton. They start with
the postulates advanced by Delacroix.
as above outlined, and they find them
selves, eventually, in the camp of the
Fauves. The early steps in the process
are easily accounted for. 1t is some
what more difficult to explain the lat
err stages. The literature of the new
movement is quite as incoherent, SO
far, as the pictures and sculptures.