New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-02-26
NAUGHTY MANET
The Shameless Painter PHerbe Rebuked by Grave
p.,.on for Hi. Failure to Pretfy Natures Crude Masterpiece

o.ber man would he respect her and nm
Golf ca little as 10 permit himself and his
naked wife. with his best friend and mis- own
naked wife, to be photographed life-size, ana
the photograph exposed in public eNhio'-
tom Would he not call in the police II ne
should be snapshotted thus by some inter-
loper who should dare TO expose the en-
largment of the stolen snapshot? If not
we'll that stamps him. If so, where is the
difference between the realistic rendering OF
such a scene in photograph and reais'ic
painting of such a scene by Manet, as re-
CARDS its innate vulgarity and suggestlveness
when exhibited publicly?
Does Mr.. Haweis confess to being so stu
pidlv pure in heart as not TO know that, WINE
an artist may with perfect propriety pant
such a scene for practice and keep At hidden
in his studio, he has no moral right TO eX-
hibit il in a great public art exhibition where
all sorts of questions of sexual interest
will be asked by young girls and boys No
we'll as by all mankind? viii he DENY ths'
any painting which we cannot EXHIBIT III
public exhibition without its rouslng man
kind TO ask such questions is morally ue,
generate work of art-above all, II pal"teu
and exhibited TO create sensation as
Manet's friend Duret admits was the case
with this picture?
Matters of sex interest are fit for medi-
cal and philosophical books, but not for gIori-
fication in paint and marble.
Mr.. Haweis says: 81 deny that the female
seated !igure is self-conscious in any respect
other than the consciousness OF being
painted" Painted for what? For the ar
lists private practice and private closet or
for public exhibition?
The proof that / am right and this critic
wrong is furnished by what Manets most
friendly biographer, Duret, admits: "Manet'
however. by the choice and treatment of his
subject. had attacked all the sentiments that
the others respected. He had fouted the
- ~. honor of the nation that
is to say, for the public there was here deh'
veritable proclamation. an audacious dis
plav of all reprobated as Grass realism. As
if there had not been enough cause for rous-
ing the indignation of the public against the
ricture. it offended against decency in the
ewes of the publc," Does our American pub
lie need any more proof? 1t could easily be
furnished.
The lucubrations of Mr.. Haweis, a
whole. raise the suspicion that he belongs to
that nefaste coterie of European modern
istic" critics who have no more regard for
morals in art than an oyster, because to the
oyster all things are pure; a class of critics
who. after years of cropping about in the
dark, finally became vaguely conscious that
perhaps. after all. they were on the wrong
track; then. frightened at themselves, like
Tom Sawyer whistling to keep up his cour-
age when going through the graveyard, they
fight all the harder to preserve. their foolish
pojnt of view, foolish both in morals and IN
art. and ever after violently beat their wings
when their point Of view is attacked, like
flies with their claws caught in honey. One
is sorry for him.
Being natures masterpiece, the human body
has every sensible persons admiration and
respect "The Art World" positively is IN
favor of the nude in painting and sculpture
but only then when all the nskedness, sug-
gestiveness and RIGHTEOUSNESS have been
localized out oft.
PETRONIUS ARBITER.
New York Feb. 81, 1917