The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-02-02
A New Review of Art and
Satire.

THE Sun is more than partial TO art
magazines. believes whole -heartedly in
them, welcomes all sorts and conditions
Of them, nay. believes that without all
sorts and conditions of them there can
not be much aot in tho country, and so
accepts the new Pldyboy with great
content, even though II does emanate
from Greenwich Village.
The PldVbou evidently wishes to he
light, gay, satirical profound, and
little bit naughty. The first and the
last of these aspirations it has realized
in the very first number. The others
may come in time. 1t has wide mar
gins, good plate paper for the cuts
I and variously colored papers for the
poems. and upon the whole has the
air of having been looked after by
| some one who mas an instinct for
printing. Good printing. alone. is an
| innovation for an art magazine.
| The matter, however, is not very
meaty. As the delightful actor people
in Trelawney- of the Wells said, There
J is nothing that one can chew on"
| The sketches are thin. and the writ
ers, with one exception, have nothing
to say. The magazine seems to have
been born because Greenwich Village
thought it would like to have a maya
zine, and not because Greenwich VII
lage has as yet found anything to
say.
The most easy going and pleasantest
OF the drawings have been supplied
10y Norman Jacobsen and John Sloan.
both drawings probably fished out Of
| portfolios for the occasion. Mr.. Sloan's
is of Robert Henri, and when you have
been told II Is Mr.. Henri you can
see a faint resemblance. At least the
hair Is true 10 lire. one wonders what
Mr. Sloan was thinking OF when he
made the drawing. Certainly not OF
Mr. Henri. Probably decided he would
do a little flexible. wrist action and
Henri happened to he there and-but
after all, Henri is easy to draw any
body could draw him. and it is queer
that Mr.. Sloan should prefer making
flexible strokes TO true ones.
The one Villager who had something
to say was Louise Bryant. who went to
Russia to study life and the emotions.
She says:
I'm. Russia art is not a luxury. like
1t is in our United States; it is never
wholly an amusement it is vital
part of life, necessity. II is buiddd
out OF the deepest sorrows and the
deepest joys. That is why Russia,
starving and besieged by the whole
world, has every theatre running In
Petrograd and Moscow, and why the
season, now at its height, is perhaps
the most successful season in the his
tory of the Russian theatre.
| There is no place in Russia for an
artist who works solely for money, for
an artist who prostitutes himself. but
there is honor and alteration aplenty
for real genius. John Barrymore would
never play to poor houses in Russia
not If his whole audience went hun
cry in order to buy tickets: Boardman
Robinson would be known by 1870, 900,
600 people as a great cartoonist: Mimi
Agugiia. even If she did. not speak the
language. would nightly receive ire
mendous ovations instead of being
shifted to what is approximate TO The
Bronx or the Bowery. For such is
Russia.
MY little friend in Petrograd will
never be taught to draw like James
Montgomery Flagg or like Gibson or
like Stanlaws. or to aspire to do so
lie will never learn to admire the kiss
ing pictures on the covers of our
fifteen cent magazines. In order Ia
be noticed at all he will have to de
velop himself. He will have to create
something. There will be for him nc
terrible effacing pattern to go by. Sc
he has ten chances to one against his
American cousin"
Later on she says I'm order &c
give II fair chance To our public schoo
children e'have first to rev6lutionize
american thought We have to ge,
rid of some of our cursed Puritanism
THAT seems to me the principal reason