Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-08-06
PICTURES BY A WRITER-By Frederic j. HaSkin

Sherwood Anderson attitude toward art is
further explained in a note which accompa-
MES is exhibitions
''Thefe are certain things that haunt the
mind. They cannot be expressed in words
except througl the poet who occasionally
raises the power of words beyond the real
possibility of words.
81 am not musician, but it is not unlikely
that what | have tried to do in form and
color is related to the impulse of the mu-
stefan.
Some months ago 1 was in the South and
in very coIorful country. Before my house
lay bay-a outlet from the Gulf of Mexico.
There had been heavy rains up country and
the red soil was washed down into my little
bay The ay beca ne red. The morning
and afternoon light falling on it made a
color madness that got into my brain. AL
though [ had naver touched a brush l sent
brushes and paints.
"The adventures are my inner reactions
from the things seen about me. They are
done in the faith that an Impulse needs to
be strong enough to break through technical
training. In fact, technical training might
we'll destroy the impulse
"To you they may be ugly meaningless, or
beautiful. 70 doubt Ill of my inner thoughts
and impulses-lil1e YOUR own if they could
be seen-would be to some ugly, to others
meaningless, and to still other beautiful"
,Cleon Throckmorton, an artist Of this city,
has given us the artists viewpoint of the
Anderson exhibit. He pointed out that an
example of cubist art is not tt be viewed in
the same manner as one would study paint
ing BY Raphael or Reynolds. Painters Of
academic schools proceed on he premise that
the function of art is to create beauty. The
extreme mOdernist sees no particular reason
why art should be beautiful. Instead, he
aims to visualize and reproduce the 5pirit Of
the thing painted, or the emotion it arouses
in him. He eliminates all imitation Of actual
forms because he claims these merely serve
as distractions from the central thought Of
the picture.
The Key to the Puzzle
Therefore, anyone looking at a futuTfStIc
compositior is not supposed to regard it as
puzzle picture in which hidden object,
described in the title, is to be ferreted out
Instead, he puts on an abstract frame OF
mind and sits, and looks at the thing before
him, and tries to feel. But it, no use trying
to explain cubist picture, even emotions
on looking at one. Either you set it or you
don't. We refuse to say in which class we
fall.
1t would seem that this futuristic kind of
art might indeed be spontaneous without the
long apprenticeship necessary to achieve real
skill in academic painting. Any one endowed
with the vision of painter might, as Mr.
Anderson suggests, find that technique
would cramp his style.
With this, Mr.. ThrocklnOrtOn does not
agree. Handling of color he says is not :
clearly in his mind the exact tints he wishes
to reproduce but getting them out of the
palette is another problem. An amateur, he
explained pointing to lamp, could not re-
produce that green exactly on paper. Great
painters have studied day in and day out for
cars to gain mastery OF color.
After studying the Anderson ictures, this
artist found the purely abstract, cubist pic
lures the most praiseworthy Where the
novelist merely painted a realistic tree or
compromised by painting objects in post
impressionistic manner his lack of technique
became glazing. Almost any amateur could
do .-milar work.
Regarding the distractions, Mr.. Throck-
morton said: eff you admit the mod 9rnistic
premise of creating the spiritual emotion by
dssociating art from any concrete form, in
one or two instances he has succeeded-in
The Queen Walks by the Sea and the Paint
ers Pegasus" for example,"
He added that the artistic novelist seemed
to have talent for cubsm, and probably would
rank hight he kept on working.