New-York tribune., 1921-09-09
Modernism in the Museum

Modernism in the Museum
The giant gooseberry served up
by the authors of the anonymous
circular attacking the Metropolitan
Museum is a belated fruit of de-
cidedly mixed juices. Like all such
portents of the heated term, it savors
of intelligence gone awry. In the
first place, the authors discover at
the eleventh hour, just as the ex-
hibition of modernist pictures is
about to be withdrawn in the
natural course of events, what
rational observers had noted months
ago when the show opened. This is
that the so-called "post-impression-
ist" painters produced quantity
of rubbish. What prodigious news!
The Tribune would be the last
paper in the world to defend the
modernists. Leaders in the "move-
ment'' have been appropriately dealt
with in it's columns over and over
again. When the Metropolitan ex-
hibition was opened the bad and
harmful traits Of the baser figures
in it were clearly stated. We can
sympathize with the writers of the
circular aforesaid in SO far as they
condemn modernistic incompetence
and presumption - without wasting
any time on cries Of pathological de-
generacy. The stuff is bad art,
worthless art. That is all that criti-
cism needs to notice. To pass from
this to regular abuse of the mu-
scum is mere nonsense.
The Metropolitan did wise
thing when it placed the modernists
on exhibition. The venture was one
of an educational nature, strictly
germane to the function of the
institution. 1t assembled these mod
ernists in place packed with
masterpieces of all the schools, old
and new. Before the thousands
who visit the museum in the long
sammer it laid down the evidence,
as it were, and conveniently pro-
vided all the touchstones whereby
this evidence might be tested. If
any mistake was made it was in
the publication of an introduction to
the catalogue too sympathetically
written. The visitor might better
have been left to find his way about
unaffected by so much as single
extenuation. But not even the
amiabilities Of the catalogue could
have led any sensible person to con-
clude that this show was an official
affirmation by the museum Of faith
in the principles" Of Cezanne and
Matisse.
What the exhibition essentially
amounts to is an expression Of the
enlightened liberality which has for
years marked the policy of the
director, Mr. Robinson, and the trus-
tees behind him. No one familiar
with the workings of the great or
ganization in Central Park can have
failed to recognize its progressive
tendencies. In the almost fantasti-
cally rapid development of it's col
lections, in it's cooperation with the
schools and with all the growing
agencies of industrial art, in it's
really constructive services to the
public, it enjoys prestige chal-
lenged by no similar institution in
the world. To grid at the museum
; for having held this exhibition, with
the assertion that it has declined
to exhibit the works of an Aneri-
can artist, is silly. Where would
the museum be if it were thus to
distinguish living American, no
matter how important? In a per-
feet maelstrom of criticism because
-Iit did not thereupon open it's doors
! literally to every Tom, Dick and
Harry.
i There is no blemish ON the mu-
seum's record in the matter of ex-
hibitions of American art. We have
only to allude to the brilliant occa-
'sions dedicated to Augustus Saint