The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-03-07
TACT|LISM ART APPEALS ONLY TO
 SENSE OF TOUCH

New York-A sense of touch is a wonderful thing!
 Certain artists have made a new discovery about 'touch,' and as usual in great finds it's newnesS is disputed by authorities
 To participate immediately in the spirit of the newest thing in art, in short, to get in touch with it, stand on your tiptoes before the ancestral DOT traits in your dining salon. or before the butchers calendar that hangs in your kitchenette.
 Brush your fngertips lightly over the canvas cheek of great grandpa and see if you get the idea that your ancestor is present in the room.
 Not at all. Neither does the idea work with the lady of the calendar srnilingly chewing cherries.
 Now try the same touch on the chocolate-colored plaster Moor's head that you bought at your back door if you have one-from a soft-voiced peddler.
 Alas the touch dispels even the ferocious look he always had. It feels, not like a Moor's head, but like a clammy bit of soap.
 The reason is that neither the blast CT head nor the portrait have "tac- tiIe'' values.
 "Tactilism'' is a phase of modern art which has to do with the sense of touch.
 " noh nS<tO OI the r iSt movement in Paris, remarked re- gently that he discovered |''tactilism" about ten years ago-he and none other-F'rancois Picabia, literary sed- itonist, arose to inform the glove that Marinetti was a most mistaken man. Miss Clifford Williams, an Ameri- can, according to Picabia, discovered first the quality of the sense of touch as applied to art Five years ago in New York City she made a statue Ial r.I IeT, +<, be touched and not looked at. Miss Williams is not to be found at present nor is her work to be seen or touched But Marius De Zayas, CO., of modern and primitive arts, was prevailed upon to discuss 'NTacti1iSn' with the writer.
 TactHsrn' in art is the sensoria1 quality of the thing" he explained. ''It is as old as the Prinitives, who produced their emotions in work that had this tactile value.' MT De Zayas showed me a head | modelled out of brass, the face smooth and simply treated, detail eliminated as much as possible. The area which on a human head is covered with hair was found to have a different texture from the rest of the brass. To the eye this part of the surface was black ] in contrast to the greenish brass of | the face and of rough aspect | That is an example of tactilisn, '' MT De Zayas explained "An races | have made art objects pleasant to the | touch TactiliSm is not ten years old or five, but thousands of years of age | tIn Brancusi's Head of a. Child the | touching of the surface reveals a | feeling of great tenderness of texture. | In spite of these early examples an- other artist says the art of the sense l of touch is not old, but new-as new as our intensely sophisticated civi1iza- tion. This is Man Ray, painter, sculp- tor and a thorough modern
 '"The Primitives were not conscious of the tactile qualities of their work. They couldn't analyze it, declared Man Ray.
 '"Tactilism distinctly belongs to this age. We must claim it. It is a so- phisticated age-wen, that is our fate and we must accept it. But we can l be simple as well as sophisticated.
 '"TactiIisrn is making a thing tangi- b1e instead of merely giving the illu- sion of reality.
 "A vase has the tactile quality. A picture has not.
 'I want to eliminate the material, show the idea. Instead of giving the illusion we can by tacti1e qualities give the real thing