The New York herald., 1922-10-15
ApolIinaire's
Cubistic Authority

There was something at once melting
and fortifying to young artists in the
methods OF the late Guillaume Apol-
linaire, and. next to the painters that he
put over upon the public, he becomes
more and more the important figure in
the art world of the period that pro-
duced the great war and cubisnn. Apol-
linaire was jauntier and more human
than Ezra Pound. but he had Pounds $
capacity to give and take intellectual
blows in the marketplace and ended In
securing a special position and IN al
ways being listened to carefully.
Painters are guileless folk and as
rule the greater they are the less guile
they have but some OF those that had
guile must have laughed up their sleeves
occasionally at some of Apollinaire's as
sertions, for sometimes when writing
Apollinaire stuck his tongue in his
cheek. But IL they did so they kept
mum about II and took care to seize all
the recldme that followed in the wake
of the writer's propouncements.
The first instalment OF Apollinaire's s
"Esthetic Meditations." translated by
Mrs. Charles Knoblauch and printed by
the Societe Anonyme in the Little Re
t,ietg,s Picabia number, will be scanned
very closely therefore by the younger
Americans. who. however, will not re-
gard IL as gospel so much as did the
young Frenchmen Of a few years ago.
though they cannot fail TO be stimulated
by the puzzling epigrams that Apolli-
naire shoots off and which compel one
10 thought.
II is amazing, when re-reading the
piece in Mrs. Knoblauch's clear English,
10 discover how early the beans had
been completely spilled by Apollinaire.
To this day people are continually ask
. ing what cubism is, and must one like
II. &C. and yet paragraphs like the
following ought 20 be easily understood
Many Of the new painters paint only
pictures which have no actual subject.
And the titles which one finds In the
catalogues play merely the role OF the
names which designate men without
characterizing them. / have seen can
vases entitled Solitude where there
we're several people. just as there are
Mr.. stouts who are very thin and Mr..
Blonds who are very dark. In the cases
IN question the artists even condescend
occasionally TO make use OF vaguely ex.
plicative words. such as portrait
/ landscape 'still-life.' many, however
| Of the young artists use only the general
I term. painting
These painters even II they still -Sb-
serve nature. no longer initiate her, and
/ they carefully avoid the representation
/ OF natural scenes studiously observed
and reconstructed. Actual resemblance
40 longer has any importance because
everything is sacrificed by the artist TO
l the verities. 10 the necessities OF a
superior nature which he presupposes
without exposing. The subject no
longer counts, or II it counts at ALL
counte for very little.
Generally speaking modern art re-
pudiates most OF the means OF pleasing
which we're used by the great artists OF
past times. To-day, as formerly the
| aim OF painting is still the pleasure OF
the eye the demand henceforward made
upon the amateur is TO find pleasure
other than the one which the spectacle
Of natural things could just as well
provide.
Thus one travels toward an entirely
new art. which compared to painting as
Il has been looked upon heretofore. shall