The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-02-15
Art in Indianapolis
by ANTON SCHERRER

FOOTBALL coaches have different ways of kill
L ing time between playing seasons. Robert Carl
Cup Zuppke of Illinois paints pictures for in
stance So does Glenn scobie (Pop) Warner of
Stanford
Coach Elmer Layden of Notre Dame, no doubt
will get around to painting, too of these days
When he does it's dollars TO doughnuts that his pic
lures will have none of zups weird color none of
Pops tight drawing.
Our bunch is that they will be more like those
of Emil Jacques, whose one-man show is now on
view at the Heron. Emil Jacques is dean of Notre
Danes Department of Fine Arts.
DROF. JACQUES, of Flemish origin, has been in
L America since 1923-long enough to want to
paint it.
Heron habtues, aware of what to expect of
painters out to do the American Scene, puzzled
to find not sign of a silo or tumble-down barn
or cyclone cellar in any of the professors pictures
Perhaps the American Scene has another side
too The irony is that foreigners see it first
What puzzled many even more were Prof
jacques studies for a set of murals designed for
Western church. Technically they were painted
with passion for precision. Emotionaly, they were
rendered with little, if any, passion. At any rate,
they lacked the fervor and ardor of the great rel-
gious paintings the church once sponsored.
Nevertheless, they such a welcome depar-
ture from the kind of art" American church-goe
have been compelled to put up with, that many
people - and especially architects = wondered
whether the church might not, after ALL be the
right track again.
WITH Mrs. Chester Dale at one end of the
w troversy shouting that Pcasso is "a god"
and with Thomas Craven, at the other end of the
line shouting just hard, if anything, that he
is "the Snowman of a cock-eyed cult" it isn't very
important perhaps, what anybody else thinks Of
the small collection of Picassos the walls of the
Heron this month.
What is important is the fact that Picasso shows
signs of FORGETTING his apparently position
Nobody has been able to laugh that off.
Please began painting IS years ago, began in
fuencing modern art almost Immediately. Gifted
with extraordinary technical ability and a Spanish
Italian mental equipment, he discovered at the very
start that he could initiate anybodys painting He
began initiating Toulouse-Lautrec and Daumier,
drifted under the spell of modern thought and tall
tabe-talk into what his critics call his periods
Always changing his mental moods and style he
developed his Blue Period, his Red Period his Neo-
Antique Period, his Negro Period and his Abstract
Period which concerns itself mostly with the strange
behavior of warped guitars and dizzy geometrical
shapes At time another, he became in
volved in objective painting and cubism, chucked
both to take up subjective painting and surreaisn.
Nobody knows what he still has up his sleeve.
Conservative critics concede Picasso's ability
a maker of patterns, rate him below Matisse and
Cezanne Cautious collectors his dexterity of
line, buy his prints that account. Any estimate
of him, however, which considers him only as an
artist Of technical ability must necessarily, fall
short of the mark. If we may be allowed a guess.
it is period personality, possibly psychologist
Cal phenomenon, that PicaSso will be finally judged