The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-02-08
Art in indianapolis
BY ANTON SCHERRER

VXIILBUR PEAT promises to produce Walter pacb
wv in person next Monday everiro OF +laa r1a..a..


w in person next Monday evening at the Heron
Art Institute. Mr.. Pach will discuss Modern Art !"
AS rule, painters like to talk; Walter Pach more
SO than most. He learned to talk in the studio of
ROBERT Henri the most articulate painter America
ever had. He learned to paint there too in COM
pany with George Bellows, Rockwell Kent and our
own Clifton Wheeler. Before that he studied with
Leigh Hunt and William M Chase
In 1907, with Mr. Wheeler as buddy Pach went
to Paris. saw Matisse painting felt blow between
the eyes, After that, he surrendered to modern art
and looked up Critic Ellie Faure and Leo Stein
0iertrudes brother) who, more than anybody else
at the time, seemed to know what it was all about
Back in New York. he helped to organize the notor-
GUS Armory Show of 1912 which set tongues wagging
1t was Americas introduction to Matsse Picasso and
Cezanne.
Since them Mr. Pach has blazed a defense of
modern art by way of books newspaper columns and
lectures, in the course of which he has denied the
regulations Of Alma-Tadema, Blashfeld, zuloaga
and Sargent.
LIS responsiveness moved the Metropolitan Art
Il Museum to consign Emanuel Leutze's Wash
ington Crossing the Delaware" to the cellar. His
Ananlas, or the False Artist" 1929 is probably
his best known book; his scholarly translation Of
Ellie Faure's vast and authoritative History of Art"
1880 is worth anybody's time. Between books Mr..
Pach continues to paint, continues to sell his pic
lures. Manhattans Metropolitan owns four.
Walter Pach's enemies call him names; his
friends continue to cosher him with nicknames. AS
a youngster he known Rabbits" because he
raised them as a sophomore, Plney, because his
hair bristled
George Bellows called him "Psysche" (short for
"encyclopaediaD, Pachs favorite barber nicknamsd
him Hawser" tribute to his Incorporating.
raveled mustache.
Clifton Wheeler maintains strictly neutral posi-
ton, continues to call him "Pach" for short.
A LMOST the only subject in which interest
\ never flags for much as instant is FASH
ions in art How excited we were then to learn
he Art had Iar1d
by Hobbema (circa 1860. apparently unmindful Of
the fact that it is fashion among inteectuals of
today to disparage Dutch paintings.
Our wonder widens with the discovery that 1t Is
lovely picture that anybody like without q
struggle
We have quarrel with the intellectuals. AS
matter of fact, we like them, but do wish they
would mend their manners We don't like their
determined way of worshipping only at affairs un-
profaned by the vulgar. for instance. Nor. do We
like their way of sde-steppng the kind of beauty
The crowd goes in for.
The only way we know of putting the intelectuals
into their proper place is to remind them that they
are piping mad mid Victorian tune first expressed
by Charles Kingsley, a snob. who said that any
goose sees glory in the Matterhorn" Perhaps; but
the glory that goose can see may well bN better
worth seeing than more esoteric beauties.
And, anyway beauty is sacrament, which, like
all other sacraments, is not reserved for the elect
We hope don't have to mention the subject again.