Evening star., 1948-06-28

VI &C.
Like most men, every once in .
while question my sanity. worry
about whether I have all 81 cards
in my mental deck. and the proper
number Of buttons in my cerebel-
luna. A visit to the Museum OF
Modern Art is sufficient to convince
any average man that he Is a
whole lot saner than the artists
whose drawings hang there.
I am very grateful that I am
unable to appreciate modern art.
If I did appreciate modern art I
would be tempted to engage body
guard at handsome salary to see
to it that I didn't suddenly run
berserk and start failing away at
widows and orphans with a we'll
sharpened hatchet.
Wants Conventional Face.
Art appeals to me. but I am the
sort who demands that face look
like face. 1t must have two eyes,
a nose, mouth, a chin, and the
other standard face equipment.
Modernists pay no respect to the
regular outlines of the human be-
ing. For a face they'll use blob
of Sherman Williams without so
much as little dab Of Valspar to
indicate where eyebrows should be.
For an arm they're just as likely
as not to paint in something that
looks like a limb blown OH pine
tree, and for legs you are liable to
get the view of the front Of Grand
Central Station.
I believe that am not too differ
eft from most Americans when say
that like to know what I'm looking
at. I like to be able to look at a
picture of a dog and know it's a
dog, without having to refer to the
catalogue. A dog should have two
ears, fleas, a frisky tail, four legs
and coat OF fur.
But you'll find no such dog IN the
Museum of Modern Art. You Will
get a mess of triangles, octagons
rectangles and cubes, all done In
violent colors and labeled Dog
Barking While Poppa Sleeps" One
of the pictures I saw yesterday could
only be described by Make Rosen-
bloom while having a nightmare.
AS for colors it made the rainbow
look like pair of Army long draw
ers, and there was not one single
part of it that any one but the artist
could possibly see what it was.
I looked at it until I got giddy
and had to grasp the arm Of an
elderly woman for support. She was
giddy too, and had clutched the
arm of an elderly gentleman to her
right. In q matter of seconds we
all fell down in a heap and stayed
there until removed by guard.
Just why they have guards to guard
these pictures fascinates me. Ii
one is ever stolen, all the police
would have to do would be to go
to Bellevue and look under the beds
of the delirium tremens patients
and be sure to find 1t. '"''
Also Visits Metropolitan.
To clear my head, after leaving
the Modern Museum Of Idiocy
caught an uptown Fifth avenue bus
and visited the Metropolitan Mu-
scum of Art. What a relief! OF
course, the Metropolitan only has
the works OF such hacks as Titan,
Raphael, Michelangelo and others
of the same kind. but it was
pleasure to look at pictures that
were pictures.
Cherubs had little fat stomachs
and sweet little cherub smiles. In
short, they looked like cherubs.
Angels had wings, soldiers had
swords and a visitor didn't have to
summon the director to find out
what he was looking at.
The fact that these paintings
have lived. through the centuries,
plus the fact that one Of them is
worth about three box cars full OF
that modern doodling, convinces me
that I am right in thinking that
many of the painters who are paint
ing today are starving in garrets
for nothing, growing long hair just
for the fun of 1t, eating crumbs OIL
the window sill purely from love
of crumbs, and that posterity will
not even know they existed.
Any art connoisseurs who disagree
with me can have an appointment
to argue with me simply by sending
me three smoked turkeys, Turkish
water pipe and $793 in cash. re-
serve the right to eat the turkeys,
smoke the pipe and spend the
money and refuse to argue If I
have a golf date for that day.
distributed BY McNaught Syndicate, Inc)