# An Informal Talk

By
Mr. Louis Bélshemius,

Given at the Museum of Modern Art, Societe Anonyme Inc.

19 E. 47th Street, Oct. 15, 1920.

## Art is divided into 3 groups-

1. Absolute Realism

2. Pure Idealism

3. The combination of these two (half Realism half Idealism)

Most of the paintings we see are purely realistic, especially as shown in the academic salons. They generally wish to just copy what they see. In other words, they paint objects as they are.

In idealism we have the other side of the question, namely where we want to express something beyond realism. The realistic part is there, but we imbue the realistic part with imagination and mystery; for instance some good examples of the idealistic part are-

**Blake** - he is realistic, but he imbues the subject with poetry and mystic imaginative ideas, which is more difficult to produce than to copy a little girl sitting on a veranda and scenting a blossom, or playing with a little dolly. That is pure realism- there is no mystery, imagination and little poetry in that.

**Theodore Watts**, the English artist - he put poetry and soul,- imagination into his paintings. For instance there is Youth and Death - an angel leading a young girl up from the earth to the skies. That is called imaginative painting - you have to think before you understand the subject, exercise your own imagination and see something which you do not see every day. That is higher art than pure realism.

The academic artists just paint what they see. Why imitate the academic all the time? It grows monotonous after a while to see the same pictures all the time. In other words it is better

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ings with individuality - that is higher art than to just copy
what you see. In music Beethoven could not have existed if he
had copied other composers. When he started, he copied Haydn-
his first sonatas were just imitations of Haydn. He said he will
be himself, Beethoven. After that he composed real sonatas, and
later on he composed symphonies, which are not imitative. Then
we had a Beethoven.

Take my Pictures. There you find action - clear
action which is not perceptible at once, but little by little
grows upon you. If you look at one of my paintings - like that -
for five minutes, - it will move.

You ask "How do you get action?"

Eliminate all the details which are not necessary.
The academic painters put in every little detail. It is im-
possible for the figure to move. The academic painter gets close
to the figure and puts in every little detail. That prevents
motion - or if he paints motion he gets arrested action. You
cannot in life see every detail when there is motion.

The way to get action is to observe in the street, any
place where you are observing people in motion, while they are
moving around. Observe how they move until all the motions are
in your memory, and you see them there without having any ob-
ject before you. Then you can take your brush and colors and
you know exactly what to leave out. When the head is moved,
all of a sudden I see detail which is elastic and by not putting
that into the painting I get motion. You cannot get motion if
you put in every little detail of the body. Painting the whole
figure as I see it, I get the character of the face, the softness
of the line. I leave out the indications of little muscles -
just get the effect, then you get life. That is the difference
between academic painting and modern art.

Some artists use the camera for action. One great man
who had the habit of using the camera was Remington. The camera
gives you arrested motion, angular, not moving on - you have to

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get that by feeling it by yourself, not by the camera. Self
drawn action allows the figure to move forward.

Formerly I used to paint in the academic style, and
ten years ago I changed my style because I wanted to express
ideals, then I wanted to express effects - unusual effects we
see in nature, like hill sides and storms throwing down rocks.
I wanted to express a symphony of lines ... All the lines
must convolute into each other, wind in about each other, until
every line goes to the center of the painting. That produces
a point of focus where you have to see the most interesting part
of the picture which I wish to express. And by using this means
the eye has to go to the central part of the picture.

The next thing to observe is that the detail - is
less visible away from the principal interest. The academicians
are apt to put the detail the same all over.

Each subject in the painting should have a special
technique. The academicians generally want the same technique
for everything, and that is wrong. Each object ought to have a
special technique. An artist in the Academy of Design paints
his trees as he does his figures. Trees ought to have a special
technique to make them look like trees, but he paints his trees
the same as he paints a Turkish rug, as he paints his figures -
just puts on dabs of paint. You have to imagine it is a figure.
He paints his sky like rocks and his rocks like sky. The same
technique - dabs of paint.

The most celebrated academician in New York paints
in the smooth style and he does not know how to paint a rock.
He paints his rock just as smooth as he paints a nude. It
looks like papier mache, or like stage scenery. Because
that poor academician never studied rocks. He only studied
figures. An artist should study everything. Every object
necessitates a different technique, different brush work,
different way of handling the paint. A painter to be a true

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artist should rise higher than the commercial, the realistic.
There is too much of this every day art in the city. Walk down
Fifth Avenue, you never see any real art in the galleries. There
are just a few landscapes, figures, dressed up dolls, fashion-
plate figures.

Does not the public grow tired of the sameness of the
Academy. The exhibition of the Academy of Design where every
painting is the same as last year. You would think the painters
had not sold the pictures and had sent the same to each new ex-
hibition.

The real object of art is to represent on canvas the
soul of things, of persons and of landscape. The other thing
is just painting. Real art is painting, plus the introduction of
soul quality, which you have not in the realistic painting. All
other art is not of the soul. Whitman, Robert Browning - the
only thing worth while in poetry is the soul quality of the author;
otherwise it is prose. The same thing in music - Mozart - each
composition expressed his soul, not just notes, but divine melodies
Mozart expressed the soul of the mortal. Lansier painted the pic-
ture of the dog at the feet of his dead master. It was not truly
academic. You see the soul of the dog gazing at his dead master,
so well expressed in the dog's eye. You feel that the dog is
pitying the fate of his master. To express that is real art. To
do that you must be a soulful man yourself, otherwise you cannot
express it.

Greater than Messonier's "Freedman" is Manet's "Christ".
He put soul into the face of Christ and the bended figure of the
Madonna. Modern art is seeking to express the soul. Most so called
Masters did not do that. They expressed surfaceness, not the soul.
A great academician who painted Andromacha had no soul, because he him-
self was not a soulful man, therefore how could he express the soul
in his painting.

An artist must not produce what he wants to produce, then he
produce. Real art is to produce what he wants to produce, then he

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will produce art. Other artists may not appreciate it at once but
will appreciate it later on.

Soul work is a conception, a vision. Blake saw all the
pictures he painted in his mind before he painted them. The
realists must always have something before them.

The soulful man feels, meditates and walks around the
room. He does not take a pencil and make a design. He takes
brushes and paints and paints the whole thing right on the canvas,
and before he knows it, it is there. Once you get the vision,
it is there. The realists has to have the model before him.

Everybody can produce academic art, but everybody cannot
produce soul art.

One must school oneself to memorize everything one sees
on his way, that is why one's mind is all filled with memories
and souvenirs of what one has seen. When painting, one recalls
these things and can produce them on canvas. Chinese boys were
taught to pass a store window quickly and when they got home they
had to note down everything they had seen. That is a good plan
for training the eye and memory.