In the Driftway

THEN there is the dadaistic *Manuscripts*, with its de-
lightfully simple and unintelligible cover, its futuristic
prose, and its frank masthead:

Mss. is published by the authors of the writing which ap-
pears in it. Send them ten cents a copy if you like it, or sub-
scribe one dollar for ten numbers to be issued in ten days—
ten weeks—ten months—or ten years. The risk is yours. Act
at once if you want to be one of the first 100,000,000 subscribers.
The entire cost of this number of Mss. is the printing bill of
$234 presented by Clarence S. Nathan, Inc., and paid by the
authors. Each author is solely responsible for what appears
over his signature. Complaints should be sent to individual
authors. Subscriptions will be received by Paul Rosenfeld,
77 Irving Place, New York. Donations of money will be received
with thanks by the same. For the cover design—apologies to
American Dada and Marcel Duchamps and Man Ray.

Within the Drifter finds a sort of drama entitled Gossip,
containing lines such as these:

... I sing. Lying on my back, I sing. I look up feeling Presence. There about me stand seven Cows.

I sing to them.

I: O cows, come near. For you live. Come near, for I live.
Come nearer, cows.

Cows: What are you doing up here, you who live?

I: Why should I not live?

There is more of the same, and some exquisite lines, even in
Gossip. There is prose by Sherwood Anderson, winner of the
Dial's prize; an enthusiastic review of a book, by one dis-
ciple of Alfred Stieglitz, by another even more enthusiastic
disciple; and a poem, printed in seven lines which, ruth-
lessly compressed into one, read "My luv is like a green-
glass insulator on a blue sky." But somehow, from a com-
parison of "mastheads" and "bodies" of these two papers,
the Drifter comes to a conclusion which he might have
reached even without that study, that even among the re-
formers and the super-intelligentsia of America the science
and technique of advertising, even of self-advertising, has
reached a far higher level than has the rare art of creative
writing.

THE DRIFTER

THE DRIFTER

May 14, 1924]

The Nation

561

The reason is that this country is so far from being
uniform in its political notions and is, in fact, so sectionally
various that only a transcendent genius can have the top
of popularity in certain parts of the country without at the
same time falling to the bottom of popularity in certain
other parts of it. Presidents, then, who are not transcendent
geniuses walk cautiously along at neither the top nor the
bottom anywhere; and variety of views in the country pro-
duces mediocrity of views in the White House.

In the Driftway

TWO women are engaged in suing a firm of famous hair-
dressers because after treatment the hair of one
turned pink and of the other yellow. The Drifter will not
attempt to determine the merits of the cases in question;
there are matters which he knows enough to let alone. But
he feels competent to examine another aspect of the situa-
tion: namely, the absurd convention that hair or skin should
be one of only few colors. Why should not hair be pink,
or yellow, or purple, or green? Why should the Caucasian
integument remain conventionally whitish with conventional
touches of pink or red? Why should the pink or red grow
or be applied always at the same spots? Why not, for ex-
ample, pure white cheeks and a bright red forehead? Why
not a dark blue nose?

* * * * *

THERE are certain tribes whom we like to call less civi-
lized than ourselves who do not consider these questions
rhetorical. To them red and white bands painted on a
brown arm, or blue stripes diagonally on a broad back seem
quite de rigueur. Perhaps in self-defense the pale Aryans
have decided that to be beautiful means to imitate nature as
closely as possible. Thus when the cheek's red fades they
paint it the same old color; when age brings gray hairs, dye
restores them to their natural brown: a proper enough
proceeding perhaps, although uninteresting, if this were
really imitating nature. On the contrary, however, nature
plays a thousand variations on the conventional pink and
white. The Drifter has seen faces which, with a little help,
would have glowed orange, or pale green, or quince yellow.
Instead of encouraging these fascinating differences their
owners have whitewashed them down the middle and daubed
red on the sides. Or else have left them alone, a dull drab
putty color, which is perhaps even worse.

* * * * *

THE Drifter is not sure whether more credit or blame
should be awarded the female sex in these matters.
They are the ones who try to maintain a "natural" beauty
by the use of artificial methods, and though they might be
applauded for the attempt to change their colors at all, they
have helped immeasurably to foster monotony. Men, on the
other hand, have, altogether mistakenly, assumed that it
was better to let well enough alone. The Drifter earnestly
trusts that these words of his will inspire a few brave souls
to experiment. Paint is cheap and the surface to be covered
at first need not be large. Gradually, when the custom of
brightly colored skin and hair spreads, as it undoubtedly
will, clothing will cease to be necessary or interesting and
the cost of coloration will increase. Unfortunately, the
Drifter is very much occupied at present, or he would be
only too happy to start the fashion himself.

THE DRIFTER

Correspondence
Another Victim of the Newspapers

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: The newspaper reports of the "Allinson incident"
were from beginning to end utterly misleading. So also were
the syndicated press reports of the statement which I made
to my congregation on March 30. I am very sure that you
would not intentionally be unjust to anyone, but in your issue
of April 9 you misrepresented the position for which I, and
to a very large extent my church, have been standing. My
statement concerning the inadvisability of inviting Mr. Allin-
son to speak under the auspices of the Epworth League was
made, not because he was a conscientious objector who had
served a term at Leavenworth but because I had been led by
Dean Wigmore to believe that he had been guilty of disloyal
conduct while a sworn officer of the State Department abroad.
Dean Wigmore, during the war, was Judge Advocate and chief
assistant to General Crowder. He wrote me that he was
personally cognizant of Mr. Allinson's record. I now have
a letter from the Department of State which disproves Dean
Wigmore's assertion, and have given publicity to this letter.

I have told my congregation that "whatever attitude the
state may feel obliged to take toward the 'conscientious objector,'
the Christian church ought not to make more difficult his
already terribly difficult path," and added that the church
"ought never again in her official capacity to bless war."

Evanston, Illinois, April 14

ERNEST F. TITTLE

Sky-Songs

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: The mail this morning brought me from the offices of
*The Nation* a marked copy of Art and the Camera cut from
*The Nation* of April 16. Coincidentally I received a copy of the
*April Arts*. It is most amusing how very divergent are the
reactions of Mr. Craven and those of Virgil Barker, the asso-
ciate editor of the *Arts*. Mr. Barker says:

Can a photograph be a work of art? An entire num-
ber of that unperiodical periodical entitled *Manuscripts*
was devoted to a symposium of that question. And all
those words by all those writers, whether for or against,
are turned into empty chatter by the wordless sky-songs
of Alfred Stieglitz. To one individual they came as a reve-
lation—a call to adventure, an enlargement of experience,
a spiritual release. A perceiving soul has trapped sublimity
in a machine and on sheets of paper a hand's breadth wide
has fixed immensity.

In the number of *Manuscripts* referred to, Mr. Craven is one of the contributors. As for Mr. Barker, to whom the tiny "sky-songs" (they are not "*photographs of clouds*") came as a revelation, perhaps it will be of interest to your readers to know that they also came as revelations—to many hundreds of painters, sculptors, poets, writers, laymen, women and men, quite as sensitive, quite as critical as Mr. Craven. Among those agreeing with Virgil Barker are: Lachaise, Marin, Dove, Demuth, O'Keeffe, Ben Benn, Coomaraswamy, Eilshemius, Bel-Geddes, De Zayas, Varèse, Ernest Bloch, Halpert, Ornstein, Gilbert Cannan, Sherwood Anderson, Zona Gale, Professor Ehrenfest (of the triumvirate Einstein-Lorentz-Ehrenfest), now lecturing in this country, and many more.

I have a letter before me from Gilbert Cannan: "... I
have grave doubts about the Woolworth Tower but none about
your photographs...." In a letter from Leo Stein (December
4, 1922), he writes: "Your kind of photography seems to me
essentially nearer the best of painting, the Giorgiones, the
Rubens, the Renoirs—not of course in aspect but in spirit—
than any contemporary painting that I know."

562

The Nation

[Vol. 118, No. 3071]

Incidentally I might quote Willard Huntington Wright in his "Creative Will" (Art and the Individual, page 246):

The emotionally limited critic denies the inherent existence of aesthetic beauty in a work unless he is personally capable of reacting to it and at the same time questions the sincerity of the man who responds as the result of a more highly developed sensitivity. For the meagely equipped the science of aesthetics is useless: it is without the substantiation of *emotional experience*.

I have seen Mr. Craven stand before paintings as well as before photographs and I have every reason to feel that he belongs to the class of "critics" alluded to by Mr. Wright. As for his knowledge of photography in its significant sense I know it to be negligible—even if he may be the proud possessor of a Brownie.

New York, April 20

ALFRED STIEGLITZ

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: Just so often along comes the "Wonder Man"—he who puts us crooked—pardon—straight of course—at the cross roads—follow his pointing and you'll leave Worry behind—if you would want to hook up with worry again—assume you've been led astray—come back and you'll find your friend—Worry there awaiting you

Monuments—huge monuments
to him—of him

at every cross road—with a push button—out comes an arm pointing—pointing the way—

Along came my friend Alfred Stieglitz—he was met with a bucket full of cold storage stuff always kept on tap—he says he heard shouts of glee back in the bushes—he got it for photography's sake or Art's sake or Creative Will's sake

They are all three nice sounding Academic terms

Some of it spills like this

"Unusual selections beautifully printed"
—there we agree—

In one instance he addresses them as "pictures"—why this flattering appraisal

too—the admission to a small amount of "creative thought"—this opening might lead some one to assume—a larger amount—

Seems to me selection covers quite a field—there can be a kind of selection

a why of selection
and purpose of selection

Does he unwittingly give Stieglitz this privilege because when you haul in selection you're close to the tree of "Self expression"

One can follow discussions—admissions—convictions until one comes upon a stamp of self imposed finality like this "in the last analysis" then he himself proceeds to the putting of the stamp of "last analysis" on Stieglitz's work

So that one is forced to the term "Wonder man"

here's Something

Could it be that the work of Alfred Stieglitz wasn't seen by "Wonder man" after all

Cliffside, New Jersey, April 23

JOHN MARIN

## Mr. Farrar Competes

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: I nominate to win your hundred dollar prize and decipher the Coolidge blah, Mr. Johnny Farrar of the eminent *Bookman*. In the current number of that publication, Mr. Farrar professes to find in the presidential style the same elements of nobility that distinguish Lincoln's speeches and the Bible.

If this be prose, I am, Sir,

Yours for poetry,

New York, May 1

ROLFE HUMPHRIES

## The Son

By ROBERT WOLFE

When Jesus was a child, did people say,
"Oh, yes, I talked that way when I was young"?

Did Joseph storm and Mary maybe pray
Repentance for his keen irreverent tongue?

And all the bearded elders of the land,

Did they not urge diplomacy and tact,

And tell Him one could make a stronger stand

By not mistaking pleasing dreams for *fact*?

They must have wagged imposing Jewish chins

In such disapprobation of that youth

That all His playmates shuddered at His sins,

While one gray crony—laying down the truth,

Predicted God would punish Him and send

The gallows, or the cross, or some bad end.

## Books
### Pieces of Eight

*Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period.* Illustrative Documents. Edited by John Franklin Jameson. The Macmillan Company. $5.

AS indicated in the subtitle, we have here a collection of documents rather than a narrative history; but it is a "source-book" of quite unusual interest. There are indeed many documents of a legal or official character—a letter of marque, vice-admiralty commissions, extracts from court records, and the like; but a large part of the book is taken up with narratives of a less formal kind. Even the strictly legal documents often have a surprisingly "human" quality. The collection is remarkable also because of the extraordinary range and variety of the sources from which the material is drawn. Comparatively few of the documents here published have been printed before and these few are sometimes scarcely more accessible to most readers than if they were still in manuscript.

The special student of colonial history will find here new light on many aspects of seafaring life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; on war-time commerce, legitimate and illicit; on the life of the ordinary seaman and his business relations with master and owner; on complicated international rivalries and relationships. The footnotes, prepared with the closest attention to details but enlivened by an occasional bit of dry humor and without a touch of pedantry, offer the reader who wishes to go further keys to a great mass of interesting and comparatively unused material.

It will be a pity, however, if this book is left entirely to the historical specialist. No reader with a taste for the literature of adventure can afford to miss these records of the freebooters and their victims. Some of the famous pirates like Bonnet and Teach (alias Blackbeard) come in only for brief mention or not at all, but there is new light on Captain Kidd and his scarcely less famous contemporary, Every. There are other personages, too, whose names are likely to stick in the memory of the reader. Here he will meet Captain Sawkins, the idol of his fellow-buccaneers, who, when peace came in 1679, turned easily, like so many others, from privateering to piracy. Called on by the Spanish Governor of Panama to show his commission, he answered that "we would . . . bring our Commissions on the muzzles of our Guns, at which time, he should read them as plain as the flame of Gunpowder could make them." "Legible, no doubt," our editor remarks, "but not legal." When the Governor challenged him to a fight on the

INTERNACIONAL
STUDIO

"THE SUN DIAL" (1923)

BY MARY LOCKE BREWER

extreme flower of Impressionism in which the
object is indicated with little dabs of color so
juxtaposed as to produce at a distance a shimmer-
ing effect of atmosphere. This was the method of
Signac and Sidaner, and it was later developed by
Miss Brewer until it became the facile means of
her expression. She studied later in Paris under
those present-day masters of Impressionism, Henri
Martin and Ernest Laurent. During the war she
painted at St. Ives, Cornwall, and at Salso Mag-
giore, Italy. In 1921 she was producing in this
pointillist manner such delightful subjects as "The
Lagoon," which reveals a corner of Jackson Park,
Chicago, with the stately bulk of the Fine Arts
Palace casting a reflection on the water in a way
that would have delighted Sidaner.

At this time Impressionism began to pall on
Miss Brewer and she began to turn away from it.
Her evolution took place at Provincetown. Evo-
lution is a word that is used advisedly, because the
change in her style was gradual. There was no
sudden desertion of pointillist dabs for Post-
Impressionist flat surfaces. In "The Seine Boat,"
painted early in the summer of 1922, one is able

to make out distinctly the little dashes of broken
color that give a scintillating atmosphere, but at
the same time one can observe an objectivity not
seen in "The Lagoon"—a disposition to speak in
terms of surface and form. This has definitely
attained ascendency in "High and Dry," painted
late in the summer of the same year. In this work
there is hardly a trace of Pointillism. The earlier
style disappears absolutely from "The Sun Dial,"
which is a product of last summer. This work
is "modern" in every sense. Miss Brewer was
never influenced directly by the work of Cézanne,
but one can not suppress the thought while stand-
ing in front of this canvas, that it never could have
been painted had not the father of Post-Impres-
sionism raised the banner of revolt.

Coming through Impressionism Miss Brewer
has avoided certain deadening characteristics of
the academic, and has attained brilliancy, first in
the use of broken color and then in pure pigment
applied in masses. Many of her Impressionist
works are beautiful in the extreme, full of poetry
and mood, and her new pictures have a decorative
value that has already won them high esteem.

MAY 1924

one forty-seven

INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO

ART and OTHER THINGS

By GUY G.
EGLINGTON

THE TROUBLE with art begins with a capital letter. Let me explain. I have been reading, on the occasion of Alfred Stieglitz's third exhibition of photographs at the Anderson Galleries, the issue of *Manuscripts* which is devoted to the question of photography. And here I take leave to anticipate two notes of interrogation. *Manuscripts*, for those who have not yet made its acquaintance, is a now-and-then publication put out (I avoid the word "edited" by design) by Alfred Stieglitz, and paid for by the contributors. Its purpose is to provide artists and writers with a vehicle which will present their views unimproved by the editorial scissors and paste-pot. The question of photography (or should we rather say of photographers?) discussed in Number Four is: Can a photograph have the significance of art?

A typical twentieth century discussion, as you will see. And you will see too, I hope, why I say that the trouble with art begins with a capital letter. In another place I have written of art as a hoodoo, standing behind the painter at his easel, telling him what he may put in and what he shall leave out; above all, how he shall see. It is the same hoodoo that bends over his pillow at night and whispers: "Are you an artist? Or merely an illustrator?" till the poor man can not sleep for puzzling the question.

How did a word get such power? Art—it is more than half an exclamation, as we are moved to cry bravo when the coloratura has ended her aria, or as we are moved to silence at the end of a Bach choral. At best it is a concept, of value to the critic and historian of the arts; to the artist, qua artist, of none. The artist is concerned with making things. Yet, exclamation or concept, the word has power, power even to impel and direct action. There must be something in its sound or appearance. Poetry, as contrasted with "mere verse," has it to a lesser degree. Music and literature, thank God, not at all. Yet, if words have meaning, to say that a thing is literature means every whit as much as to say that it is art. Critics use the word daily and no harm done. Does Dreiser, or Cabell, or Sherwood Anderson, or Sinclair Lewis ever stop to wonder whether he is writing literature or merely stories? They would smile at the thought. They write as well as they know how, and let it go at that. Time will judge. In any case the odds are always ten thousand to one against survival and wise men don't bet against such odds.

The artist is concerned with making things, a

thing on canvas, a thing in stone, a thing on paper. The question is not, Can stone be art or paper be art? but, What is the nature of stone, what is the nature of paper? And above all what is the nature of the tool, what is the nature of the camera?

No one knows that better than Alfred Stieglitz and it might well be his boast that, as Hutchins writes in this number of MSS., he "was interested neither in art nor artists . . . didn't care whether photography was art or not. . . . He was interested in persons and in their release in expression." Thus far Stieglitz the artist, for these persons, as we shall see, were his raw material. Stieglitz the preacher was interested even more vitally in craftsmanship, in respect for and understanding of the medium. In the first place he saw, and was the first to proclaim, that the photograph was no poor relation to the picture, was in fact no relation at all. All so-called artistic effects, from the furthest limit in the hand-colored abortions once so dear to the semi-genteel to the sfumato or smoke screen variety that is still "good taste" on Fifth Avenue, stood thus condemned as prostituting the craft of photography. The machine, camera, he said, sees things thus and so. To tamper with its vision, or attempt to beautify the record which it makes in accordance with the prevailing fashion in painting, etching, mezzotint or lithography, is to stultify it. In the limitations of the machine lies also its strength, in its essential difference from any other medium its value. And he might have added that the reason why a daguerreotype still stands on its feet, still gives pleasure, while an artistic photograph is an unbearable eyesore after a few weeks, is just that the maker of the daguerreotype was forced to respect his medium. The later photographer, ashamed of his medium, used his greater control over it to abuse it.

But the achievements of Stieglitz are not to be explained by his respect for the medium. There is also his understanding of it to be considered. The camera sees everything that is put before it. In the instant that the shutter is open, every detail within the range of the camera's vision, provided the light be evenly distributed, is recorded. The result is a document, interesting or not as the subject, presented in outline, flat, without light and shade, has interest. But as nothing in nature has any life so seen, the value of the document will be purely scientific, and the role of the camera man a purely scientific role. In order to render life the camera man, since the camera

one forty-eight

MAY 1924

INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO

will record accurately everything that is put
before it, must work on the subject itself. He
must eliminate all that is not pertinent, provide
by his play of light the accents which convey the
impression of life. If he can not regulate that
light, as in the case of outdoor subjects, he must
wait until the sun stands in exactly that portion
of the sky so that its rays, exactly of the needed
strength, will knit together his composition.
Above all, as we shall see later, he must be able
to see with the eye of the camera. It follows then
that the best subject for the camera is the one
which is most susceptible to regulation by the
camera man, in the case of Stieglitz the human
body. "The work of Stieglitz," writes Waldo
Frank in this same issue of MSS., "is more than
half upon his subject. . . By talk, atmosphere,
suggestion and the momentum of a personal rela-
tionship, Stieglitz lifts the features and body of
his subject into a unitary design which his plate
records." One might go further. Indeed, no one
who has seen that amazing gallery of portraits,
which Mr. Bourgeois has aptly called the new
Comédie Humaine, can resist the thought that the
psychologist in Stieglitz is even stronger than the
artist. He has a genius for making people reveal
themselves. His sitters are, as often as not, at
once public prosecutor, jury and judge. Stieglitz,
at the camera, plays the part of executioner.

The moment then that Stieglitz leaves the
human body for an inanimate subject, as a still
life, a landscape, or, his latest and furthest ven-
ture, a cloud composition, he cuts out his greatest
gift, his psychological insight, his power over
people. Relinquishing voluntarily control over
his subject, he is forced to rely on his only other
trump card, that of waiting until the subject
presents itself in the guise he desires. At the same
time the problem of camera sight grows more and
more complex. At least one-half of our seeing is
knowing. The eye sees what the brain knows to
be there. Not only does it not see everything that
is, strictly speaking, visible, but it imagines to the
point of actually seeing things invisible which the
brain knows to be structurally or otherwise neces-
sary. Finally it distorts elements, giving each its
relative importance, as conceived by the brain.
An instantaneous process of elimination, addition
and distortion is thus inherent in the power of
seeing, a process which the photographer must be
able, as instantaneously, to reverse.

In the case of the human body this reversal is,
partially at least, conceivable. However widely
one body may differ from another, the elements
remain the same. Differentiation arises through
changed proportion, or, more subtly, through

change of emphasis. Knowledge, therefore, of
what the camera actually saw in past experiments
may help towards an accurate prediction of what
it will see this time. With the number of compo-
sitional elements limited, and these elements
familiar through long study, a divorce between
brain and eye, which is what camera sight is,
becomes possible. The same is true of the still life
since here the elements can be arbitrarily limited
and arbitrarily disposed. They can not, however,
be composed, since this is a purely mental process.
The brain perceives relationships which the eye
of the camera will not see. In painting this rela-
tionship is conveyed through distortion, either
linear, or through play of light. In photography
it must be conveyed through light and texture.
Line can at best be a fingerpost, since line as
expression is purely an artistic convention, having
no place in nature. With the landscape the ele-
ments become so numerous and so little suscep-
tible of intensive study that the problem becomes
almost hopeless. A city scene, skyscrapers, rail-
road yards, these are still possible, for at least the
main structure is stable, has an individual exist-
ence, can be isolated and analyzed. But a hillside
is composed of a million elements, not one of
which can be isolated or indeed has any existence
apart from the light that plays on it, and this
changes every moment. If the painter is able to
render that hillside it is by virtue of his power of
synthesis. Deciding upon his main focal plane,
he makes all others subordinate to it. But this
very power the photographer must reject.

And finally clouds. . . . I shall not soon forget
my amazement when, some months ago, Stieglitz
showed me the series of cloud pictures to the
making of which he devoted last summer. They
were, it goes without saying, superior to anything
that I had ever seen or dreamed was possible. I
had not believed that such rendering of values,
whites, greys, blues, stormy black shot with
orange, and the deep blue beyond, was possible
to the camera. And, listening to Stieglitz, I tried
to read into these studies something of what,
according to his own confession, he had wished to
express. It was hopeless. The more I looked, the
more I admired, the more persistent rang the
question, Why, Why, Why? . . . What perverse
impulse drives an artist of Stieglitz's calibre to
spend a precious year making—with consummate
mastery—valueless documents? It seemed little
short of tragic.

And then I thought of MSS. and its chal-
lenge: "Can a photograph have the significance
of art?" So the old hoodoo has gotten Stieglitz
at last. Stieglitz who cared nothing for art or

MAY 1924

one forty-nine

INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO

artists. Stieglitz, admittedly the greatest force in modern still photography, wants the label ART tacked on to his prints. The rebel longs at last for respectability. It is the old story of William Shakespeare, Gentleman, all over again.

What does it matter, Stieglitz? The camera is a medium, like any other. All that matters is to control that medium. Put it this way: The painter composes his picture in his brain. Between the moment that the thing is visualized complete in the brain and its transference onto canvas time has elapsed. That time is the painter's margin of imperfection. The photographer watches the picture compose before his eyes. In the second before he opens the shutter, the brain, no longer to be held in check, achieves the final necessary synthesis. That second is the photographer's margin of imperfection.

"You pays your money and you takes your choice." And along some fine day will come a man who knows nothing of Alfred Stieglitz, and cares less, and he will look at the print and will look at the picture and seeing one, no matter which, will exclaim "Art," and seeing the other, yawn. Well . . . ?

Meanwhile the issue of MSS. is a profoundly interesting document, for in it such writers as Sherwood Anderson, Waldo Frank, Gilbert Canan and Carl Sandburg; musicians—Ernest Bloch and Leo Ornstein; sculptors—Alfeo Faggi and Gaston Lachaise; painters—Benton, Bluemner, Demuth, Dove, Duchamp, Marin, Miller, Of, O'Keeffe and Sheeler attempt to define what they conceive to be the nature of art. Here are one or two snatches:

Carl Zigrosser: "One might define a work of art as something that wears well; it has been endowed, as it were, with a life of its own."

Carl Sandburg: "... murmur and writhe with the elusive quality of life. ..."

Leon Stein: "Nothing more is necessary to constitute something a work of art, in the limited and habitual sense of the word, than that we should have a feeling of stability in the contemplation of it."

Gaston Lachaise: "Art is the inexact. Inexact by unlimited variations. A reaction to the exact in which races or individuals personalize themselves. . . . Where amplification begins, there begins also the creation of art—good or bad."

Kenneth Hayes Miller: "The evocation of form arises in the sensory intuition of substance, weight and motion. It is founded in the body's knowledge of itself."

J. B. Kerfoot: "Great works . . . all show that

their creators were possessed by a passionate love of three things: (1) The outer reality that inspired them. (2) The inner reality thus brought into being. (3) The plastic material itself in which they sought to express the second in terms of the first."

Ernest Bloch: "... imperious necessity. ..."

Incidentally, no one discussed the esthetic of the moving picture, undoubtedly the finest medium invented in modern times. Here one can set over against imperfect control the whole realm of movement, now for the first time conquered.

The Weir Memorial Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum is, as are all comprehensive exhibitions, something of a surprise. One is not disappointed. Nor is one delighted. One is surprised. It is different from what one had expected. In the first place, the characteristic Weir landscape, with its delicate pattern of shadow on grass, is not present in large quantities. Nor are the ladies all as ladylike as might have been expected. On the contrary Weir's trouble would seem to have been that he was willing, like Jurgen, to try everything once. Indeed he was not averse to employing in the same picture two mutually exclusive techniques. Thus in the canvas entitled "In the Sun" (1899) he draws every hair on a little girl's head with meticulous accuracy and then proceeds to paint the dress in the broadest fashion. The result is, to say the least, queer. Even at the end of his life we find him painting nocturnes à la Whistler and in the "Portrait of Col. H. C. Weir" (1910-19) the hands bear the unmistakable Bellows copyright.

What saved the day for Weir was the discovery of the long thin brushstroke, slightly reminiscent of Pissarro, though exaggerated in length, laid on in parallel lines. It appears first in a canvas dated '93 (?), but he does not appear to have realized its value, not only as a hallmark, but also as a medium for rendering his somewhat feminine universe, until the beginning of the century. With its aid he occasionally achieved landscapes like the fine "Back Lots" (1910-19) and, to a lesser degree, "Upland Pasture" (1905), which have a sense of spaciousness and swing. But the medium, too freely used, is having its revenge. Drawing was not, latterly, Weir's strong point, yet he boldly cast outline overboard, relying for his structure on subtle gradations of tone. Now his color is going back on him and a picture like "Nassau—Bahamas" (1914) is already formless. Even "Back Lots" is spoiled by a later over-painting at the centre of the composition, which has turned a horrible slate blue, quite out of key.

one fifty

MAY 1924