WHO is Joseph Stella?

Is he an American? - An Italian? - Who is he? And how comes it
that he of all painters should be constantly interpreting New York?

I THINK New York can claim him for her own. - For though born in
Italy, where he received his art education in Rome, and later
joined the Italian Futurists - New York left her impress upon him
so strongly, when on a visit here as a lad of fifteen - that he
could never again escape her - for New York had chosen him - claimed
him - as her interpreter.

AND New York was wise to claim him as her interpreter - for few
painters have ever lived who had the amount of vitality to give,
that New York demands - and Stella is vital. Besides, Stella has
given his all to this young giant throbbing, pulsating with life -
not the life of flesh and blood - but of cold, hard steel. - Cold,
powerful steel girders - drilled, driven into rocks - and it is
this very coldness which Stella emphasizes - Stella who came from
warm and sunny Italy - from the land of warmth and sunshine - the
land of solft contours and gay, happy people - the land of dreams -
not of hard, cold realities.

THIS son of Italy has left all the softness, all the warmth, for
the call of the brilliancy that steel has to give - for the call
of the brilliancy of the flare of the electric lights - which dazzle
but never warm. - He has brought out the hardness which underlies
all this brilliancy - and it is this hardness that he has emphasized
in his "New York Interpreted", which causes us to call a halt -

- 2 -

IS THIS New York? - Is this hard, cruel young giant - our New York?
We stand amazed at the centre picture, where our skyscrapers, as
the prow of a boat, cut through the waves of life - What are they
pushing aside as they move along in their powerful way, along the
sea of adventure? What goes under, as they plough along, cutting
deep. - Is no mercy to be found - only hard, cold, metal brilliancy?

WE TURN to either side - We feel the subway, the sensation as we
leave it to enter the blaze of Broadway. - That it could ever have
been interpreted - that sensation - the glare and the noise. - Only
the Futurist School, "the would-be depicters of sound and movement",
could have rendered that sensation - that thrill at once vital and
chilling which creeps over one, as one loses oneself in the moving
mass on Broadway. That strange sensation as you walk over the
glass streets which leave you wondering whether they will ever suck
you in - a sea of light over which and through which you pass as
in a maze of expectation.

AND THEN - then you suddenly breathe - you once more begin to feel
human - but why? - You have reached the harbor - you are standing
where all the arteries of this great giant meet - at the Battery -
and the quiet of the sea and sky overwhelm you - You are silent -
You have left the noise and glare of Broadway - the metallic brill-
liancy without warmth. - You have left the prow of the boat - the
ruthlessness of which cut through you. - All the hardness and
brillianty fade away in the stillness of night. - The all embracing
quiet once more gives you poise - once more tells you - that this

- 3 -

cold, if glorious Babylon is not all - not all New York -

IT IS here where the poet joins the painter - for Stella is that
rare combination of a poet-painter. - He first amazed us with his
interpretation of Coney Island, called the "Battle of Light". -
Then half a dozen years later, his Brooklyn Bridge claimed the
admiration of the understanding ones - for "he made a synthetic
semi-abstract representation of the Brooklyn Bridge, that engineer-
ing epic in steel, a sinewed span of human energy".

AND NOW ---

IN HIS "New York Interpreted", he has shown us how inhuman human
energy can become.

IT WAS only possible to interpret such feelings, such sensations in
the world of Paint - in abstract forms. - The inhumanness of New
York, its cold, hard, metal brilliancy, could never have been ex-
pressed along the old lines. - New energies demand new expressions.
- And this was his - Stella's - triumph, for the artist who wants
to be an interpreter of his day, must develop his own technique. -
He must say what has never been said before, and like new wine, it
cannot be put into old bottles. This is an old saying, and as true
today, and as easily forgotten, as when Christ drew our attention
to it.

--- KATHERINE S. DREIER