THIS MODERN IMMATURITY

Now those French names (aren't they many?)
Of masters 'mongst them there are not any—
Mere amateurs who never knew how
To paint a human nor a perfect cow.
Huh! Monet trying to put light in his paint
Has never got beyond the tube's dead paint.
Aye! go to Albany and gaze at his picture
You might see a bit—but it's still a mere picture.
He never painted a great theme—
Nor conceived a poet's worthy dream.
Just lilies, hay stacks and common things.
No difficult battle-scenes, when Kings were Kings.
Then wherefor exalt his no-worth stuff—
Hasn't the public got already enuff?
Now cometh Matisse of no account;
Who paints worse than a child of four years—
To what soul-value does it amount?
All children salute him with taunts and jeers!
Burn all his rubbish—forget his name—
(His real name is Cohen of no-worth fame!)
Then stalks Picasso as a clown in the ring:
Who couldn't paint a waterfall nor a thing
Of beauty, charm! Indecent stuff in outline—
Then commonplace, student heads all out—
Yet the fool public acclaim him with shout.
Forget him, fourth-rate draughtsman! unknown
To him are fine artworks—take off his crown!
Another Frenchman Césanne, the student,
Shows his hopeless failure in being impudent.
He never mastered any subject—then why
Should he be heroized and praised to the sky?
His every nude is out—his heads are crude—
He studied in vain to feel nature's mood.
No sensitiveness he had—no artist he—
Art is born in one from infancy!
Salutade! Redon pretty fantast galore—

Just puzzle ideas to make a master sore!
He's daffy in concocting colors.
Forever pasting red or pink with no meaning.
I nickname him Mr. Red On—he gives me the dolors.
His absurd color-jags need a thoro cleaning.
Again, we have Seurat a mosaic worker—
To nature-beauty themes he is a shirker.
Well, Daumier was a cartoonist, sure—
Now and then he painted nature nice and pure.
Van Gogh tried his best to paint—but Ah!
He never studied technic—we'll call him “Bah!”
Quite a decorator was Gaugin for screens—
He never got the “It” in South Sea Scenes.
No Venus he found there—I loved them well
And painted them in *my* pictures—very swell!
I've never seen such ugly sweetness there!
Once, forty young charmers said: Paint us fair.
Blah! If you can't see beautiful girls
Don't waste paint on hags that are no pearls.
Huh! Modigliani came out of Charenton;
No sane mind could evolve his heads—not one
Is worthy a costly frame—Aye! out with such
Whom idiots acclaim so *overmuch*!
Our Davies never learned to wield a brush.
A master uses! Thin, gluey—unknown to him:
Composition—glorious themes;—his nudes all slim,
Ungainly, spineless, some indecent slush!
Most over-rated student.—Fush! tush!
He could not paint or draw my Venuses—Bah!
Nor any of my chubby damsels—Blah!
But burn up most of his meaningless stuff!
Of foreign students and ours we have enuff.

CODICIL

Of dealers now my satire-drum I sound:
Certes! our town has one—where is he found?
Nay, Nay my fans! the galleries are owned
By clique-artists: here ten—there twenty—
Again: seven or thirty—some are loaned
By collectors, dumbbells and fools aplenty—

They are the employees who cavort about
The small rooms, not fit to show a ballroom-dress—
That is the reason any dauber's ugliness
You see on walls, where roomers get the ghout.
That accounts for your never seeing there hung
My works supreme from my miracle-mind sprung!
No dealer exists!
All art-magazines are just as unjust—
They're owned by millionaires, their friends.
Therefore God would also go to rust—
As even myself, the god who controls Art's ends!

ADDENDUM

If the reader thinks my diction not fine
Let him know I write about trash and dealers who rob.
To enjoy my super-epics let him read
My works, worthy of Keats and Milton divine.
They lead
All poets here and make all hearts rejoice and throb.

MAHATMA DR. LOUIS MICHEL EILSHEMIUS,
M.A., M.M.M., etc.

Evening at Ithaca, N. Y.