,illustration3 ,courtesy ,worcester ,art ,museum ,,femme ,,accroupie by ,,gauguin ,modern ,painting ,its ,tendency and ,meaning ,by ,willard ,huntington ,wright ,new ,york ,dodd1 ,mead and ,company #aibb ,,copyright1 #aiae ,,by ,,john ,,lane ,,company ,,the ,,plimpton ,,press 4 ,,norwood 4 ,,massachusetts ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,,foreword ,that beneath all great art there has been a definite animating purpose1 a single and profound desire to reach a specific goal1 has been but vaguely sensed by the general public and by the great majority of critics4 ,and there are1 ,i believe1 but very few persons not directly and seriously concerned with the production of pictures1 who realise that this animating purpose has for its aim the solution of the profoundest problems of the creative will1 that it is rooted deeply in the aesthetic consciousness1 and that its evolution marks one of the most complex phases of human psychology4 ,the habit of approaching a work of art from the naif standpoint of one's personal temperament or taste and of judging it haphazardly by its individual appeal1 irrespective of its inherent aesthetic merit1 is so strongly implanted in the average spectator1 that any attempt to define the principles of form and organisation underlying the eternal values of art is looked upon as an act of gratuitous pedantry4 ,but such principles exist1 and if we are to judge works of art accurately and consistently these principles must be mastered4 ,otherwise we are without a standard1 and all our opinions are but the outgrowth of the chaos of our moods4 ,any attempt to democratise art results only in the lowering of the artistic standard4 ,art cannot be taught2 and a true appreciation of it cannot grow up without a complete understanding of the aesthetic laws governing it4 ,those qualities in painting by which it is ordinarily judged are for the most part irrelevancies from the standpoint of pure aesthetics4 ,they have as little to do with a picture's infixed greatness as the punctuation in ,faust or the words of the ,hymn to ,joy in the ,ninth ,symphony4 ,small wonder that modern art has become a copious fountain-head of abuse and laughter2 for modern art tends toward the elimination of all those accretions so beloved by the general--literature1 drama1 sentiment1 symbolism1 anecdote1 prettiness and photographic realism4 ,this book inquires first into the function and psychology of all great art1 and endeavours to define those elements which make for genuine worth in painting4 ,next it attempts to explain both the basic and superficial differences between ancient and modern art and to point out1 as minutely as space will permit1 the superiority of the new methods over the old4 ,by this exposition an effort is made to indicate the raison d'etre of the modern procedure4 ,after that1 modern painters are taken up in the order of their importance to the evolution of painting during the last hundred years4 ,i have tried to answer the following questions3 ,what men and movements mark the milestones in the development of the new idea8 ,what have been the motivating forces of each of these schools8 ,to what extent are their innovations significant3 what ones touch organically on the vital problems of aesthetics2 and what was their influence on the men who came later8 ,out of what did the individual men spring2 what forces and circumstances came together to make their existence possible8 ,what were their aims1 and what were their actual achievements8 ,what relation did they bear to one another1 and in what way did they advance on one another8 ,where has modern art led1 and what inspirational possibilities lie before it8 ,before setting out to solve these problems1 all of which have their roots in the very organisms of the science of aesthetics1 ,i have posed a definite rationale of valuation4 ,my principles are based on the quickening ideals of all great art1 and1 if properly understood1 ,i believe1 they will answer every question which arises in the intelligent spectator when he stands before a piece of visual art1 be it a ,byzantine mosaic1 a complicated organisation by ,rubens1 a linear arrangement by ,picasso or an utterly worthless anecdote in paint by an ,english academician4 ,necessarily preoccupied with the application of my critical standard1 ,i have had but little time and space to devote to its elucidation4 ,yet ,i have striven in this indirect process of statement to make my fundamental postulate sufficiently clear to enable the reader to recognise its truth and unity4 ,two years ago when ,i crowded my hypothesis into #gjjj words in the ,forum1 and early last winter when ,i stated it in even briefer space in the ,new ,age1 ,i found that1 although it took a new and difficult stand1 there were many who grasped its essentials4 ,therefore ,i feel myself entitled to hope that in its present form it will be comprehensible even to those whose minds are not trained in the complexities of aesthetic research4 ,in stripping art of its intriguing charm and its soothing vagueness it is not my intention to do away with its power to delight4 ,to the contrary1 ,i believe that only by relieving painting of its dead cargo of literature1 archaeology and illustration can it be made to function freely4 ,painting should be as pure an art as music1 and the struggles of all great painters have been toward that goal4 ,its medium--colour--is as elemental as sound1 and when properly presented 7with the same scientific exactness as the harmonies of the tone-gamut7 it is fully as capable of engendering aesthetic emotion as is music4 ,our delight in music1 no matter how primitive1 is not dependent on an imitation of natural sounds4 ,music's pleasurable significance is primarily intellectual4 ,so can painting1 by its power to create emotion and not mere sensation1 provoke deep aesthetic feeling of a far greater intensity than the delight derived from transcription and drama4 ,modern painting strives toward the heightening of emotional ecstasy2 and my esthetique is intended to pave the way for an appreciation of art which will make possible the reception of that ecstasy4 ,with this object ever in view ,i have weighed the painting of the last century1 and have judged it solely by its ability or inability to call forth a profound aesthetic emotion4 ,almost any art can arouse pleasing sentiments4 ,only great art can give us intellectual rapture4 ,w4 ,h4 ,w4 ,paris1 #aiae ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,,ancient ,,and ,,modern ,,art #ag ,,ii4 ,,precursors ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,era #cd ,,iii4 ,,edouard ,,manet #fd ,,iv4 ,,the ,,early ,,impressionists #hc ,v4 ,,auguste ,,renoir #ajg ,,vi4 ,,paul ,,cezanne #abi ,,vii4 ,,the ,,neo-,,impressionists #afd ,,viii4 ,,gauguin ,,and ,,the ,,pont-,,aven ,,school #ahg ,,ix4 ,,degas ,,and ,,his ,,circle #bjg ,x4 ,,henri-,,matisse #bbb ,,xi4 ,,picasso ,,and ,,cubism #bcg ,,xii4 ,,futurism #bfc ,,xiii4 ,,synchromism #bgg ,,xiv4 ,,the ,,lesser ,,moderns #cje ,,xv4 ,,conclusion #cbg ,,index #cdc ,,reproductions ,femme ,accroupie 7,gauguin7 ,frontispiece ,les ,femmes d',alger dans ,leur ,appartement 7,delacroix7 ,facing page #ch ,l',enterrement a ,ornans 7,courbet7 #ed ,le ,bain 7,daumier7 #fj ,le ,dejeuner sur l',herbe 7,manet7 #gh ,waterloo ,bridge 7,monet7 #ih ,paysage 7,guillaumin7 #ajd ,le ,dejeuner des ,canotiers 7,renoir7 #aad ,baigneuses1 #ahhe 7,renoir7 #abf ,baigneuses1 #aijb 7,renoir7 #abf ,baigneuses 7,cezanne7 #ach ,pommes sur une ,table 7,cezanne7 #aef ,les ,tours ,vertes a la ,rochelle 7,signac7 #agd ,un ,dimanche a la ,grande-,jatte 7,seurat7 #ahj ,portrait de l',artiste 7,van ,gogh7 #ahd ,deux ,tahitiens 7,gauguin7 #bjd ,danseuses a ,leur ,toilette 7,degas7 #bab ,baigneuses 7,henri-,matisse7 #bbf ,portrait de ,famille 7,henri-,matisse7 #bcd ,femme a la ,mandoline 7,picasso7 #bdf ,fumeur et ,paysage 7,leger7 #bef ,dynamisme d'une ,auto 7,russolo7 #bfh ,hieroglyphe ,dynamique du ,bal ,tabarin 7,severini7 #bgd ,synchromie ,cosmique 7,morgan ,russell7 #bid ,composition ,no4 #b 7,kandinsky7 #caj ,le ,jardin 7,bonnard7 #cah ,modern ,painting ,i ,,ancient ,,and ,,modern ,,art ,throughout the entire history of the fine arts1 no period of aesthetic innovation and endeavour has suffered from public malignity1 ridicule and ignorance as has painting during the last century4 ,the reasons for this are many and1 to the serious student of art history1 obvious4 ,the change between the old and the new order came swiftly and precipitously1 like a cataclysm in the serenity of a summer night4 ,the classic painters of the first half of the nineteenth century1 such as ,david1 ,ingres1 ,gros and ,gerard1 were busy with their rehabilitation of ancient traditions1 when without warning1 save for the pale heresies of ,constable1 a new and rigorous regime was ushered in4 ,it was ,turner1 ,delacroix1 ,courbet and ,daumier who entered the sacred temple1 tore down the pillars which had supported it for centuries1 and brought the entire structure of established values crashing down about them4 ,they survived the debacle1 and when eventually they laid aside their brushes for all time it was with the unassailable knowledge that they had accomplished the greatest and most significant metamorphosis in the history of any art4 ,but even these hardy anarchists of the new order little dreamed of the extremes to which their heresies would lead4 ,so precipitous and complex has been the evolution of modern painting that most of the most revolutionary moderns have failed to keep mental step with its developments and divagations4 ,during the past few years new modes and manners in art have sprung up with fungus-like rapidity4 ,movements and schools have followed one another with astounding pertinacity1 each claiming that finality of expression which is the aim of all seekers for truth4 ,and1 with but few exceptions1 the men who have instigated these innovations have been animated by a serious purpose--that of mastering the problem of aesthetic organisation and of circumscribing the one means for obtaining ultimate and indestructible results4 ,but the problems of art1 like those of life itself1 are in the main unsolvable1 and art must ever be an infinite search for the intractable4 ,form in painting1 like the eternal readjustments and equilibria of life1 is but an approximation to stability4 ,the forces in all art are the forces of life1 co-ordinated and organised4 ,no plastic form can exist without rhythm3 not rhythm in the superficial harmonic sense1 but the rhythm which underlies the great fluctuating and equalising forces of material existence4 ,such rhythm is symmetry in movement4 ,on it all form1 both in art and life1 is founded4 ,form in its artistic sense has four interpretations4 ,first1 it exhibits itself as shallow imitation of the surface aspects of nature1 as in the work of such men as ,sargent1 ,sorolla and ,simon4 ,secondly1 it contains qualities of solidity and competent construction such are as found in the paintings of ,velazquez1 ,hogarth and ,degas4 ,thirdly1 it is a consummate portrayal of objects into which arbitrary arrangement has been introduced for the accentuation of volume4 ,raphael1 ,poussin and ,goya exemplify this expression of it4 ,last1 form reveals itself1 not as an objective thing1 but as an abstract phenomenon capable of giving the sensation of palpability4 ,all great art falls under this final interpretation4 ,but form1 to express itself aesthetically1 must be composed2 and here we touch the controlling basis of all art3--organisation4 ,organisation is the use put to form for the production of rhythm4 ,the first step in this process is the construction of line1 line being the direction taken by one or more forms4 ,in purely decorative rhythm the lines flow harmoniously from side to side and from top to bottom on a given surface4 ,in the greatest art the lines are bent forward and backward as well as laterally so that1 by their orientation in depth1 an impression of profundity is added to that of height and breadth4 ,thus the simple image of decoration is destroyed1 and a microcosmos is created in its place4 ,rhythm then becomes the inevitable adjustment of approaching and receding lines1 so that they will reproduce the placements and displacements to be found in the human body when in motion4 ,to understand1 and hence fully to appreciate1 a painting1 we must be able to recognise its inherent qualities by the process of intellectual reasoning4 ,by this is not implied mechanical or scientific observation4 ,were this necessary1 art would resolve itself into a provable theory and would produce in us only such mental pleasure as we feel before a perfect piece of intricate machinery4 ,but once we comprehend those constitutional qualities which pervade all great works of art1 plastic and graphic1 the sensuous emotion will follow so rapidly as to give the effect of spontaneity4 ,this process of conscious observation in time becomes automatic and exerts itself on every work of art we inspect4 ,once adjusted to an assimilation of the rhythmic compositions of ,el ,greco and ,rubens1 we have become susceptible to the tactile sensation of form in all painting4 ,and this subjective emotion is keener than the superficial sensation aroused by the prettiness of design1 the narrative of subject-matter1 or the quasi-realities of transcription4 ,more and more as we proximate to a true understanding of the principles of art1 shall we react to those deeper and larger qualities in a painting which are not to be found in its documentary and technical side4 ,also our concern with the transient sentiments engendered by a picture's external aspects will become less and less significant4 ,technique1 dramatic feeling1 subject1 and even accuracy of drawing1 will be relegated to the subsidiary and comparatively unimportant position they hold in relation to a painting's aesthetic purpose4 ,the lack of comprehension--and consequently the ridicule--which has met the efforts of modern painters1 is attributable not alone to a misunderstanding of their seemingly for extravagant and eccentric mannerisms1 but to an ignorance of the basic postulates of all great art both ancient and modern4 ,proof of this is afforded by the constant statements of preference for the least effectual of older painters over the greatest of the moderns4 ,these preferences1 if they are symptomatic of aught save the mere habit of a mind immersed in tradition1 indicate an immaturity of artistic judgment which places prettiness above beauty1 and sentimentality and documentary interest above subjectivity of emotion4 ,the fallacies of such judgment can best be indicated by a parallel consideration of painters widely separated as to merit1 but in whom these different qualities are found4 ,for instance1 the prettiness of ,reynolds1 ,greuze and ,murillo is as marked as the prettiness of ,titian1 ,giorgione and ,renoir4 ,the latter are by far the greater artists2 yet1 had we no other critical standard save that of charm1 the difference between them and the others would be indistinguishable4 ,zuloaga1 ,whistler1 ,botticelli and ,boecklin are as inspirational of sentiment as ,tintoretto1 ,corot1 ,raphael and ,poussin2 but by no authentic criterion are they as great painters4 ,again1 were drama and simple narrative aesthetic considerations1 ,regnault1 ,brangwyn1 and ,antonino ,molineri would rank with ,valerio ,castello1 ,rubens and ,ribera4 ,in one's failure to distinguish between the apparent and the organic purposes of art lies the greatest obstacle to an appreciation of what has come to be called modern painting4 ,the truths of modern art are no different from those of ancient art4 ,a ,cezanne landscape is not dissimilar in aim to an ,el ,greco4 ,the one is merely more advanced as to methods than the other4 ,nor do the canvases of the most ultra-modern schools strive toward an aesthetic manifestation radically unlike that aspired to in ,michelangelo's ,slaves4 ,serious modern art1 despite its often formidable and bizarre appearance1 is only a striving to rehabilitate the natural and unalterable principles of rhythmic form to be found in the old masters1 and to translate them into relative and more comprehensive terms4 ,we have the same animating ideal in the pictures of ,giotto and ,matisse1 ,rembrandt and ,renoir1 ,botticelli and ,gauguin1 ,watteau and ,picasso1 ,poussin and ,friesz1 ,raphael and ,severini4 ,the later men differ from their antecedents in that they apply new and more vital methods to their work4 ,modern art is the logical and natural outgrowth of ancient art2 it is the art of yesterday heightened and intensified as the result of systematic and painstaking experimentation in the media of expression4 ,the search for composition--that is1 for perfectly poised form in three dimensions--has been the impelling dictate of all great art4 ,giotto1 ,el ,greco1 ,masaccio1 ,tintoretto and ,rubens1 the greatest of all the old painters1 strove continually to attain form as an abstract emotional force4 ,with them the organisation of volumes came first4 ,the picture was composed as to line4 ,out of this grew the subject-matter--a demonstration a posteriori4 ,the human figure and the recognisable natural object were only auxiliaries1 never the sought-for result4 ,in all this they were inherently modern1 as that word should be understood2 for the new conception of art strives more and more for the emotion rather than the appearance of reality4 ,the objects1 whether arbitrary or photographic1 which an artist uses in a picture are only the material through which plastic form finds expression4 ,they are the means1 not the end4 ,if in the works of truly significant art there is a dramatic1 narrative or illustrative interest1 it will be found to be the incidental and not the important concomitant of the picture4 ,therefore it is not remarkable that1 with the introduction of new methods1 the illustrative side of painting should tend toward minimisation4 ,the elimination of all the superfluities from art is but a part of the striving toward defecation4 ,since the true test of painting lies in its subjective power1 modern artists have sought to divorce their work from all considerations other than those directly allied to its primary function4 ,this process of separation advanced hand in hand with the evolution of new methods4 ,first it took the form of the distortion of natural objects4 ,the accidental shape of trees1 hills1 houses and even human figures was altered in order to draw them into the exact form demanded by the picture's composition4 ,gradually1 by the constant practice of this falsification1 objects became almost unrecognisable4 ,in the end the illustrative obstacle was entirely done away with4 ,this was the logical outcome of the sterilising modern process4 ,to judge a picture competently1 one must not consider it as a mere depiction of life or as an anecdote3 one must bring to it an intelligence capable of grasping a complicated counterpoint4 ,the attitude of even such men as ,celesti1 ,zanchi1 ,padovanino and ,bononi is never that of an illustrator1 in no matter how sublimated a sense1 but of a composer whose aim is to create a polymorphic conception with the recognisable materials at hand4 ,were art to be judged from the pictorial and realistic viewpoint we might find many meticulous craftsmen of as high an objective efficiency as were the men who stood at the apex of genuine artistic worth--that is1 craftsmen who arrived at as close and exact a transcription of nature1 who interpreted current moods and mental aspects as accurately1 and who set forth superficial emotions as dramatically4 ,velazquez's ,philip ,,iv1 ,titian's ,emperor ,charles ,v1 ,holbein's ,the ,ambassadors1 ,guardi's ,the ,grand ,canal--,venice1 ,mantegna's ,the ,dead ,christ and ,duerer's ,four ,naked ,women reproduce their subjects with as much painstaking exactitude as do ,el ,greco's ,the ,resurrection of ,christ1 ,giotto's ,descent from the ,cross1 ,masaccio's ,saint ,peter ,baptising the ,pagans1 ,tintoretto's ,the ,miracle of ,saint ,mark1 ,michelangelo's ,creation of the ,sun and ,moon1 and ,rubens's ,the ,earl and ,countess of ,arundel4 ,but these latter pictures are important for other than pictorial reasons4 ,primarily they are organisations1 and as such they are of aesthetic value4 ,only secondarily are they to be appraised as representations of natural objects4 ,in the pictures of the former list there is no synthetic co-ordination of tactile forms4 ,such paintings represent merely subject-matter treated capably and effectively4 ,as sheer painting from the artisan's standpoint they are among the finest examples of technical dexterity in art history4 ,but as contributions to the development of a pure art form they are valueless4 ,in stating that the moderns have changed the quality and not the nature of art1 there is no implication that in many instances the great men of the past1 even with limited means1 have not surpassed in artistic achievement the men of today who have at hand more extensive means4 ,great organisers of plastic form have1 because of their tremendous power1 done with small means more masterly work than lesser men with large means4 ,for instance1 ,goya as an artist surpasses ,manet1 and ,rembrandt transcends ,daumier4 ,this principle holds true in all the arts4 ,balzac1 ignorant of modern literary methods1 is greater than ,george ,moore1 a master of modern means4 ,and ,beethoven still remains the colossal figure in music1 despite the vastly increased modern scope of ,richard ,strauss's methods4 ,methods are useless without the creative will4 ,but granting this point 7which unconsciously is the stumbling block of nearly all modern art critics71 new and fuller means1 even in the hands of inferior men1 are not the proper subject for ridicule4 ,it must not be forgotten that the division between old and modern art is not an equal one4 ,modern art began with ,delacroix less than a hundred years ago1 while art up to that time had many centuries in which to perfect the possibilities of its resources4 ,the new methods are so young that painters have not had time to acquire that mastery of material without which the highest achievement is impossible4 ,even in the most praiseworthy modern art we are conscious of that intellectual striving in the handling of new tools which is the appanage of immaturity4 ,renoir1 the greatest exponent of ,impressionistic means1 found his artistic stride only in his old age1 after a long and arduous life of study and experimenting4 ,his canvases since #aije are the first in which we feel the fluency and power which come only after a slow and sedulous process of osmosis4 ,compare1 for instance1 his early and popular ,le ,moulin de la ,galette with his later portraits1 such as ,madame ,t4 et ,son ,fils and ,la ,fillette a l',orange1 and his growth is at once apparent4 ,the evolution of means is answerable to the same laws as the progressus in any other line of human endeavour4 ,the greatest artists are always culminations of long lines of experimentations4 ,in this they are eclectic4 ,the organisation of observation is in itself too absorbing a labour to permit of a free exercise of the will to power4 ,the blinding burst of genius at the time of the ,renaissance was the breaking forth of the accrued power of generations4 ,modern art1 having no tradition of means1 has sapped and dispersed the vitality of its exponents by imposing upon them the necessity for empirical research4 ,it is for this reason that we have no men in modern art who approximate as closely to perfection as did many of the older painters4 ,but had ,rubens1 with his colossal vision1 had access to modern methods his work would have been more powerful in its intensity and more far-reaching in its scope4 ,however1 in the brief period of modern art two decided epochs have been brought to a close through this accumulation and eruption of experimental activities in individuals4 ,cezanne brought to a focus the divergent rays of his predecessors and incorporated into his canvases both the aspirations and achievements of the art which had preceded him4 ,this would have been impossible had he been born--even with an equally great talent--fifty years before4 ,and a more recent school of art1 by making use of the achievements of both ,cezanne and ,michelangelo1 and by adding to them new discoveries in the dynamics of colour1 has opened up a new vista of possibilities in the expressing of form4 ,this step also would have been impossible without ,cezanne and the men who came before and after him4 ,once these new modes1 which are indicative of modern art1 become understood and pass into the common property of the younger men1 we shall have achievement which will be as complete as the masterpieces of old1 and which will1 in addition1 be more poignant4 ,although the methods of the older painters were more restricted than those of the moderns1 the actual materials at their disposal were fully as extended as ours of today4 ,but knowledge concerning them was incomplete4 ,as a consequence1 all artists antecedent to ,delacroix found expression only in those qualities which are susceptible of reproduction in black and white4 ,in many cases the sacrifice of colour enhances the intrinsic merit of such reproductions1 for often the characteristics of the different colours oppose the purposes of a picture's planes4 ,today we know that certain colours are opaque1 others transparent2 some approach the eye1 others recede4 ,but the ancients were ignorant of these things1 and their canvases contained many contradictions3 there was a continuous warring between linear composition and colour values4 ,they painted solids violet1 and transpicuous planes yellow--thereby unconsciously defeating their own ends1 for violet is limpid1 and yellow tangible4 ,in one-tone reproductions such inconsistencies are eliminated1 and the signification of the picture thereby clarified4 ,it was ,rubens who embodied the defined attributes of ancient art in their highest degree of pliability1 and who carried the impulse toward creation to a point of complexity unattained by any other of the older men4 ,in him we see the culmination of the evolution of linear development of light and dark4 ,from his time to the accession of the moderns the ability to organise was on the decrease4 ,there was a weakening of perception1 a decline of the aesthetic faculty4 ,the chaotic condition of this period was like the darkness which always broods over the world before some cleansing force sweeps it clean and ushers in a new and greater cycle4 ,the period of advancement of these old methods extends from prehistoric times to the beginning of the nineteenth century4 ,on the walls of the caverns in ,altamira and the ,dordogne are drawings of mammoths1 horses and bison in which1 despite the absence of details1 the actual approach to nature is at times more sure and masterly than in the paintings of such highly cultured men as ,botticelli and ,pisanello4 ,the action in some of them is pronounced2 and the vision1 while simple1 is that of men conscious of a need for compactness and balance4 ,here the art is simply one of outline1 heavy and prominent at times1 light and almost indistinguishable at others2 but this grading of line was the result of a deeper cause than a tool slipping or refusing to mark4 ,it was the consequence of a need for rhythm which could be obtained only by the accentuation of parts4 ,the drawings were generally single figures1 and rarely were more than two conceived as an inseparable design4 ,later1 the early primitives used symmetrical groupings for the same purpose of interior decorating4 ,then came simple balance1 the shifting and disguise of symmetry1 and with it a nearer approach to the imprevu of nature4 ,this style was employed for many generations until the great step was taken which brought about the ,renaissance4 ,the sequential aspect of line appeared1 permitting of rhythm and demanding organisation4 ,cimabue and ,giotto were the most prominent exponents of this advance4 ,from that time forward the emotion derived from actual form was looked upon by artists as a necessary adjunct to a picture4 ,with this attitude came the aristocracy of vision and the abrogation of painting as mere exalted craftsmanship4 ,after that the evolution of art was rapid4 ,in the contemplation of solidly and justly painted figures the artist began to extend his mind into space and to use rhythm of line that he might express himself in depth as well as surfacely4 ,thus he preconised organisation in three dimensions1 and by so doing opened the door on an infinity of aesthetic ramifications4 ,from the beginning1 tone balance--that is1 the agreeable distribution of blacks1 whites and greys--had gone forward with the development of line1 so that at the advent of depth in painting the arrangement of tones became the medium through which all the other qualities were made manifest4 ,in the strict sense1 the art of painting up to a hundred years ago had been only drawing4 ,colour was used only for ornamental or dramatic purposes4 ,after the first simple copying of nature's tints in a wholly restricted manner1 the use of colour advanced but little4 ,it progressed toward harmony1 but its dramatic possibilities were only dimly felt4 ,consequently its primitive employment for the enhancement of the decorative side of painting was adhered to4 ,this was not because the older painters were without the necessary pigments4 ,their colours in many instances were brighter and more permanent than ours4 ,but they were satisfied with the effects obtained from black and white expression4 ,they looked upon colour as a delicacy1 an accessory1 something to be taken as the gourmet takes dessert4 ,its true significance was thus obscured beneath the artists' complacency4 ,as great an artist as ,giorgione considered it from the conventional viewpoint1 and never attempted to deviate toward its profounder meanings4 ,the old masters filled their canvases with shadows and light without suspecting that light itself is simply another name for colour4 ,the history of modern art is broadly the history of the development of form by the means of colour--that is to say1 modern art tends toward the purification of painting4 ,colour is capable of producing all the effects possible to black and white1 and in addition of exciting an emotion more acute4 ,it was only with the advent of ,delacroix1 the first great modern1 that the dramatic qualities of colour were intelligently sensed4 ,but even with him the conception was so slight that the effects he attained were but meagrely effective4 ,after ,delacroix further experiments in colour led to the realistic translation of certain phases of nature4 ,the old static system of copying trees in green1 shadows in black and skies in blue did not1 as was commonly believed1 produce realism4 ,while superficially nature appeared in the colours indicated1 a close observation later revealed the fact that a green tree in any light comprises a diversity of colours1 that all sunlit skies have a residue of yellow1 and hence that shadows are violet rather than black4 ,this newly unearthed realism of light became the battle cry of the younger men in the late decades of the nineteenth century1 and reached parturition in the movement erroneously called ,impressionism1 a word philologically opposed to the thing it wished to elucidate4 ,the ancients had painted landscape as it appeared broadly at a first glance4 ,the ,impressionists1 being interested in nature as a manifestation in which light plays the all-important part1 transferred it bodily onto canvas from that point of view4 ,cezanne1 looking into their habits more coolly1 saw their restrictions4 ,while achieving all their atmospheric aims1 he went deeper into the mechanics of colour1 and with this knowledge achieved form as well as light4 ,this was another step forward in the development of modern methods4 ,with him colour began to near its true and ultimate significance as a functioning element4 ,later1 with the aid of the scientists1 ,chevreul1 ,bourgeois1 ,helmholtz and ,rood1 other artists made various departures into the field of colour1 but their enterprises were failures4 ,then came ,matisse who made improvements on the harmonic side of colour4 ,but because he ignored the profounder lessons of ,cezanne he succeeded only in the fabrication of a highly organised decorative art4 ,not until the advent of the ,synchromists1 whose first public exhibition took place in ,munich in #aiac1 were any further crucial advances made4 ,these artists completed ,cezanne in that they rationalised his dimly foreshadowed precepts4 ,to understand the basic significance of painting it is necessary to revise our method of judgment4 ,as yet no aesthetician has recorded a rationale for art valuation4 ,taine put forth many illuminating suggestions regarding the fundamentals of form1 but the critics have paid scant heed4 ,prejudice1 personal taste1 metaphysics and even the predilections of sentiment1 still govern the world's judgments and appreciations4 ,we are slaves to accuracy of delineation1 to prettiness of design1 to the whole suite of material considerations which are deputies to the organic and intellectual qualities of a work of art4 ,it is the common thing to find criticisms--ever from the highest sources--which praise or condemn a picture according to the nearness of its approach to the reality of its subject4 ,such observations are confusing and irrelevant4 ,were realism the object of art1 painting would always be infinitely inferior to life--a mere simulacrum of our daily existence1 ever inadequate in its illusion4 ,the moment we attach other than purely aesthetic values to paintings--either ancient or modern--we are confronted by so extensive and differentiated a set of tests that chaos or error is unavoidable4 ,in the end we shall find that our conclusions have their premises1 not in the work of art itself1 but in personal and extraneous considerations4 ,a picture to be a great work of art need not contain any recognisable objects4 ,provided it gives the sensation of rhythmically balanced form in three dimensions1 it will have accomplished all that the greatest masters of art have ever striven for4 ,once we divest ourselves of traditional integuments1 modern painting will straightway lose its mystery4 ,despite the many charlatans who clothe their aberrations with its name1 it is a sincere reaching forth of the creative will to find a medium by which the highest emotions may most perfectly be expressed4 ,we have become too complex to enjoy the simple theatre any longer4 ,our minds call for a more forceful emotion than the simple imitation of life can give4 ,we require problems1 inspirations1 incentives to thought4 ,the simple melody of many of the old masters can no longer interest us because of its very simplicity4 ,as the complicated and organised forces of life become comprehensible to us1 we shall demand more and more that our analytic intelligences be mirrored in our enjoyments4 ,,ii ,,precursors ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,era ,the nineteenth century opened with ,french art in a precarious and decadent condition4 ,to appreciate the prodigious strides made by ,gericault and ,delacroix1 even by ,gerard and ,gros1 one must consider the rabid antagonism of the public toward all ornament and richness in painting and toward all subject-matter which did not inspire thoughts of inflexible simplicity4 ,this attitude was attributable to the social reaction against the excesses of the voluptuous ,louis ,,xv4 ,vien it was who1 suppressing the eroticism of ,boucher1 instigated the so-called classic revival founded on ,graeco-,roman ideals4 ,the public became so vehement in its praise of this hypocritical and austere art1 that ,fragonard1 that delicious painter of boudoirs1 was dismissed as indecent4 ,even the demure ,greuze1 who tried to rehabilitate himself by making his art a vehicle for a series of parental sermons1 died a pauper4 ,he too lacked the aridity requisite for popular taste4 ,chardin1 the ,le ,nains and ,fouquet were set aside3 they were considered too trivial1 too insufficiently archaeological4 ,watteau's canvases were stoned by ,regnault1 ,girodet and the other pupils of ,david4 ,lancret1 ,pater1 ,debucourt1 ,olivier1 ,gravelot1 ,la ,tour1 ,nattier and others met similar fates at the hands of the new classicists4 ,such men as these could not find approbation in a public which demanded only allegorical1 political and economic art4 ,but ,david met all its requirements4 ,he represented the antithesis of the sound freedom of the ,french temperament2 and forthwith became the ,elija of the new degeneracy4 ,he apotheosised all that is false and decadent in art4 ,but the adulation of him was short-lived4 ,the ,french imagination is too fecund for only thorns4 ,ingres superseded him4 ,this new idol1 going to the ,greeks for inspiration1 made ,david fluent and charming4 ,he studied the ,italian primitives and simplified them with ,byzantine and ,raphaelic addenda4 ,he had a genuine instinct for silhouette entirely lacking in his forerunner1 and soon struck the first blow which marked the disintegration of ,david's cult4 ,gerard and ,gros took a further step by loosening slightly ,ingres's drawing2 and ,gericault and ,guerin completed the disruption of the ,david tradition4 ,gericault's ,radeau de la ,meduse brought its young and highly talented creator immediately into the public gaze1 not only because of its implied blasphemy in deviating from the methode ,david1 but because the tragedy of its subject was still fresh in the national mind4 ,was this a clever device on the part of the painter to circumvent hostile criticism by clothing his innovations with a sympathetic theme8 ,perhaps2 but the picture's value to us lies in that it foreshadowed the new idea in art4 ,it forced the gate which made easier ,delacroix's entrance several years later4 ,in retrospect the reaction against an established order appears simple1 but the world's innovators have required for their task an intellectual courage amounting to rare heroism4 ,heretics are regarded as dangerous madmen1 and generally their only reward is the pleasure of revolt4 ,the credit for greatness falls on those later men who avail themselves of the principles of past reactionary enterprise4 ,so much of the energy of pioneers is spent in combating hostile criticism and indifference1 that their fund of creative force is depleted4 ,this was true in the case of ,delacroix4 ,like all the greater painters he was self-taught4 ,the essence of knowledge is untransmittable4 ,true1 he occasionally visited the studio of ,guerin1 but his real education came from the ,louvre where he copied ,veronese1 ,titian and ,rubens4 ,his insight was keen but not deep1 and at first he did little more than absorb the surface aspects of others1 though he did this with intelligence4 ,later1 by devious steps both forward and back1 he became the bridge from the eighteenth century to ,impressionism1 just as ,cezanne became the stepping stone from ,impressionism to art's latest manifestations4 ,in #ahbb ,delacroix exposed his first canvas1 ,dante et ,virgile aux ,enfers1 one of the finest debut pictures ever recorded4 ,superficially it is his most obvious influence of ,rubens whom he deeply respected2 and in it are also discoverable the exaggerations and disproportions of ,michelangelo4 ,thiers lauded it1 and so great was its popularity that the government bought it for #b1jjj francs4 ,rubens still held him firmly two years later in the ,massacre de ,scio1 although there were in the picture indubitable indications of the advent of ,venice4 ,this picture was to be hung in the famous ,salon of #ahbd1 where ,lawrence1 ,bonington1 ,fielding1 and ,constable 7who were to have such a great influence on his later work7 exposed4 ,the ,massacre de ,scio was ready for shipment when1 just before the vernissage1 ,delacroix saw a canvas by ,constable done in the divisionistic method4 ,at once he felt the necessity for colour expression1 and going home he entirely repainted his picture4 ,this was the turning-point in his art4 ,he had admired the green in ,constable's landscape1 and had spoken of it to the other4 ,constable explained that the superiority of the green in his prairies was due to the fact that he had composed it with a multitude of different greens4 ,here ,delacroix's keen perception got to work4 ,in his ,journal he wrote3 ,what ,constable says of the green of his prairies can be applied to all the other tones as well4 ,by this method1 primitive as it seems today1 he beheld a way of augmenting the dramatic significance of his conceptions4 ,the next year1 #ahbe1 he went to ,london to study the ,english painters at closer range4 ,there he learned much from ,bonington1 as he did from ,constable1 and in one of his letters he wrote3 ,grey is the enemy of all painting4444 ,let us banish from our palette all earth colours4 ,and later he forecasted the ,impressionistic methods by writing3 ,it is good not to let each brush stroke melt into the others2 they will appear uniform at a certain distance by the sympathetic law which associates them4 ,colour obtained thus has more energy and freshness4 ,the more opposition in colour1 the more brilliance4 ,delacroix's intelligence1 reconnoitring along these lines1 formulated other principles4 ,among many observations concerning colour1 he wrote3 ,if to a composition1 interesting in its choice of subject1 you add a disposition of lines1 which augments the impression1 a chiaroscuro which seizes the imagination1 and a colour which is adapted to the characters1 it is then a harmony1 and its combinations are so adapted that they produce a unique song4444 ,a conception1 having become a composition1 must move in the milieu of a colour peculiar to it4 ,there seems to be a particular tone belonging to some part of every picture which is a key that governs all the other tones4444 ,the art of the colourist seems to be related in certain ways to mathematics and music4 ,that he believed in the exact science of colour is further attested to by the fact that he made a dial on which noon represented red1 six o'clock green1 one o'clock blue1 seven o'clock orange--and so on through the hours with the opposition of complementaries4 ,evidences of these experimentations are dimly discerned in a number of his minor canvases done between #ahbg and the ,revolution4 ,in #ahcb1 after he had painted the admirable ,la ,liberte ,guidant le ,peuple sur les ,barricades1 he visited ,morocco4 ,before this event his work had contained many of the elements of sumptuousness and sensuality2 but in this eastern land his colour reached maturity4 ,studying the productions of the native crafts in their relation to colour1 he dreamed of making pictures as variegated as rugs and vases4 ,in this he was trespassing on the precincts of ,veronese who had made pictorial use of the products of the ,orient and of ,africa4 ,on his return he painted ,les ,femmes d',alger dans ,leur ,appartement4 ,this picture1 one of his best1 embodies most of his colour theories4 ,in it we find cold shadows opposed to hot lights1 and the contiguous placing of complementaries4 ,illustration3 ,,les ,,femmes ,d',,alger ,,dans ,,leur ,,appartement by ,,delacroix ,delacroix looked upon himself as a colourist4 ,but while his theories were in the main sound they did not go far enough4 ,they were important only as a starting point4 ,his colour is hardly noticeable today1 and in no wise does it sum up his artistic interest for us4 ,gauguin once said that we get ,delacroix's full significance in black-and-white reproduction4 ,this comes perilously near being true4 ,today his pictures appear as devoid of brilliancy as those of the ,venetians4 ,yet1 when he first exhibited1 he was reproached for his raucous tones4 ,the critics called his ,massacre de ,scio the massacre of painting1 and added1 il court sur les toits4 ,his men and women1 the shadows of whose flesh were coloured with blues and greens1 were stigmatised corpses1 and he was accused of having used the morgue for his studio4 ,all this mattered little4 ,delacroix's real significance as an artist lay in his drawing which was his greatest asset4 ,what raised him above the general run of painters1 baroque and otherwise1 was his slight talent for composition4 ,often in his ,journal he speaks of the balance of lines4 ,he knew that with the masters of the ,renaissance it was common property1 and that modern painting had lost it2 and he strove to reintroduce it into art4 ,but he never got beyond the simplest synthesis of the least compounded of ,rubens's figure pieces4 ,for instance1 in the ,bataille de ,taillebourg--an excellent example of his dramatic method--it will be noted that the canvas opens at the bottom-centre to form a triangle of struggling forms1 and that in the breach thus made the rearing charger looms white4 ,the identical composition can be found in ,la ,justice1 ,la ,liberte1 the ,janissaires a l',attaque1 ,la ,lutte de ,jacob avec l',ange1 the ,enlevement de ,rebecca and the ,entree des ,croises a ,jerusalem4 ,in this last canvas1 his most masterful1 the triangle is complicated by a curved line running inward from the centre4 ,this picture recalls1 almost to every detail1 ,rubens's ,the ,adoration of the ,wise ,men of the ,east1 in the ,antwerp ,museum4 ,however1 it marks a great progress from the symmetricality of his toile de debut1 and though in it ,rubens is consciously imitated--if not indeed plagiarised1 ,delacroix gets nearer to the spirit of ,veronese than to that of the ,flemish master4 ,among the paintings wherein the simple1 three-sided composition does not appear1 the most notable are his animal pictures 7in which he substituted the ,s design7 and those canvases in which his momentary admiration for others 7as for ,veronese in the ,retour de ,christophe ,colomb1 and for the ,dutch in ,cromwell au ,chateau de ,windsor7 made him forget himself4 ,even this primitive comprehension of linear balance had passed out of ,french painting with the death of ,poussin1 and its reapparition in ,delacroix is analogous to the impetus toward rhythm which was given to the stiff ,byzantine painting of ,venice by ,nicolo di ,pietro and ,giovanni da ,bologna in the fourteenth century4 ,in ,rubens we find turbulent movement1 as great as in life itself1 organised in such a way that all the emotions1 exalted1 depressive1 dramatic1 are expressed4 ,but in ,delacroix there is merely co-ordinated action4 ,and this action1 even in the busiest centres of his canvases1 is more suggestive of unrest than of movement4 ,however1 the real cause for his failure to express a spirit as modern as ,rubens's lay in his inability to understand the opposition in rhythmic line-balance of three dimensions which is to be found in even the slightest of ,rubens's canvases4 ,his details are always interesting1 but he never succeeded in welding them into a sequacious and interrelated whole4 ,his high gift of invention was inadequate equipment for so difficult a feat4 ,compare ,rembrandt's exquisite bathing girl in the ,london ,national ,gallery and ,delacroix's ,la ,grece ,expirant sur les ,ruines de ,missolonghi4 ,in technical treatment these two paintings are not unlike1 but the scattered feeling and lack of plastic concentration in the latter emphasises the superior force of the ,dutchman4 ,delacroix's work fell between flat decoration and deep painting4 ,although in his small drawings and details he exhibits a genuine feeling for volume1 as his ,lion ,dechirant un ,cadavre shows1 his constant refinements of reasoning nearly always resulted in his form being flattened out until it sometimes became commonplace4 ,simple balance of line defined the limits of his ability for organisation4 ,if he had carried out in other pictures the compositional elements of his ,pieta1 which had distinct movement1 his work would have taken a higher place in the history of art4 ,in many canvases his seeming fullness of form is only a richness of line--a richness1 however1 which had seldom been found in painting since ,masaccio4 ,this voluptuousness in ,delacroix 7analogous to ,wagner's music7 results from the balance of large dark and light masses--the fullness of chiaroscuro4 ,it is particularly appreciable in ,la ,justice de ,trajan1 ,la ,captivite de ,babylone1 ,repos 7reminiscent of ,goya's ,la ,maja ,desnuda7 and his animal compositions4 ,delacroix's greatest deficiency lay in his inability to recognise the difference between the inventive intelligence and the imaginative instinct4 ,had he understood this he could have seen that his limitless ambition was incommensurate with his comparatively small capabilities4 ,but his mind was not sufficiently open4 ,in fact his viewpoint at times was a petty one4 ,even his patriotism was chauvinistic4 ,he was rabidly anti-,teutonic and attempted to compress all the great masters of art into the ,french mould4 ,he inveighed against style in painting because ,france had always been barren of it4 ,he pretended to detest ,wagner1 his musical prototype1 and ignoring the latter's dramatic undulations1 criticised him severely for his methods4 ,beethoven was too long for ,delacroix1 and ,il ,trovatore too complicated4 ,however1 he had a profound admiration for ,titian and ,mozart2 and in these preferences we have the man's psychology4 ,both were great classicists1 but both lacked that genuine and magistral fullness which was the propre of ,beethoven and ,michelangelo4 ,delacroix's thoughts were on deep things rather than deep in themselves4 ,among the romanticists he was at home3 all his life ,byron and ,walter ,scott provided him with themes4 ,and though he had sufficient foresight to see the hopeless trend of the painting of his day1 and combated it1 he did not advance4 ,his muse was the corpse of ,venetian art4 ,he was the brake which put an end to the reactionary tendencies of art4 ,his discoveries did not reach fruition until ,impressionism1 twenty years after his death4 ,in all his struggles destiny seemed to conspire to bring about his fame4 ,in #ahbd1 the very year he brought colour into his painting1 ,gericault1 who gave promise of outstripping him1 died4 ,constable and ,turner came forward with their achievements4 ,david's influence had died out1 and the painter himself was an exile in ,brussels4 ,fromentin tells us that ,gericault helped paint ,delacroix's first canvas4 ,certain it is that several of the great ,englishmen painted some of his second4 ,this1 no doubt1 taught ,delacroix much4 ,in #ahbg the government ordered ,justinien ,composant les ,institutes4 ,all ,france rallied round his standard4 ,he was decorated by ,louis ,philippe2 and at the age of thirty he was proclaimed a great master by one of the leading critics of the day4 ,from the first he had had the backing of men respected as authorities4 ,but though they helped make his position tenable1 they obfuscated his true significance by their purely literary appreciations4 ,gautier1 ,dumas1 ,baudelaire1 ,stendhal and ,merimee--there was none whose temperament was not either romantic or idealistic4 ,they could not see that1 though he strove with them for modernity of expression1 his language was unmodern4 ,however1 ,ernest ,chesneau1 ,theophile ,silvestre1 ,eugene ,veron and ,c4 ,p4 ,landon have all given us side-lights on his methods1 and1 in this1 their expositions are of value4 ,but1 though the men of letters did not understand him thoroughly1 several of his fellow painters recognised his eclecticism4 ,among them was ,thomas ,couture who1 in his highly instructive booklet1 ,methodes et ,entretiens d',atelier1 had the audacity to point out the painter's selective habits4 ,in the main his charge was just4 ,delacroix's first canvas contains influences of both ,rubens and ,michelangelo4 ,his second picture echoes ,rubens1 the ,venetians and ,goya4 ,later came more prominent evidences of ,titian and ,veronese4 ,delacroix was museum-bred4 ,he absorbed impressions avidly1 and did his best work only after he had undergone an intellectual experience4 ,had his art been truly expressive of all that was within him1 he would have been in turn--diluted1 to be sure--a ,giotto1 a ,caravaggio1 a ,rubens1 a ,rembrandt4 ,he felt the call of these men1 but instead of halting at appreciation1 he tried to use them4 ,but the old masters1 like the lords of the earth1 are not amenable to high-handed demands4 ,the diversity of his pursuits1 which sprang from a desire to compete with ,leonardo da ,vinci1 smacks of the dilettante4 ,his great mistake was that he did not separate his capabilities from his desires4 ,had he done so he would have produced small figure pieces of gem-like richness and voluminous composition4 ,enthusiasm is not the proper equipment for extended labour4 ,it burns out too soon1 and is kept alive only by quick and brilliant results4 ,for this reason his pictures are viewed to better effect framed and in galleries than as mural decorations4 ,in trying to paint monumental subjects on extensive canvases he lost that spirit of organisation which would have been his on more limited surfaces4 ,one of his finest expositions of colour1 ,la ,lutte de ,jacob avec l',ange1 in a chapel at ,saint ,sulpice1 is ineffective because its surface is too large for his treatment of the theme4 ,delacroix in reality was a painter of still-life in the broad meaning of the term1 just as ,rembrandt and ,cezanne were still-life painters4 ,he failed in the accomplishment of his larger programme because his vision was too restricted to permit him to weld his details into great ensembles1 as ,rubens did4 ,his ambition outstripped his power1 and strive as he might1 he could not make up the discrepancy by reasoning4 ,undoubtedly he sensed his own weakness1 for all his days he was in continual pursuit of system4 ,system was to him what law was to the old masters4 ,herein he was reflecting the rationalistic philosophers of his day who substituted theory for observation4 ,were all ,delacroix's paintings destroyed and his ,journal and drawings saved1 his apport to art would be but imperceptibly decreased4 ,we should still possess his linear compositions and his colour theories--his two significant gifts to modern art4 ,without the liberation of draughtsmanship expressed in the former1 ,courbet's struggle would have been more difficult1 and rhythm in drawing would have had to wait for another resuscitator4 ,without his colour theories ,impressionism would have been postponed for half a century2 ,van ,gogh could not have done his best pictures2 and the ,pointillists1 with their system of complementaries1 might never have existed4 ,delacroix was the first to speak of simultaneity in painting1 on which phrase has recently been founded a school2 and he sketched a dictionary of art terms and definitions which even now1 after fifty years1 is far more intelligent than present-day academic precepts4 ,let us regard ,delacroix as a great pioneer who fought against the zymotic formalism of his day and by so doing opened up a new era of expression4 ,he is the link in the chain which holds the brilliant gems of painting4 ,if he himself fell short of genius1 he nevertheless fulfilled a destiny which intrinsically is in many ways more fine3 he made genius possible for those who were to come after him4 ,the other man who contributed vitally to modern colour theories was ,j4 ,m4 ,w4 ,turner1 born in #agge1 one year before ,constable4 ,like ,delacroix he had ardent and influential defenders2 and the coincidence is emphasised by the fact that between these two great colour innovators there existed a striking thematic similarity4 ,ruskin took care that ,turner should taste those beneficent honours which the world generally withholds from a painter during his lifetime4 ,he accomplished this feat by praise which was largely enthusiasm and by criticism which spelled partiality4 ,but a panegyric not founded on accuracy and authenticity defeats its own object in the end4 ,turner himself remarked that ,ruskin discovered recondite points in his painting of which he1 as the artist1 was ignorant4 ,this might have been true1 or it might have been sarcasm4 ,but whether ,ruskin or ,turner knew more about the latter's art1 the fact remains that the author of ,modern ,painters overestimated the painter for a reason totally inapposite to aesthetic consideration3--the almost photographic perfection of his canvases4 ,later1 when the spirituel ,whistler tarnished this ,english didactician's reputation for infallibility1 the latter's pronunciamentos were questioned1 in some quarters ridiculed4 ,and ,turner1 accepted because of ,ruskin's assurances1 became suspect4 ,but no amount of effulgent literary criticism can obscure the authentic accomplishments of this poor barber's son4 ,turner's contributions to the colour methods of the eighties were too large1 and his imitators too bold1 for the fact to be longer ignored4 ,in his ,ulysses ,deriding ,polyphemus1 ,the ,fighting ,temeraire and especially in ,rain1 ,steam and ,speed1 he had begun to divide the surfaces of his objects into minute touches of different colours--not1 perhaps1 for the purpose of heightening the emotional qualities of the paintings as a whole1 but for the primitive reason that the device gave accuracy to them as representations of nature4 ,these pictures ,monet and ,pissarro studied closely during the ,franco-,prussian ,war1 and there is no doubt that the result of this study determined the direction taken by the ,impressionists4 ,turner's earlier pictures had been too sombre to meet the demand for brilliancy in that first great modern school1 and the canvases in which his vision of sunlight began to take form had not yet been painted4 ,these later pictures1 with their light tonality and their full use of misty blue and gold1 had a further influence on the ,impressionists' conception of colour4 ,when ,monet and ,pissarro went to ,london in #ahga they had been habituated to the use of broad flat tones1 and were astonished at ,turner's extraordinary snow and ice effects which were obtained by juxtaposing little spots of diverse colour and by the gradating of tones4 ,on their return to ,france they both made use of this striking artifice1 and developed it1 in conjunction with ,delacroix's theories1 into what later an unknown humorist of the ,charivari named ,impressionism4 ,this process was given further impetus by another ,frenchman1 ,jongkind1 called the ,european ,hiroshige4 ,there is more than a superficial analogy between ,jongkind and ,turner2 and the ,impressionists1 first under the influence of ,corot and ,courbet1 found the effects they sought by using the purity of ,turner with the facture of ,jongkind4 ,it was thus they were brought back to the theories of ,delacroix which they had partially abandoned4 ,this return had a profound raison d'etre1 for between the last phase of ,delacroix and the later sketches of ,turner there is a similarity which was apparent even to their contemporaries4 ,but though the resemblance was as pronounced as that between ,turner and the ,impressionists1 the eulogists of that movement chose to ignore and1 in some cases1 to deny it4 ,this new method of using colour did not constitute the only debt the ,impressionists owed ,turner4 ,they also found in him an added inspiration toward freedom of arrangement and unconventionality of design4 ,the landscape painters before ,turner's day conceived their out-of-door pictures in more or less definite moulds4 ,a tree in one man's canvas1 being an idealistic conception1 was difficult of differentiation from a tree in another's4 ,all their pictures were permeated by the same motif4 ,but ,turner1 along with ,constable and ,bonington1 began putting character into landscapes4 ,as a consequence their pictures exuded a new freedom of arrangement4 ,to appreciate ,turner fully we must overlook his astonishing ability for transcription--a heritage from his architectural days--and consider him as a man who loved nature so ardently that it was impossible for him to approach it intellectually4 ,his sketches1 both in water-colour and oil1 were1 unlike those of the ,impressionists1 rarely done in the open4 ,he conceived them in pencil1 wrote upon his clouds1 trees and stones the colours he saw in them1 and later1 in the solitude of his studio1 worked them up4 ,had the ,impressionists1 after their frenzied seances before models1 taken their canvases home1 organised and modified them1 they would no doubt have produced greater net results artistically4 ,organisation1 in its finest sense1 comes only through contemplation and reflection2 and while ,turner did not possess the genius for rhythm in any of its manifestations1 he nevertheless realised that mere truth does not make a picture4 ,the ,sun of ,venice ,going to ,sea is as excellent as anything ,monet or ,sisley has ever done4 ,in ,turner there is a feeling for the grandiose such as few moderns possess4 ,did this gift come from ,claude whom he delighted in imitating8 ,even ,constable spoke of a ,turner canvas as the most complete work of genius he ever saw4 ,but this was the beau geste of a contemporary who wished to appear broad-minded4 ,the truth lay further down the slope4 ,turner undoubtedly showed genius in his competent copying of even the most insignificant of nature's accidents4 ,the composition of ,the ,devil's ,bridge is the foundation on which are built many of ,monet's pictures2 and the ,rain1 ,steam and ,speed canvas can hang beside ,la ,gare ,st4 ,lazare without loss to either4 ,delacroix re-established an ,italian mode of expression and tried to make of it a modern language4 ,turner1 in a new language1 spoke of ancient things4 ,but ,courbet ignored all method1 and withal became the father of latter-day art4 ,in him was the embryo of that distinctly modern spirit which demands visible proof before believing4 ,like ,william of ,orange1 he arose triumphant above every opposition4 ,his art stemmed temperamentally from the ,dutch and ,spaniards1 for while he imitated no one1 he was unconsciously influenced by many4 ,so complete was his assimilation of great men that in his expression they all had a place4 ,he himself says that he studied antiquity as a swimmer crosses a river4 ,the academicians were drowned there4 ,so was ,delacroix4 ,courbet learned in his passage that in adaptation is the confession of sterility4 ,but though he avoided paraphrasing and copying the old masters1 we find throughout his life recurring traces of ,van ,dyke1 ,zurbaran1 ,delacroix1 ,rembrandt1 ,el ,greco1 ,gericault1 ,ribera1 ,velazquez and that little known ,valencian master1 ,juan de ,juanes4 ,courbet was considered an ignorant1 vulgar and brutal peasant4 ,but this judgment was the outgrowth of public miscomprehension rather than of any authentic evidence in the man himself4 ,courbet was the epitome of that unstudied naturalism which is antipodal to the hypocrisies of society4 ,france1 during his day1 was governed by the dictates of theatricalism4 ,its ideals were those of ,renaissance ,italy1 and its artistic attitude reflected a refinement of vision approaching decadence4 ,courbet's deportmental crudities alone were a source of antagonism1 and when to these were added scorn and indifference the hostility against him became violent4 ,but temperamentally he was aristocratic4 ,the peasant mind is fundamentally traditional3 ,courbet was violently revolutionary4 ,nor did he lack fineness of mind4 ,his early portraits embodied the subtleties of modelling in ,rembrandt as well as the extraordinary niceties of characterisation in ,el ,greco4 ,the compositions of his pictures alone belie any coarseness of fibre in the man4 ,they are founded on a weakened ,s which1 since the decay of ,byzantine art1 had done valiant service for the most exalted painters such as ,rubens and ,tintoretto4 ,this compositional figure appears1 either exact or varied1 in his ,le ,combat de ,cerfs1 ,le ,retour de la ,conference1 ,chien et ,lievres1 and ,l',enterrement a ,ornans4 ,courbet's reputation for vulgarity was derived more from his lack of facile fluency1 so common in the ,french tradition1 than from a basic understanding of the structural synthesis of his work4 ,and this misconception of him was aggravated by his being the first painter unwilling to accept praise as the public chose to dole it out4 ,he was a self-advertiser1 and such men as ,george ,bernard ,shaw are but echoes of his methods4 ,he pushed his way to the front unceasingly1 and continually theorised as a means of silencing his adversaries4 ,he regarded all public demonstration as blague1 and later in life carried this attitude into politics4 ,whistler1 his pupil1 was quick to sense the advantage of his teacher's methods2 and it is the irony of fate that this ineffectual ,american was believed and respected while ,courbet was abused and ridiculed and forced to die in exile4 ,he had carried his assaults too far4 ,to be not only a painter but a man1 he wrote at one time4 ,to create a living art--this is my aim4 ,it is a masterly statement of his real ambitions4 ,he was intensely interested in life1 as were ,rubens and ,cellini4 ,you want me to paint a goddess8 he exclaimed4 ,show me one6 ,in this mot he summed up the very spirit of modern times4 ,it expressed the new realism found in such widely separated men as ,dostoievsky1 ,zola1 ,george ,moore1 ,conrad1 ,andreiev1 ,theodore ,dreiser1 ,gerhart ,hauptmann1 ,richard ,strauss1 ,debussy1 ,korngold1 ,sibelius1 ,manet1 ,renoir1 ,sorolla and ,zorn4 ,it is strange how ,courbet1 so far removed from the ,french temperament1 should1 at the crucial period of his life1 have reverted to a ,french gesture by refusing the cross of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,but in that famous letter of rejection1 written in a cafe and mailed with a grandiloquent toss in the presence of ,fantin-,latour1 he summed up aptly the man of genius who1 though avid for honour1 throws it away at the moment of attainment4 ,not even ,napoleon was more concerned with the thoughts of posterity than ,courbet1 and some of the artist's letters are not dissimilar in tone to the bombastic manifestos of certain ultra-modern schools4 ,at the time of his first exhibition he wrote to ,bruyas3 ,i stupefy the entire world4 ,i am triumphant not only over the moderns but the ancients as well4 ,here is the ,louvre gallery4 ,the ,champs ,elysees does not exist1 nor the ,luxembourg4 ,there is no more ,champs de ,mars4 ,i have thrown consternation into the world of art4 ,this spirit of monumental self-confidence1 so startling to a generation whose taste was measured by the decadent poetry of ,beaudelaire1 brought frantic sarcasm hurtling about his head4 ,this troubled ,courbet little4 ,he valued friendships only in so far as they were useful4 ,it was ,meissonier who said in a ,paris salon1 when standing before the famous ,femme de ,munich which ,courbet had painted in a few hours for ,baron ,remberg3 ,it is no longer a question of art1 but of dignity4 ,from now on ,courbet must be as one dead to us4 ,charles ,beaudelaire1 who helped fight the battle for ,wagner1 ,poe1 ,delacroix1 ,manet and ,monet1 tentatively praised him at first1 but later allied himself with the public and became his bitterest assailant4 ,it was not surprising4 ,a poet so superficial as to call ,delacroix a haunted lake of blood could not be expected to appreciate the terre a terre qualities of this master of ,ornans4 ,and ,courbet was so little ,french that he was incomprehensible to his national contemporaries4 ,he disclaimed all tradition1 swore he had no forerunners1 and struck blindly into the unknown4 ,for a man without genius this would have been fatal1 but1 after all1 only a genius would attempt such things4 ,courbet was disgusted with the allegory and romance of his time4 ,his nature cried aloud for a pose that was natural1 for a landscape that resembled the out-of-doors1 for objects in which life was discernible4 ,consequently the critics and painters of his day put him aside either indifferently or insolently4 ,they could not understand a work of art which did not delineate a literary episode or in which the postures were not taken direct from the theatre4 ,courbet needed no literature to paint great pictures4 ,he went straight to nature1 and his compositions grew out of his sheer enjoyment in visible objects1 whether they were dramatic or not4 ,to the public his pictures appeared ugly1 even repellent4 ,here was a man who painted a funeral realistically--,dieu m'en garde6 ,with only the example of canvases filled with familiar gods and goddesses and melting nudes in golden pink1 he dared set forth1 in a sacred theme1 peasants' faces and peasants' shoes1 cloudy skies1 and holes in the brown earth4 ,to those who had come to look upon art as something ethereal and evanescent1 ,l',enterrement a ,ornans was more than blasphemy4 ,it was this picture1 falling like a bomb into the midst of the vagaries of his time1 that sounded the death knell of romanticism4 ,it was the last spade of earth on the graves of the classicists4 ,the mere picture was sensation enough1 but ,courbet was not content to let the matter rest there4 ,at the time of his exhibition in #ahee1 held in a barrack of his own building on the ,rond ,point de l',alma1 he wrote a defensive and provocative preface to his catalogue4 ,in it he proclaimed himself not only the first realist1 but realism itself4 ,illustration3 ,l',,enterrement ,a ,,ornans by ,,courbet ,gericault's ,radeau de la ,meduse and ,delacroix's ,dante et ,virgile aux ,enfers were acceptable to the public1 the one because of its dramatic interest1 the other because of its literature4 ,but ,l',enterrement a ,ornans entirely lacked the popular qualities of these two other pictures4 ,it was full of rugged and hardy precision4 ,its insolent ugliness of subject-matter and its implied indifference to all tradition1 seemed to express the quintessence of artistic degradation and sordidness4 ,at first view the picture appears to have been inspired by ,el ,greco's ,obsequies of the ,count of ,orgaz1 but it is more likely that these peasants of ,ornans1 each a notable of the town1 with their indifferent expressions and awkward gestures1 were attributable to ,the ,martyrdom of ,saint ,bartholomew of ,ribera and ,la ,folle of ,gericault1 rather than to the master of ,toledo4 ,but that the ,spanish helped paint it is evident3 some parts of the landscape are taken bodily from their canvases4 ,meier-,graefe states that this funeral picture1 like most of the representative pictures of the nineteenth century1 is not representative of the artist himself4 ,but did ,meier-,graefe understand more profoundly the synthesis of composition found in individual painters1 he would have seen that here was the famous ,s composition which was used throughout the painter's life4 ,instead of being set on end1 as was the practice of the ,italians1 it is used laterally and extends from left to right in depth4 ,in colour also this picture is representative of ,courbet1 for it shows his limitations in that medium4 ,delacroix brought a new palette to painting1 but could not use it4 ,courbet contented himself with a palette as meagre as that of ,caravaggio and ,guercino4 ,and yet1 though colour has come latterly to mean tactile form in its highest sense1 this black canvas1 when placed beside either an ,ingres1 a ,david1 a ,delacroix or a ,gerard1 appears less flat and inconsequential than the latter4 ,the form is even suggestive of ,rembrandt1 ,giotto1 ,cezanne and ,renoir4 ,champfleury was the only friend of ,courbet who dared defend him4 ,delacroix was set against him1 and the critics1 without understanding him1 obscured the true importance of his art by talking of his want of transcendentalism and sentiment4 ,especially were his landscapes the butt of their ridicule1 for painters up to that time had made use of conventional arrangements of dainty trees copied for their drawing and tone4 ,in ,courbet all this was changed4 ,he organised landscapes as he did still-lives and nudes4 ,objects1 as such1 meant nothing to him4 ,in this he struck a new and modern note which the good people of his day considered not only bad art but a slur upon the spiritual meanings of nature4 ,even in ,les ,baigneuses1 where the figures are unimportant1 the trees are superb4 ,in ,la ,grotte he went further1 for here the figure was part of the whole4 ,his paintings of the hills about ,ornans had a movement which gave off a sensation of weight entirely new in painting4 ,in ,les ,grands ,chataigniers he reached his apogee in landscape painting4 ,this picture is greater than those of any of the ,englishmen4 ,though many critics have written that ,millet influenced ,courbet1 the reverse is the truth4 ,the former's life work was largely a repetition of the lights and darks found in ,courbet's earlier pictures4 ,les ,casseurs de ,pierres is far greater than anything ,millet has ever done1 despite the vast popularity of such purely sentimental pictures as ,the ,angelus and ,the ,man with the ,hoe4 ,courbet could never have been satisfied with the angularity and absence of rhythm in the other's work4 ,in ,millet's best canvases one finds at most only a parallelism of lines1 and in his lesser pictures even this amateurish attempt at organisation is lacking4 ,but in ,les ,casseurs de ,pierres the arrangement is one which recalls the competency of linear balance and development in ,tintoretto's ,minerva ,expelling ,mars4 ,when ,courbet entered painting1 he had neither prejudices nor a parti pris4 ,he tested his ability before engaging his full complement of resources4 ,though untutored1 he had that cast of intelligence which no amount of study can produce and no amount of adverse criticism influence4 ,delacroix1 on the other hand1 was the archetype of the highly cultured and educated man4 ,he foresaw the necessity for radical reform1 but was unable to bring it about significantly4 ,courbet instinctively projected himself into that void at the brink of which tradition halts and the unknown begins4 ,and because he was a man of genius he did not return empty-handed4 ,the art of ,courbet was too aristocratic to be appreciated4 ,not aristocratic in the ,delacroix sense1 but isolated and superior4 ,rejecting the colour discoveries of his day1 he created his own materials4 ,delacroix foreshadowed the medium which was to serve as a vehicle for the achievement of future generations1 but it was ,courbet who brought to art a new mental attitude without which there would be no excuse for modern painting4 ,by turning men's thoughts from ancient ,italy to the actualities of their own day1 and by expelling the literary canvas from art1 he left those who came after him free to evolve a medium which would translate the new vision4 ,delacroix's heritage to art was intellectual1 ,courbet's dynamic4 ,and though objectively the work of ,courbet is the uglier and less gracious1 in it there is more of the sublime4 ,but both men are indispensable1 and have a just claim to the eternal respect of posterity4 ,the construction of form as voluminous phenomena--that integer of modern painting which was lacking in ,delacroix1 ,turner and ,courbet1 but which has become one of the leading preoccupations of present-day artists--was introduced by ,honore ,daumier4 ,this painter who1 unlike his three great contemporaries1 fought for the pure love of the fight1 was celebrated as a caricaturist at twenty-five4 ,such fame was warranted1 for he was unquestionably the greatest and most trenchant caricaturist the world has ever produced4 ,from #ahce to #ahdh he made capital of all those many catastrophes which overtook ,france4 ,only the curtailing of the freedom of the press on ,december #b1 #ahdh1 put an end to his career as publicist4 ,this culmination of his editorial activities was a beneficial thing for both ,daumier and the world1 for it permitted him freedom to devote himself wholly to the development of the larger side of his genius4 ,he endeavoured to interest his friends in his painting2 but too long had he been known as a critic of current topics for them to look with serious eyes upon his more solid endeavours4 ,but though neglected by his friends1 ,daumier holds a position of tremendous importance in relation to the moderns4 ,his work developed along lines unthought-of by either ,delacroix or ,courbet4 ,even his cartoons were more than clever pictorial comments on national events4 ,intrinsically they were great pieces of rugged flesh which had all the appearance of having been chiselled out of a solid medium with a dull tool4 ,the richness of his line is as complete as in ,rembrandt's etchings2 and his economy of means reached a point to which painters had not yet attained4 ,his significance1 however1 lies more especially in his new method of obtaining volume than in the flexibility of his line drawings4 ,he built his pictures in tone first4 ,the drawing came afterward as a direct result of the tonal volumes4 ,this new manner of painting permitted him a greater subtlety and fluency than ,courbet possessed4 ,in fact1 ,daumier's comprehension of form in the subjective sense was greater than that of any ,frenchman up to his time4 ,compare1 for instance1 ,daumier's canvas1 ,les ,lutteurs1 with ,courbet's picture of the same name4 ,the massiveness of the one is monumental4 ,one feels the weight of the two struggling men1 heavy and shifting1 clinging and panting4 ,they are modelled by a craftsman who can juggle deftly with his means4 ,in ,courbet's picture the figures are seen carefully copied in a strained pose by one who has not the complete mastery of his tools4 ,in ,daumier's picture we also sense that elusive but vital quality called mental attitude4 ,superficially it is almost indistinguishable from its negation1 but to those who know its significance1 it is of permeating importance4 ,contour and shading to his forerunners had meant two separated and distinct steps in the construction of form4 ,daumier created both qualities simultaneously as one emotion4 ,depth with other painters was obtained by carrying their figures into the background by the means of line and perspective4 ,with ,daumier it meant a plastic building up of volume from the background forward4 ,the feeling we have before his canvases that we are looking at form itself and not merely an excellent representation of it1 is as strong as it is in a greater way when we stand before a ,leonardo da ,vinci4 ,in this he gave proof that he was a draughtsman in the most vital sense4 ,unless he had felt form uniquely1 ,le ,repos des ,saltimbanques and ,le ,bain would have been impossible of creation4 ,this last picture sums up what ,carriere aspired to but failed to attain4 ,illustration3 ,,le ,,bain by ,,daumier ,recalling the great masters of form we instinctively visualise ,michelangelo first4 ,for this reason perhaps ,michelangelo is regarded the major influence in ,daumier4 ,il avait du ,michel ,ange dans la peau1 say the ,french3 and certain it is that ,daumier's colossal simplicity and feeling for tactility were derived from the ,renaissance master4 ,but only in one picture1 a composition called ,la ,republique--#ahdh1 do we find any direct and conscious influence4 ,frankly this is but a modernisation of one of the sibyls on the ceiling of the ,sistine ,chapel4 ,the truth is ,daumier is more akin to ,rembrandt than to ,michelangelo4 ,but there is in him none of the conscious copying of ,rembrandt that we find1 for instance1 in ,joshua ,reynolds4 ,the latter1 admiring ,rembrandt1 essayed to equal his power by imitating his externals with academic processes4 ,daumier1 temperamentally affiliated with his master1 went deeper4 ,putting aside the results of ,rembrandt's final brush strokes1 he studied the very functioning procedure of his art4 ,both used the human figure as a terrain for the unceasing struggle of light against dark4 ,in the process of painting the infinite play and by-play of opposed values on a given theatre1 they produced form as an inevitable result4 ,a critic has stated of ,daumier3 ,he left hardly anything but sketches1 splashes of colour that resolve themselves into faces4444 ,it is said without attempt at profundity4 ,nevertheless the remark unsuspectingly touches the crucial point of ,daumier's significance4 ,the very resolution of those splashes of colour into faces is the prefiguration of the modern conception of form4 ,in this particular ,daumier1 even more than ,rembrandt1 was the avant-courier of ,cezanne4 ,this latter artist1 through his concern with the play of one colour on another1 gave birth to form more intensely than did either of the older men4 ,too much stress cannot be laid on ,daumier's contribution to modern painting4 ,by regarding the two drawings1 ,la ,vierge a l',ecuelle and ,renaude et ,angelique--the one by ,correggio in chalk1 the other by ,delacroix in water-colour--we perceive the attainment of form by less profound methods4 ,but neither possesses the significance of ,daumier's work4 ,of ,daumier's colour little need be said4 ,at times it emerges from its sombreness and blossoms forth in all the hot softness of now the ,venetians1 of again the ,spaniards2 but compared with the artist's genius for plastic form it is of subsidiary importance4 ,although the inception of ,daumier's greatness can be traced to ,rembrandt1 he reacted to many influences4 ,suggestions of ,monnier and ,granville are to be found in his work4 ,decamps's ,sonneurs de ,cloches was studied by him and emulated4 ,his simplifications stemmed from ,ingres1 and his caricature of ,guizot had the same qualities as that master's portraits4 ,delacroix also had some trifling influence on him in such paintings as ,don ,quichotte4 ,but ,daumier's influence on others is more direct and far-reaching than his own garnerings of inspiration4 ,he foreshadowed the formal abbreviations of ,toulouse-,lautrec1 ,forain and ,steinlen1 and he affected1 more than is commonly admitted1 the works of ,manet1 ,degas1 and ,van ,gogh4 ,in his sculptured pieces1 ,ratapoil and ,les ,emigrants1 he paved the way for ,meunier and ,rodin4 ,even such minor men as ,max ,beerbohm learned much from him without understanding him4 ,and apart from the vital new methods he brought to painting1 the originality of his subject-matter led modern men to copy him thematically4 ,le ,drame fathered a whole series of ,degas's paintings4 ,daumier is only beginning to receive the intelligent appreciation which in time may engulf his eminent contemporary1 ,courbet4 ,for if choice there is between the intrinsically artistic achievements of the painter of ,l',enterrement a ,ornans and the creator of ,silene1 the preference rests with ,daumier4 ,the forces underlying the development of genius1 working in conjunction with the right circumstances1 produce the fertilising methods which nature uses to bring about a final flowering of a long period of intense germination4 ,before the greatest eras of all art the battles have been fought and won4 ,the descendants of the pioneers become the introspective and creative souls who open1 free from the stain of combat1 to the sun of achievement4 ,delacroix1 ,turner1 ,courbet1 ,daumier--these are the men who cleared the ground and thereby made possible a new age of aesthetic creation4 ,to ,delacroix belongs the credit for giving an impetus to the vitalisation of colour1 and for freeing drawing from the formalisms of the past4 ,turner raised the tonality of colour1 and introduced a new method for its application4 ,courbet heightened uniformly the signification of objects in painting1 and handed down a mental attitude of untraditional relativity4 ,and ,daumier conceived a new vision of formal construction4 ,these men were the pillars of modern painting4 ,,iii ,,edouard ,,manet ,the purely pictorial has always been relished by the public4 ,the patterns of the mosaicists and very early primitives1 the figured stuffs of the ,east and ,south1 the vases of ,china and ,persia1 the frescoes on the walls of ,pompeii1 the drawings and prints of old ,japan--all are examples of utilitarian art during epochs when the public took delight in the contemplation of images4 ,even the delicate designs on ,greek pottery1 the rigid and ponderous arts of architectural ,egypt and the drawings and adorned totem poles of the ,north ,american ,indians are relics of times when the demand for art was created by the masses4 ,for the most part all these early crafts were limited to simple designs1 wholly obvious to the most rudimentary mind4 ,the ancients were content with a representation of a natural object1 the likeness of a familiar animal1 the symmetry of an ornamental border1 an effigy of a god in which their abstract conceptions were given concrete form4 ,at that time the artist was only a craftsman--a man with a communistic mind1 content to follow the people's dictates and to reflect their taste4 ,art was then democratic1 understood and admired by all4 ,it did not raise its head about the mean level2 it was abecedary1 and consequently comprehensible4 ,when the ,greek ideal of fluent movement took birth in art and became disseminated1 drawing1 painting and sculpture began to grow more rhythmic and individual4 ,slowly at first and then more and more swiftly1 art became insulated4 ,the popular joy in the native crafts1 despite the impetus of centuries behind it1 decreased steadily4 ,the antagonism of the masses to the artist sprang up simultaneously with the disgust of the artist for the masses4 ,it was the inevitable result of the artist's mind developing beyond them4 ,he could not understand why they were no longer in accord with him2 and they1 finding him in turn unfathomable1 considered him either irrational or given over to fantastic buffoonery4 ,so long had they been the dictator of his vision that his emancipation from their prescriptions left them astounded and angered at his audacity4 ,the nobles then1 feeling it incumbent upon them to defend this new luxury of art1 stepped into the breach1 and for a time the people blindly patterned their attitude on that of their superiors4 ,later came the disintegration of the nobility2 its caste being lost1 the people no more imitated it4 ,from that time on1 although there were a few connoisseurs1 the large majority was hostile to the artist1 and made it as difficult as possible for him to live4 ,he was looked upon as a madman who threatened the entire social fabric4 ,his isolation was severe and complete2 and while many painters strove to effect a reinstatement in public favour1 art for #cjj years forced its way through a splendid evolution in the face of neglect1 suspicion and ridicule4 ,for so many generations had the public looked upon art as the manifestation of a disordered and dangerous brain that they found it difficult to recognise a man in whose work was the very pictorial essence they had originally admired4 ,this man was ,edouard ,manet4 ,instead of being welcomed for his reversion to decoration1 strangely enough he was considered as dangerous as his contemporary heretics1 ,delacroix and ,courbet4 ,courbet was at the zenith of his unpopularity when ,manet terminated his apprenticeship under ,couture4 ,the young painter had had numerous clashes with his academic master1 and the latter had prophesied for him a career as reprehensible as ,daumier's4 ,spurred on by such incompetent rebukes1 ,manet determined to launch himself single-handed into the vortex of the aesthetic struggle4 ,this was in #aheg4 ,for two years thereafter he put in his time to good purpose4 ,he travelled in ,holland1 ,germany and ,italy1 and copied ,rembrandt1 ,velazquez1 ,titian and ,tintoretto4 ,these youthful preferences give us the key to his later developments4 ,in #ahei he painted his ,le ,buveur d',absinthe1 a canvas which showed all the ear-marks of the romantic studio1 and which exemplified the propensities of the student for simplification4 ,it was a superficial1 if enthusiastic1 piece of work1 and the ,salon of that year was fully justified in rejecting it4 ,two years later ,manet had another opportunity to expose4 ,in the meantime he had painted his ,la ,nymphe ,surprise which1 though one of his best canvases1 contained all the influence of a hurriedly digested ,rembrandt and a ,dutch ,titian4 ,in #ahfa these influences were still at work1 but the ,salon not only accepted his ,le ,guitarrero but1 for some unaccountable reason1 awarded it with an honourable mention4 ,in this picture1 ,manet's first ,spanish adaptation1 are also traces of other men4 ,goya and even ,murillo are here--the greys of ,velazquez and ,courbet's modern attitude toward realism4 ,in this canvas one sees for the first time evidences of its creator's technical dexterity1 a characteristic which later he was to develop to so astonishing a degree4 ,but this picture1 while conspicuously able1 is1 like ,l',enfant a l',epee and also ,les ,parents de l',artiste1 the issue of immaturity4 ,such paintings are little more than the adroit studies of a highly talented pupil inspired by the one-figure arrangements of ,velazquez1 ,mazo and ,carreno4 ,where ,manet improved on the average student was in his realistic methods4 ,while he did not present the aspect of nature in full1 after the manner of ,daubigny and ,troyon1 he stated its generalisations by painting it as seen through half-closed eyes1 its parts accentuated by the blending of details into clusters of light and shadow4 ,this method of visualisation gives a more forceful impression as an image than can a mere accurate transcription4 ,as slight an innovation as was this form of painting1 it represented ,manet's one point of departure from tradition1 although it was in truth but a modification of the traditional manner of copying nature4 ,the public1 however1 saw in it something basically heretical1 and derided it as a novelty4 ,the habit of ridicule toward any deviation from artistic precedent had become thoroughly fixed1 ever since ,delacroix's heterodoxy4 ,it was not until #ahfb that ,manet1 as the independent and professional painter1 was felt4 ,up to this time his talent and capabilities had outstripped his powers of ideation4 ,but with the appearance of ,lola de ,valence the man's solidarity was evident4 ,this picture was exposed with thirteen other works at ,martinet's the year following4 ,it was hung beside the accepted and familiar ,fontaineleau painters1 ,corot1 ,rousseau and ,diaz2 and almost precipitated a riot because of its informalities4 ,in these fourteen early ,manets are discoverable the artist's first tendencies towards simplification for other than academic reasons4 ,here the abbreviations and economies1 unlike those in ,le ,buveur d',absinthe1 constitute a genuine inclination toward emphasising the spontaneity of vision4 ,by presenting a picture1 free from the stress of confusing items1 the eye is not seduced into the by-ways of detail1 but permitted to receive the image as an ensemble4 ,this impulse toward simplification was prefigured in his ,angelina now hanging in the ,luxembourg ,gallery4 ,here he modelled with broad1 flat planes of sooty black and chalky white1 between which there were no transitional tones4 ,while in this ,manet was imitating the externals of ,daumier1 he failed to approach that master's form4 ,consequently he never achieved the plasticity of volume which ,daumier1 alone among the modern men1 had possessed4 ,however1 despite ,manet's failure to attain pliability1 these early paintings are1 in every way1 sincere efforts toward the creation of an individual style4 ,it was only later1 after his first intoxicating taste of notoriety1 that the arriviste spirit took possession of him and led him to that questionable and unenviable terminus1 popularity4 ,one can imagine him1 drunk with eulogy1 reading some immodest declaration of ,courbet's in which was set forth that great man's egoistic confidence1 and saying to himself3 ,tiens6 ,il faut que j'aille plus loin4 ,the famous ,salon des ,refuses1 called by some critics of the day the ,salon des ,reprouves1 gave ,manet his chance to state in striking fashion his beliefs in relation to aesthetics4 ,for whereas mere realism could no longer excite the animosity of the official ,salon jury1 as it had done twenty years before1 immorality--or1 as ,manet chose to put it1 franchise--could4 ,therefore ,manet was barred from the company of the ,barbizon school and the other favourites of the day4 ,in the ,salon des ,refuses1 which must be held to the credit of ,napoleon ,,iii1 those painters who had suffered at the hands of the academic judges were allowed a hearing4 ,whistler1 ,jongkind1 ,pissarro and ,manet here made history4 ,manet sent ,le ,bain1 which1 through the insistence of the public1 has come to be called ,le ,dejeuner sur l',herbe4 ,but despite the precedent of ,giorgione's ,rural ,concert 7the ,concert ,champetre in the ,louvre71 it was looked upon only as the latest manifestation of degeneracy in a man who gave every promise of becoming a moral pariah4 ,the nude1 contrasted as it was with attired figures1 was too suggestive of sheer nakedness4 ,had the nude stood alone1 as in ,ingres's ,la ,source1 or among other nudes1 as in ,ingres's ,le ,bain ,turc1 the picture would have caused no comment4 ,its departures in method were not extravagant4 ,the scene is laid out of doors1 yet it bears all the evidences of the studio conception2 and those lights and reflections which later were brought to such perfection in the pictures of the ,impressionists and ,renoir1 are wholly absent4 ,but in one corner is a beautifully painted still-life of fruits1 a basket and woman's attire1 which alone should have made the picture acceptable4 ,this branch of painting ,manet was to develop to its highest textural possibilities4 ,from this time on ,manet no longer used the conventional chiaroscuro of the academicians4 ,instead he let his lights sift and dispel themselves evenly over the whole of his groupings4 ,this mode of procedure was undoubtedly an influence of the ,barbizon painters who had done away with the brown sauce of the soi-disant classicists4 ,in his rejection of details and his discovery of a means whereby effects could be obtained by broad planes1 ,manet was forced by necessity to take the step toward this simplification of light4 ,were colour to be used consistently in conjunction with his technique1 it must be spread on in large flat surfaces4 ,by diffusing his light the opportunity was made4 ,he might have omitted the element of colour from his work and contented himself with black and white1 as in the case of ,courbet2 but he was too sensitive to its possibilities4 ,he had observed it in the ,venetians and ,franz ,hals1 as well as in nature2 and in its breadth and brilliance he had recognised its utility in enhancing a picture's decorative beauty4 ,even the colour of ,velazquez was at times sumptuous4 ,manet1 because his simplicity of manner permitted a liberal application of colour1 was able to augment its ornamental power4 ,it is true that today his large and irregular patches of tints appear grey1 but1 to his contemporaries1 their very extension made them seem blatant and bold4 ,courbet remained in great part the slave to the common vision of reality4 ,in his efforts to attain results he sacrificed little4 ,this1 in itself1 delimited his accomplishments4 ,nature to him appeared nearly perfect1 and he painted with all the wonderment of a child opening its eyes on the world for the first time4 ,on the other hand1 ,manet realised that nature's forces become objective only through an intellectual process4 ,this attitude marked a decided step in advance of ,courbet4 ,manet painted single figures and simple images devoid of all anecdotal significance1 out of his pure love of his medium and his sheer delight in tone and contour4 ,in other words1 he represented the modern spirit which repudiates objects conducive to reminiscence1 and cares only for qualities in art4 ,his intentions were those of ,courbet pushed to greater freedom4 ,unlike his master he was a virtuoso of the brush4 ,his very facility perhaps accounts for his satisfaction with flat decoration1 for it concentrated his interest on the actual pate and thereby precluded a deeper research into the psychology of aesthetic emotion4 ,but in his insistence on the aesthetic rather than the illustrative side of painting he carried forward the ideals which were to epitomise modern methods4 ,in this lay the impetus he gave to painting4 ,even with ,rubens the necessities of the day forced him1 in his choice of themes1 to adopt a circumscribed repertoire1 the subjects of which he repeated constantly4 ,in him we have mastery of composition with the substance as an after-thought4 ,delacroix conceived his canvases in the romantic mould1 and adapted his compositions so as to bring out the salient characteristics of his chosen theme4 ,this was illustration with the arriere pensee of organisation4 ,daumier struck the average between these two and conceived his subject in the form he was to use4 ,courbet minimised the importance of objects as such by raising them all to the same level of adaptability3 but he invariably chose1 as with an idee fixe1 his subjects from the life about him4 ,manet cared nothing for any subject whether traditional or novel4 ,that he generally chose modern themes was indicative of that new mental attitude which recognises the unimportance of subject-matter and urges the painter to abandon thematic research and utilise the things at hand4 ,he made his art out of the materials nearest him1 irrespective of their intrinsic topical value4 ,this was certainly an important step in the liberating of art from convention4 ,it proclaimed the right of the artist to paint what he liked4 ,courbet would have painted goddesses if he had seen them4 ,manet would have painted them without having seen them1 provided he had thought the result warranted the effort4 ,courbet1 the father of naturalism1 extended the scope of subject-matter1 while ,manet tore away the last tie which bound it to any tradition1 whether ,courbet's or ,titian's4 ,after him there was nothing new to paint4 ,it is therefore small wonder that artists should now have become interested in the forces of nature rather than in nature's mien4 ,manet1 by his consummation of theme1 foreshadowed the concern with abstractions which has now swept over the world of aesthetics4 ,zola1 like him in other ways1 never equalled him in this4 ,l',assommoir and ,fecondite portrayed only the extremes of realism4 ,manet painted all things with equal pleasure4 ,here again is evident the continuation of that mental attitude which ,courbet introduced into painting4 ,the qualities in ,manet which inclined toward abstraction have secured him the reputation for being a greater generaliser than ,courbet whose brutal naturalism could not be dissociated in the public mind from concrete and strict materialism4 ,for this contention there is substantiation of a superficial nature4 ,but a mere tendency toward generalisation1 with no other qualifications1 does not indicate greatness4 ,in fact1 were this purely literal truth concerning ,manet conclusive1 it would tend to disqualify him in his claim to an importance greater than ,courbet's4 ,carriere is an example of a painter who is general and nothing more4 ,manet had other titles to consideration4 ,what ,manet's enduring contributions to painting were have never been surmised by the public4 ,his recognition1 coming as it did years after his most significant works had been accomplished and set aside1 was due to a reversion of the public's mind to its aboriginal admirations4 ,manet is popular today for the same reason that the lesser works of ,hokusai and ,hiroshige are popular1 namely3 they present an instantaneous image which is at once flat and motionless4 ,as in the days of the mosaicists and early primitives1 the appreciation of such works demands no intellectual operation4 ,their recognisable subjects only set in motion a simple process of memory4 ,the ,olympia1 ,manet's most popular painting1 illustrates the type of picture which appeals strongly to minds innocent of aesthetic depth4 ,its mere imagery is alluring4 ,as pure decoration it ranks with ,puvis de ,chavannes4 ,but in it are all the mistakes of the later ,impressionists4 ,manet consciously attempted the limning of light1 but brilliance alone resulted4 ,he did not realise that1 in order for one to be conscious of illumination1 shadow is necessary4 ,this latter element1 with its complementary1 produces in us the sensation of volume4 ,true1 there is in the ,olympia violent contrast between the nude body1 the bed and the flowers1 on the one hand1 and the background1 the negress and the cat1 on the other2 but it is only the contrast of dissimilar atmospheres4 ,the level appearance of the picture is not relieved4 ,the cardinal shortcoming in a painting of this kind is that it fails to create an impression of either the aspects or the forces of nature4 ,such pictures are only flat representations of nature's minor characteristics4 ,the most resilient imagination cannot endow them with form3 the intelligence is balked at every essay to penetrate beyond their surface4 ,in contemplating them one is irritated by the emptiness1 or rather the solidity1 of the neant which lies behind4 ,courbet called the ,olympia the queen of spades coming from her bath4 ,titian1 had he lived today1 would have styled it a photograph4 ,goya 7who is as much to blame for it as either ,courbet or ,titian7 would have considered its shallowness an inexcusable vulgarity4 ,in painting it undoubtedly ,manet's intention was to modernise ,titian's ,venus ,reclining now hanging in the ,uffizi2 just as later it was ,gauguin's intention1 in his ,la ,femme aux ,mangos1 to endow the ,olympia with a ,south ,sea ,island setting4 ,such adaptations are indefensible provided they do not improve upon their originals4 ,there is no improvement in ,gauguin's ,venus2 and ,manet's picture1 while it advances on ,titian in attitude1 is a decided retrogression viewed from the standpoint of form4 ,in such pictures as the ,olympia1 ,nana and ,la ,jarretiere we recognise ,manet's effort to obtain notoriety4 ,he was not an aristocrat as was ,courbet or ,goya or ,titian4 ,it was not a need for freer expression that induced him to paint pictures which shocked by their unconventionality1 but a desire to abasourdir les bourgeois4 ,in choosing his subject-matter he always had a definite end in view in relation to the public2 but his conceptions were spontaneous and were recorded without deliberation4 ,he painted with but little thought as to his method4 ,this fact is no doubt felt by the public and held in his favour by those who believe in the involuntary inspiration of the artist4 ,but art cannot be judged by such childish criteria4 ,can one imagine ,giotto1 ,michelangelo or1 to come nearer our day1 ,cezanne painting without giving the closest and most self-conscious study to his procedure8 ,credence in the theopneusty of the painter1 the poet and the musician1 should have passed out with the advent of ,delacroix2 but the seeming mystery of art is so deeply rooted in public ignorance that many generations must pass before it can be eradicated4 ,the truth is that ,manet himself had no precise idea of what he really wished to accomplish4 ,up to the last year of his life he groped tentatively toward a goal1 the outlines of which were never quite distinct4 ,we today1 looking back upon his efforts1 can judge his motivating influences with some degree of surety4 ,in bringing about the paradox of staticising ,courbet1 ,manet feminised him4 ,he turned ,courbet's blacks and greys into pretty colours1 and thereby turned his modelling into silhouette and flattened his volumes4 ,thus was ,courbet not only made effeminate but popularised4 ,compare the superficially similar pictures1 ,le ,hamac of ,courbet and ,manet's ,le ,repos4 ,in the former the movement in composition accords with the landscape and is carried out in the pose of the woman's arms and in the disposition of the legs4 ,the figure in the latter picture is little more than an ornament--a symmetrical articulation4 ,manet has here translated the rhythm of depth into linear balance4 ,in this levelling process all those qualities which raise painting above simple mosaics are lost4 ,a picture thus treated becomes a pattern1 incapable of embodying any emotional significance4 ,manet's paintings are remembered because they are so instantaneous a vision of their subjects4 ,for this same reason ,goya is remembered2 but beneath the ,spaniard's broad oppositions of tone is a limpid depth in which the intelligence darts like a fish in an aquarium4 ,in ,manet the impassable barrier of externals shuts out that world which exists on the further side of a picture's surface4 ,in ,manet we have the summing up of the pictorial expression of all time4 ,his love for decoration never left him long enough for him to experiment with the profounder phases of painting4 ,in many of his canvases he was little more than an exalted poster-maker4 ,his ,rendez-vous de ,chats was frankly a primitive arrangement of flat drawing1 as flat as a print by ,mitsuoki4 ,even details and texture were eliminated from it4 ,it was a statement of his theories reduced to their bare elements4 ,yet1 though exaggerated1 the picture was representative of his aims4 ,a pattern to him was form4 ,courbet's ability to model an eye was the cause of ,manet's repudiating the painter of ,l',enterrement a ,ornans4 ,the two men were antithetical2 and in that antithesis we have ,manet's aspirations fully elucidated4 ,even later in life when he took the figure out of doors he was unable to shake off the influence of the silhouette4 ,but the silhouette cannot exist en plain air4 ,light volatilises design4 ,this knowledge accounts for ,renoir's early sunlight effects4 ,manet never advanced so far4 ,the limitations and achievements of ,manet are summed up in his painting1 ,le ,dejeuner sur l',herbe4 ,this picture is undoubtedly interesting in its black-and-white values and in its freedom from the conventions of traditional composition4 ,at first view its theme may impress one as an attempt at piquancy1 but on closer inspection the actual subject diminishes so much in importance that it might have been with equal effect a simple landscape or a still-life4 ,there is no attempt at composition in the classic sense4 ,even surface rhythm is entirely missing3 the tonal masses decidedly overweigh on the left4 ,but the picture nevertheless embodies the distinguishing features of all ,manet's arrangements4 ,it is built on the rigid pyramidal plan4 ,from the lower left-hand corner a line1 now light1 now dark1 reaches almost to the upper frame at a point directly above the smaller nude2 and another line1 which begins in the lower right-hand corner at the reclining man's elbow1 runs upward to his cap1 and is then carried out in the shadow and light of the foliage so that it meets the line ascending from the other side4 ,the base of these two converging lines is formed by another line which runs from the man's elbow along his extended leg4 ,this is the picture's important triangle4 ,but a secondary one is formed by a line which begins at the juncture of the tree and shadow in the lower right-hand corner1 extends along the cane and the second man's sleeve to his head1 and then drops1 by way of the large nude's head and shoulder1 to the basket of fruit at the bottom4 ,this angularity of design is seen in the work of all primitive-minded peoples1 and is notably conspicuous in the early ,egyptians1 the archaic ,greeks and the ,assyrians of the eighth century ,b4,c4 ,it is invariably the product of the static intelligence into which the comprehension of aesthetic movement has never entered4 ,it is the result of a desire to plant objects solidly and immovably in the ground4 ,those artists who express themselves through it are men whose minds are incapable of grasping the rhythmic attributes of profound composition4 ,manet repeats this triangular design in the ,olympia where the two adjoining pyramids of contour are so obvious that it is unnecessary to describe them4 ,the figures in canvases such as ,la ,chanteuse des ,rues1 ,la ,femme au ,perroquet1 ,eva ,gonzales and ,emile ,zola are constructed similarly2 and in groups like ,en ,bateau and ,les ,anges au ,tombeau 7the latter of which recalls1 by its arrangement and lighting1 the ,thetis et ,jupiter of ,ingres7 is expressed the mental immobility which characterised ,conegliano1 ,rondinelli1 ,robusti and their seventeenth-century exemplars1 de ,la ,fosse1 ,le ,moyne and ,rigaud4 ,illustration3 ,,le ,,dejeuner ,,sur ,l',,herbe by ,,manet ,if1 however1 ,manet failed in the larger tests1 he excelled in his ability to beautify the surfaces of his models4 ,his painting of texture is perhaps the most competent that has ever been achieved4 ,in his flesh1 fruits and stuffs1 the sensation of hard1 soft1 rough or velvety exteriors reaches its highest degree of pictorial attainment4 ,these many and varied textures are reunited in his ,le ,dejeuner--a canvas which must not be confused with ,le ,dejeuner sur l',herbe4 ,here we have a plant1 a vase1 four different materials in the boy's clothing1 a straw hat1 a brass jug with all its reflections1 a table cloth1 a wall1 an old sword1 glassware1 fruit and liquid4 ,it is an orgy of textures1 and ,manet must have gloried in it4 ,one critic of the day wondered why oysters and a cut lemon lay on the breakfast table4 ,but we wonder why a cat with fluffy fur is not there also4 ,castagnary suggested that ,manet1 feeling himself to be the master of still-life1 brought every possible texture into a single canvas for purposes of contrast and because he delighted in the material quality of objects4 ,but the reason goes deeper4 ,manet was a superlatively conscious technician1 and that sacree commodite de la brosse1 so displeasing to ,delacroix1 was his greatest intoxication4 ,hals also was seduced by it4 ,later1 when the new vision of light was communicated to ,manet by the ,impressionists1 his obsession for the purely technical diminished in intensity4 ,in that topical bid for popularity1 the ,combat du ,kerseage et de l',alabama1 we detect his interest in a new economy of means which would facilitate his search for broader illumination4 ,this method took a step forward in ,le ,port de ,bordeaux1 and later reached maturity in his canvases painted in #ahhb1 of which ,le ,jardin de ,bellevue is a good example4 ,but despite his heroic efforts1 these last pictures1 painted a year before he died when paralysis had already claimed him and he was devoting his time almost entirely to still-life1 were without fulgency1 and never approached the richness of even so slight a colourist as ,monet4 ,repose is a word used overmuch by modern critics to designate the dominant quality of ,manet's painting4 ,from an entirely pictorial point of view the word is applicable1 but in the precise aesthetic sense it is a misnomer4 ,the illusion of repose in ,manet is accounted for by his even use of greys1 as in ,le ,chemin de ,fer1 ,le ,port de ,bordeaux1 the ,execution de ,maximilien and the ,course de ,taureaux4 ,even in ,les ,bulles de ,savon1 the ,rendez-vous de ,chats1 ,le ,clair de ,lune and ,le ,bar des ,folies-,bergere--canvases in which is exhibited ,manet's greatest opposition of tones--the ensemble is expressive of monotony4 ,real repose1 however1 is something much more recondite than uniformity or tedium4 ,it is created by a complete harmonious organisation1 not by an avoidance of movement4 ,giotto's ,death of ,saint ,francis and ,el ,greco's ,annunciation have a simultaneity of presentation as unique as in ,manet2 but1 because their compositions are so rhythmically co-ordinated1 they present an absolute finality of movement and thus engender an emotional as well as an ocular repose4 ,manet's actual innovations are small1 smaller even than ,courbet's4 ,however1 many critics credit him with grotesque novelties4 ,there are very few books dealing with modern painting which do not assert that he was the first to note that flesh in the light is dazzlingly bright and of a cream-and-rose colour4 ,but in this particular there is no improvement in ,manet on the pictures of ,rubens4 ,he may have unearthed this illustrative point2 certain it is he did not originate it4 ,yet no matter how slight his departures1 we enjoy his pictures for their inherent aesthetic qualities1 and not for their approximation to nature4 ,manet made many mistakes1 but this was natural when we remember that in the whirlpool of new ambitions one is prone to forget the lessons of the past4 ,only by profiting by them can one go on toward the ever advancing goal of achievement4 ,we must not forget that this new spirit of endeavour is only an impulse towards something greater1 a rebellion against arbitrarily imposed obstacles4 ,if men like ,manet lost track of the fundamentals of the great art which had preceded them1 it was only that their vision was clouded by new experiments4 ,the actual achievements of ,manet epitomise the secondary in art4 ,his attempt to combine artistic worth with popularity restricted him4 ,that he was misunderstood at first was his own fault in continually changing his style4 ,but acceptance or rejection by popular opinion does not indicate the measure of a painter's significance4 ,and ,manet is to be judged by his contributions to the new idea4 ,his importance lay in that he took the second step of the three which were to exhaust the possibilities of realism4 ,in art every genuine method is consummated before a new one can take its place4 ,michelangelo brought architecture to its highest point of development2 ,rubens1 linear painting2 the ,impressionists1 the study of light2 ,beethoven1 the classic ideal in music2 ,swinburne1 the rhymed lyric4 ,in fact1 only after the epuisement of a certain line of endeavour1 is felt the necessity to seek for a new and more adequate means of expression4 ,manet helped bring to a close a certain phase of art1 thus hastening the advent of other and greater men4 ,his accomplishments now stand for all that is academic and student-like2 and although his interest as an innovator passed out with the appearance of ,pissarro and ,monet1 men go on imitating his externals and using his brushing4 ,in the same sense that ,velazquez is a great painter1 so is ,manet4 ,his influence has served the purpose of helping turn aside the academicians from their emulation of ,italian painting4 ,,iv ,,the ,,early ,,impressionists ,courbet was the first painter to turn his attention to naturalism4 ,manet carried forward ,courbet's standard4 ,impressionism took the last step1 and brought to a close the objectively realistic conception in painting4 ,by this final development of naturalistic means unlimited opportunities for achievement were offered4 ,impressionistic methods are now employed by a vast army of painters in all parts of the world1 and the number of canvases which owe their existence to these discoveries is countless4 ,specifically ,impressionism is ocular realism4 ,it represents that side of actuality which has to do with light expressed by colour2 and deals with a manner of approaching natural valuations whereby the painter is permitted to transfer a scene or subject to his canvas in such a way that it will give the spectator the sensation of dazzling light1 broad atmosphere and truthful colours4 ,to accomplish this ,impressionism confines itself to the play of a light from a given source--its reflections and distributions on an object or a landscape4 ,therefore1 it is the restricted study of the disappearance of the local colour in a model1 and of the luminosity and divergencies of tones to be found in shadow4 ,it approximates to a nature which becomes1 for the moment1 a theatre of chromatic light sensations4 ,subject-matter gave the ,impressionists no concern4 ,they advanced materially on the spirit in ,manet which led him to paint any object at hand because of its susceptibility to artistic treatment4 ,the ,impressionists painted anything1 not alone for aesthetic reasons1 but because all objects make themselves visible by means of light and shadow4 ,this manner of painting was the ultimate divorce of the picture from any convention1 whether of arrangement1 of drawing or of a fixed palette4 ,herein it was an elastic process par excellence1 with no defined limitations4 ,impressionism1 though analytic and self-conscious1 was not based on science4 ,one may look in vain for parallels between its theories and those of ,dove1 ,thomas ,young and ,chevreul4 ,it was the imitation1 pure and simple1 of the disintegrations of colour in nature's broad planes4 ,and this achievement of diversity in simplicity was brought about by the only method possible3--the juxtaposition of myriad tints4 ,in other words1 ,impressionism was a statement that vision is the result of colour forces coming into contact with the retina4 ,however1 the men of the movement did not see nature as an agglomeration of coloured spots1 but as a series of planes made vibrant by light4 ,to reproduce this vibration they were necessitated to use nature's methods3 they broke up surfaces into sensitive parts1 each one of which was a separate tint4 ,there are no broad planes of unified colour in nature4 ,in each natural atom are absorption and reflection2 and the preponderance of either of these two attributes results in a specific colour4 ,before the advent of this new school painters had made warm or cold green by combining green with yellow ochre or raw sienna1 or by the admixture of blues and purples4 ,but the ,impressionists laid on these colours1 pure or modified1 side by side1 and let the eye do the work of blending4 ,they discovered not only that in green the shadow is tinged with blue1 but that blue is the direct result of the yellow-orange of light4 ,every one nowadays has noticed that1 in looking fixedly at a green1 it appears now bluish1 now yellowish2 just as in listening to an orchestra we can1 by focusing our attention1 hear predominantly the bass or the treble4 ,so the ,impressionists observed that in the most luminous colour there is a proportion of absorption1 and that in the darkest shadow there exists some reflection4 ,the association of these molecular properties is what produces vibration in nature4 ,by the application of these observations the ,impressionists generated a feeling of grouillement2--the movement by contrast in the smallest parts4 ,in attempting to explain their canvases many commentators have credited them with systems of complementaries which resulted in grey1 and with other exorbitant theories of oppositions4 ,but one may look in vain in their work for any synthesis of scientific discoveries4 ,colour1 not neutrality1 was their aim2 and1 as they themselves admitted1 they painted comme l'oiseau chante4 ,birds are not conscious of the metallic dissonance of diminished fifths2 and the ,impressionists were equally unaware of the harshness of red with green1 blue with orange1 yellow with violet4 ,they only substituted a balance of cold and warm colours for the balance of lines which the older painters had used4 ,they copied the tints they found in nature after analysing nature's processes1 in order to arrive closer to its visual effect4 ,in one way they almost achieved colour photography1 for their study1 in its narrow character1 was deep1 and their vision was highly realistic4 ,but whereas they depicted nature1 they could call it up only in its instantaneous aspects4 ,in this ephemerality alone were they impressionists2 indeed1 their methods were the most exact and probing of any painters of that time4 ,each hour of the day raises or lowers the colour values in nature2 and he who would copy nature's form as a permanent interpretation must ignore the exactitude of its reflections and approximate only to its local colours4 ,this latter method is more truly impressionism than the theories of the ,impressionists4 ,they repudiated local colours as being too illusory1 holding that the most highly coloured object modifies its tint under the influence of the least variation of light4 ,the point is technically true1 but it is an observation in objective research1 and the word ,impressionism must not be accepted as explanatory of the methods of the school it designates4 ,by decomposing the parts of a surface1 in order to represent objects in their atmospheric materiality1 the ,impressionists were impelled by a force stronger than a mere desire for superficial accuracy3 they felt the need for complete and minute organisation in a work of art4 ,in landscape1 where the many accidentals appeared to lack cohesion1 the ,impressionists achieved co-ordination by a unity of light which welded all the objects into an interdependent group4 ,plasticity of form had resulted from the efforts of preceding painters1 but here for the first time was a plasticity of method which moulded itself like putty with the slightest change of illumination4 ,preoccupation in this new compositional element made its users forget1 for the time being1 the older precepts for obtaining composition4 ,this forgetfulness however was not due entirely to exuberance over a novel procedure4 ,the painters antecedent to ,delacroix had used landscape as unimportant backgrounds for figures1 and there was no precedent for its adaptation to organisation4 ,courbet had composed landscape by the linear balance of black and white volumes4 ,the ,barbizon artists had brought out-of-door painting into more general notice2 but their greys were insufficient to give it more than a factitious and purely conventional unity4 ,the ,impressionists1 feeling the urgency for a more virile expression in landscape work1 saw a solution to their problem in the depiction of light through colour4 ,thus their conceptions took birth4 ,their technique1 like ,manet's1 was wholly consistent with their objective4 ,to the ,impressionists this objective seemed possessed of the merit of finality4 ,since ,corot had carried painting out of doors and ,manet had portrayed studio light from every vantage point1 what indeed was left for this new group of men8 ,they might have organised ,manet or ,corot1 but even the most competent of such modifications would have presented an appearance like that of a ,rubens or a ,tiepolo4 ,they were too avid for genuine novelty to content themselves with slight innovation2 and they were too modern to derive satisfaction from the stereotyped teachings of an antiquity whose tones were unemotional and whose themes were hackneyed4 ,the spirit of servility which is willing to learn second-hand lessons and adopt indoor conceptions spelled decadence to them4 ,their attitude was a healthy and correct one1 for the cup of linear tone-composition had been drained4 ,they were wrong in that they threw aside the cup3 they should have filled it with more powerful concepts4 ,their attitude was indicative of immaturity4 ,the ,impressionists in truth were the adolescents of the modern art which was born with ,delacroix and ,turner1 and which only recently has become a concrete engine for the projection of inspiration into an infinity of possibilities4 ,impressionism was more important than any preceding departure1 for it turned the thoughts of artists from mere results to motivating forces1 from the ripples on the surface to the power which causes the tides4 ,it foreshadowed the philosophical idea in art which concerns itself with causes rather than effects1 and thereby brought about a fundamental reform which made of painting1 not a mere vision1 but an idea4 ,the ,impressionists1 it is true1 worked from the surface down1 but they had the depths ever in mind2 and the posing of their problem set in motion in all serious painters that intellectual process which eventually would begin with foundations and build upward4 ,impressionism was the undeniable implication that the possibilities of the older art methods had been exhausted1 and that a substitution of a new method1 however fragmentary1 was of greater importance than the sycophantic imitations of an unapproachable past4 ,beneath this attitude we feel the broadness of mind which1 when a mistake has been made1 does not ignore causes but attaches to them different interpretations in an effort to arrive at the truth4 ,the ,impressionists kept their palette intact2 but they employed its parts in a way that made new combinations possible4 ,by doing this they unconsciously reacted against the mere dexterity of brushing with which so many painters1 like ,hals1 ,velazquez and ,raeburn1 became obsessed and1 as a consequence1 failed to heed the deeper demands of aesthetic research4 ,by thus facilitating technique they not only reduced the difficulties attached to the production of a picture1 but made the thing expressed of greater relative significance4 ,pissarro1 ,monet1 ,sisley and ,guillaumin who1 with ,bazille1 composed the original group of ,impressionists1 had all been influenced in youth by the revolutionary doctrines of ,corot and ,courbet1 and to a great extent had adopted the palette of these two men4 ,landscape painting at that time was almost a new development1 and these four readily succumbed to its inspiration4 ,there is little of the strictly picturesque and still less of the grandiose in the ,french landscape4 ,consequently a school which worked along the line of old conventions could not have existed in ,france4 ,but when ,rousseau and ,diaz1 striking out in a new direction1 poetised the charm of the hills and forests about ,fontainebleau1 the painting of the out-of-doors was liberated both as to purpose and to freedom of arrangement4 ,the object of ,turner's work had been to astonish and charm the spectator with nature's vastness and complexity4 ,but1 with the men of #ahcj1 landscape art took on softness1 introspection1 stillness1 solemnity4 ,in fine1 it became more intimate4 ,each tree and stone hid a nymph2 each stream and hill1 a mystery4 ,with the ,impressionists all this was changed4 ,they had seen and admired the work of ,manet4 ,they applauded his reactions against studio lighting1 and later became his personal friends4 ,manet was then the cynosure of all eyes in the art world of ,paris1 and it was only natural that he should have been the dominating figure in a sort of cenacle held in the ,cafe ,guerbois in the quarter of the ,batignolles4 ,here the revolutionists of the day forgathered1 and1 by their uncompromising spirit1 inspired one another to practical protestations against the routine of the academies4 ,manet's eloquence argued away the older idea of lighting as a type2 and the younger men1 using this negotiation as a starting point1 gave birth to the methods which congealed into ,impressionism4 ,although ,monet and ,pissarro were the first to profit by ,manet's teachings1 there is no definite history to tell who was the first of the group to blossom into colour4 ,however1 there is little doubt that ,pissarro was the man4 ,he was a ,jew with a philosophic turn of mind1 and possessed more genuine intelligence than his confreres4 ,monet was the cleverest and the most enthusiastic1 and when the new process was outlined it was he who first developed it to its ultimate consequences4 ,pissarro1 compared with ,monet1 was conservative1 and his practicality did not permit him so great an elan4 ,his canvases beside those of ,monet's appear almost tentative1 and the greys he had adopted from ,corot never entirely forsook him4 ,both these painters went to ,london during the ,franco-,prussian ,war1 and we may take it for granted that the works of ,turner had an enormous influence on them4 ,they had already seen ,jongkind who1 despite his adherence to the sombre greys of the older men1 had1 five years previous1 more than foreshadowed the later divisionistic technique4 ,but in ,turner they discovered not only all that ,jongkind had to offer1 but the additional quality of joyous and dazzling colour4 ,after their return their palettes became rapidly cleaner4 ,in #ahgd1 in an effort to bestir the public1 the ,impressionists held an exhibition4 ,the excitement was all they could have desired1 but it led rather to obloquy than to sales4 ,again and again they exposed in the hope of obtaining recognition1 but not until #ahhh were they successful4 ,the average spectator did not recognise nature in their canvases4 ,the vision was an unusual one1 and bore but slight resemblance to what had gone before4 ,but gradually things underwent a change4 ,friends of the ,impressionists launched a campaign of proselytising4 ,now and then a picture was sold to a collector2 formerly restaurant keepers and bricklayers had been the only buyers of their work4 ,the popular press softened its criticisms and in many instances went so far as to defend their pictures4 ,as a result of these numerous indications of a growing approval among connoisseurs1 the public1 that almost immovable mass of reactionary impulses1 began to look with favour on the new works it had so recently ridiculed4 ,the great majority of people had cared only for such canvases as those in which the intellect might jump from one familiar object to another1 recognising it wholly1 comprehending its uses1 but without giving thought to its meaning4 ,being thus interested primarily in a picture's conventionally painted details1 they were opposed to any innovations which tended to obscure the actualities of delineation4 ,later their attitude1 influenced by acts of authoritative sanction1 relaxed4 ,instead of seeing1 as formerly1 only a series of raucously coloured spots in these new pictures1 the public began to sense the deep reverence for nature that emanated from them4 ,thus has it always been the case with art3 appreciation for anything newly vital lags far behind the achievement4 ,the true significance of ,impressionism1 however--like the true significance of all emotion-provoking art--remained undiscovered to the general4 ,when the mean intelligence of mankind brings itself to bear on a work of art1 it applies itself through the channels of literature1 archaeology1 photography1 botany1 mineralogy and physiology4 ,to be a popular artist a painter must be something of a professor in all these sciences4 ,with all other considerations--such as psychology and aesthetics--he need not trouble himself4 ,the public1 even after centuries of rigorous training and constant association with art1 is no nearer a comprehension of rhythmic ensembles--perfectly synthesised form in three dimensions--than it was during the ,renaissance4 ,the two major requisites to an understanding of the formal relations in momentous art are a highly developed sensitivity and an active intelligence4 ,an eye and a nervous system are not enough4 ,society as a whole may1 after a long course of training and sedulous study1 reach that perceptive point where it can grasp the simple aesthetic hypothesis founded on two dimensions4 ,but such a hypothesis is but a beginning4 ,it embraces only the rudimentary aesthetic organisations that are found in ,japanese art1 the works of the ,byzantine masters1 the primitives of ,france and the pictures of ,botticelli1 ,manet and ,gauguin4 ,the form in art of this kind is1 strictly speaking1 not form at all4 ,it is balance1 harmonious rhythm1 linear adjustment1 parallelism1 co-ordinated silhouette1 sensitive arrangement1 outline melody--in fact1 whatever is possible in two dimensions4 ,significant form must move in depth--backward and forward1 as well as from side to side4 ,furthermore it must imply an infinity of depth4 ,this third 7and sometimes fourth7 dimension informs all truly great art4 ,while the ,impressionists did not attain to depth in the aesthetic connotation of the word1 they nevertheless went beyond mere linear balance1 for by the means of a higher emotional element--light--they organised1 in a superficial manner1 all the objects in their canvases4 ,there were no dissevered objects1 unrelated backgrounds1 no concessions to the hagiographa or other literature4 ,what chance1 therefore1 had they of being understood8 ,their subject-matter was too abstract2 their effects were too general4 ,no line was accentuated above another4 ,there were no modifications to achieve vastness or splendour4 ,impressionism was the unadulterated reproduction of atmosphere1 the smile or frown of a mood in nature4 ,it is small wonder that the unaesthetic found it obscure3 in it there was too much rapture1 too much frankness1 too much exultation in mere living1 and too little restraint4 ,it was the false dawn in the great modern ,renaissance of colour--the most ecstatically joyful style of painting the world has ever seen4 ,it was feminine in that it was a reflection1 and its hysteria may also be attributed to this fact4 ,the ,impressionists seated themselves1 free from all trammels1 before the face of nature4 ,nature dictated3 they transcribed4 ,nature smiled2 and they1 completely blent with it1 smiled also4 ,this very enthusiasm is what kept them young and held them to their initial path4 ,to paint as they did was an intoxication1 subtler and stronger than a drug and more elating than young love4 ,the vital history of the individual men who formed this group reduces itself to a record of their temperamental tastes in subject selection and to a statement of the degree to which each developed the new method4 ,the individualities of the units of an experimental school are always unimportant4 ,temperament can dictate to the artist only two phases of variation3 what he is to use in his composition1 and those transcendental qualities1 such as joy and sorrow1 drama and comedy1 which reflect the timbre of his predispositions4 ,rhythm1 form1 balance1 organisation1 drawing--all these aesthetic considerations spring from deeper matrices in a man's nature than do his temperamental predilections4 ,whether one man is intrigued by sunlight or another by mist1 mankind is1 after all1 so similar in externals1 that one individual's slight departure from a predecessor1 or his trifling deviation from a contemporary1 is of little moment4 ,the true key to a man's genius lies in his ability to organise as well as1 or better than1 others4 ,the compositional figure on which he builds will alone give us the substance of his character4 ,we are all capable of receiving sensations3 we have our personal likes and dislikes for subjects1 even for actions and smells4 ,but these choices are the outgrowths of our instincts1 mere habits of association4 ,in nowise are they fundamental4 ,they are the physiological recognition of pleasant or unpleasant impressions4 ,their importance is limited to the individual who experiences them4 ,being the results of receptivity1 they have no more to do basically with the aesthetic expression of an artist whose work is pure creation1 than phonograph disks with the sounds they receive4 ,by the intelligence alone can a man be judged4 ,here there is order1 extensive in artists like ,michelangelo1 partially restricted in such painters as ,el ,greco and ,giorgione1 and severely limited as in the case of the ,impressionists4 ,however1 it must not be implied that the intelligence alone can create4 ,such a contention would be preposterous2 but it is true that impressions must first be consciously organised before they can be given concrete expression4 ,the intelligence of ,pissarro was synthetic to a small extent1 but not once did it exhibit signs of extended apperception4 ,he thought clearly up to a certain point beyond which his art never went4 ,his temperament was not an uncommon one among ,hebrews4 ,he viewed life as a social reformer who regards the world as a sad place1 but one susceptible of improvement4 ,from this psychological standpoint he painted4 ,his pictures depict ubiquitous greys1 occasionally brightened by a stream of lurid light2 sombre scenes in which the impression is one of late afternoon2 peasants who seem wearied of their unceasing and thankless labours2 gaunt trees which epitomise the decay of the year4 ,his technique is not dissimilar to that of ,jongkind1 and his drawing is allied to the construction found in the ,dutch landscapists of the early nineteenth century rather than in those of his own group4 ,that he was the transition from ,jongkind to ,monet is a plausible contention2 in him are found qualities of both these other painters4 ,but he was too conscientious ever to attain to the technical heights ,monet reached4 ,if one aspires to innovation of means1 graphic traits have to be sacrificed3 steps must be taken in the dark4 ,those who cling with one hand to the old while groping toward the new can never reach their desires4 ,pissarro's lack of constructive genius was too evident1 his timidity too great1 his intelligence too literal for him ever to effectuate new plastic forms4 ,his instincts were those of a teacher1 and he displayed indubitable traits of an exalted doctrinaire4 ,but his art1 with these limitations1 was able and complete4 ,cezanne says he learned all he knew of colour from him4 ,this is not wholly true2 but it is certain that ,guillaumin and ,sisley are greatly indebted to his clarity of reason4 ,although ,pissarro is the greater artist1 ,monet is the finer craftsman4 ,he is widely credited with the invention of divisionistic methods2 but in this conclusion an inaccurate syllogism has played havoc with the facts4 ,none of the ,impressionists invented the procede de la tache2 and not having invented it detracts nothing from their achievement4 ,liszt did not invent the pianoforte1 yet he was its greatest master4 ,the practice of crediting ,frenchmen with the invention and development of methods has scant authority with which to justify itself4 ,poussin was an offshoot1 and a weak one1 of the great ,titian4 ,watteau and ,boucher come to us direct out of the corners of ,rubens's pictures4 ,daumier and ,courbet1 temperamentally unrelated to the ,french tradition1 stem from the ,dutch and the ,spaniards4 ,cezanne emanated from the ,dutch and the ,italians via ,impressionism4 ,matisse's procedure is little more than a modification of that of the ,persians and the early ,italians4 ,cubism was imported from ,spain by a ,spaniard4 ,futurism is strictly ,italian3 there is not a ,french name among its originators4 ,synchromism was brought into the world by ,americans4 ,and ,impressionism1 which1 like all these other departures1 has come to be looked upon as ,french1 is incontrovertibly of ,english parentage4 ,true1 there is small credit due the inventor4 ,the man capable of employing new discoveries 7as ,marconi employed the principles of wireless telegraphy7 is the truly important figure4 ,but we should not confuse discovery with employment4 ,since ,monet was ,french1 ,france has a perfect right to claim the results of colour division4 ,the honours attaching to its discovery are ,turner's and ,constable's4 ,monet1 like many great men1 had little schooling4 ,he went direct to nature1 impelled by the new impetus toward landscape4 ,his first pictures in the ,impressionist manner resemble ,manet's except for trivial innovations in the differentiation of shadows2 but in this difference we divine the later ,monet4 ,viewed cursorily these paintings appear to be conventional figure pieces4 ,but they are more than that4 ,the figures have no other significance than that which attaches to a vase or a landscape4 ,facial expression1 sympathetic gestures1 the appeal--all are absent from them4 ,in these pictures the costume plays the hero's part4 ,la ,japonaise is representative of that treatment of subject wherein the figure is only an excuse for a pattern of colour4 ,the modern attitude toward theme which ,manet handed down is again in evidence in ,monet4 ,its reductio ad absurdum was the late epidemic of illustrative pictures by such men as ,whistler1 ,shannon1 ,sargent1 ,zuloaga and ,alexander1 the titles of which were derived from the flowers held in the hands of the principals1 a bowl of goldfish in the background1 or the colour of a lace shawl4 ,monet1 however1 soon tired of figure pieces4 ,his true penchant lay toward landscape4 ,in this field he found an infinity of colour possibilities1 innumerable subtleties of light gradation1 and ready-to-paint arrangements as appealing as the ones he had formerly had to pose in his interiors4 ,at first his technique was broad and radiant1 much like a dispersed ,manet4 ,the large flat planes of unified colour which later were to disintegrate into a thousand touches1 were laid on silhouetted forms4 ,his boat pieces in the ,caillebotte collection in the ,luxembourg gallery1 appear1 in their simplicity and breadth of treatment1 like the unfinished underpainting of a ,turner or a ,rembrandt4 ,much of the bare canvas is visible2 and in them one feels the presence of the experimenter4 ,at this time the war drove ,monet to ,london1 and his exile proved a salutary one4 ,on his return his pictures bloomed with a new brilliance1 and his flat surfaces became fragmentised4 ,racial characteristics no doubt establish a bond between ,sisley and the ,english landscapists1 but nothing less than an active influence could have made so typical a ,frenchman as ,monet paint a canvas like ,l',eglise a ,varengeville in which ,turner is so much in evidence4 ,turner is also unmistakably present in ,pissarro at times1 as witness ,sydenham ,road1 but never to any great extent4 ,illustration3 ,,waterloo ,,bridge by ,,monet ,despite his great debt to ,turner1 ,manet and ,pissarro1 ,monet owed even more to the ,japanese4 ,they influenced his style and his selection of subjects4 ,from them he lifted the idea of painting a single object many times in its varied atmospheric manifestations4 ,but where the ,japanese shifted their vantage-ground with each successive picture1 ,monet's observation point remained stationary4 ,his composition too1 superficial as it is1 is frankly ,japanese4 ,it is generally represented by a straight line which runs near the lower frame from one side to the other of the canvas1 and which supports the principal objects of the work4 ,this line slants1 now up to the left1 now up to the right2 but seldom is it curved as in the more advanced drawings of ,hiroshige or ,hokusai4 ,his kinship to the ,japanese is1 after all1 a natural one1 for the temperaments of ,france and ,japan are as similar as is possible between east and west4 ,the ,japanese artists presented atmospheric conditions by means of gradating large colour planes into white or dark4 ,the consequent effects of rain1 snow1 wind and sun are as vivid as ,monet's1 but they differ from the ,frenchman's in that they are concerned principally with nature's decorative possibilities4 ,monet adheres to graphic transcription for the purpose of presenting the dynamics of a mood-producing phase of nature4 ,but though differing as to aims1 they both reach very similar visual results4 ,compare1 for instance1 ,monet's suite of ,les ,peupliers with ,hiroshige's series of the ,tokaido or with ,hokusai's ,views of ,fuji4 ,many of the pictures are alike in composition and choice of subject2 but the ,european has achieved a living light1 while the ,oriental has presented a more lucid and intensive vision4 ,these differences of purposes and similarities of appearance are again discernible in ,monet's ,coins de ,riviere and ,shiubun's ,setting ,sun4 ,a further proof of this ,impressionist's affinities with the ,japanese will be found by collating ,monet's figure pieces with those of ,utamaro4 ,there is one important point of divergence1 however1 between the arts of ,japan and ,monet's canvases4 ,whereas the ,japanese ignored texture1 ,monet at all times devoted himself more or less sedulously to its portrayal4 ,the ,falaise a ,etretat and ,the ,houses of ,parliament--,london are examples of his freedom from a rigid system of scientific application4 ,in both pictures the sky is drawn with broad intersecting strokes in order to achieve transparency and vastness4 ,the water1 in the former1 is painted with long curved strippings to give the wave effect1 as in ,courbet's ,la ,vague2 and1 in the latter1 ripples are formed by minute touches4 ,monet's architecture is often built up with colour-spots as a man lays bricks2 and the cliffs in the ,falaise a ,etretat are corrugated in exactly the same way the strata lie in nature4 ,later this preciosity of style disappeared1 except in his treatment of slightly ruffled water4 ,his brushing became irregular and elongated1 and he applied his stroke so that it would merge into the other innumerable touches of diverse colour4 ,his eyesight was highly trained1 and after years of labour in the conscious analysis of colour planes1 he was able to divide these planes unconsciously4 ,monet was artistic in that he felt deeply what was before him4 ,henri ,martin1 on the other hand1 who painted with independent touches in the hope of obtaining flickering sunlight1 and who knew his palette fully as well as ,monet1 laboured mechanically4 ,his work is more optical than emotional4 ,he is a realist in the same sense that ,roll is a realist2 but both these men present only the husk of reality4 ,monet1 to the contrary1 experienced and expressed nature's ecstasy4 ,he is like a string which vibrates to any harmony3 ,martin is little more than an eye4 ,both finished their work in the open2 and both stippled4 ,but here the parallelism ends1 for where ,monet completed the effects of the ,japanese1 ,martin only took light into the academies4 ,perhaps this is why ,martin was at once acclaimed by the public1 and why ,monet1 during those first dark years of struggle and poverty1 was compelled to sell his canvases for practically nothing4 ,duret confesses to having obtained one for eighty francs4 ,martin was early accorded academic honours1 and received numerous government orders4 ,monet found himself at home wherever there was light and water4 ,his canvases describe scenes from all over ,europe4 ,but his most famous pictures are his two series1 ,les ,meules and ,les ,nympheas4 ,in the first1 a single haystack is set forth in a diversity of illuminations and seasons2 and the second repeats a small pond of water-lilies1 in shade and in sun1 ruffled and calm4 ,his ,la ,cathedrale1 ,venice and ,london series are also widely known4 ,these represent acute observation and an implacable inspiration to work1 for they had to be finished simultaneously4 ,their accomplishment was a stupendous tour de force4 ,at sunrise ,monet would go forth with twenty blank canvases so that the changes of sunlight and mist might be caught from hour to hour4 ,they seem infantile to us today--these imitations of the subtleties of light1 these meteorological histories of haystacks and lilies1 these atmospheric personalities of cathedrals and canals4 ,yet it is by just such self-burials in data that one exhausts the aesthetic possibilities of nature's actualities4 ,and not until this probing to the bottom has been accomplished does the artist possess that complete knowledge which impels him to push forward to something newer and more vital4 ,sisley was the last of the original five to adopt ,impressionistic methods4 ,he had long had an admiration for the exploits of the more revolutionary painters1 but a comfortable income had acted as a sedative on his ambitions4 ,he did not feel the necessity for difficult endeavour4 ,but when1 at the death of his father1 he found himself penniless and with a family to care for1 he joined the ranks of ,pissarro1 ,monet1 ,guillaumin and ,bazille4 ,he had talent and an accurate eye1 and his earlier academic work1 done in the sixties1 served as a practical foundation4 ,after he had adopted the more modern technique of ,pissarro and ,monet1 he was prepared for the achievement of new art4 ,if we had no other proof that ,impressionism at its inception was a shallow craft1 ,sisley's immediate mastery of it would be conclusive1 for his appropriation of its means was not an aesthetic impulse but a financial expedient4 ,but more extensive corroboration can be found in a score of academies where ,impressionism is taught and taught conclusively4 ,there is no more or less actual composition in ,sisley than in other of the ,impressionists4 ,he supplied no innovations1 and he differed from his fellows only in so far as his temperament indicated variation4 ,in ,monet and ,guillaumin there is a concentration and precision which the ,englishman fell short of4 ,his nature was less akin to these ,impressionists than to the ,turner of wide and open skies1 of the softness and dreaminess of summer1 of that perfect satisfaction which is content with inaction4 ,sisley's very colour preference for which the public reproached him--light lilac--indicates his penchant for prettiness and repose4 ,his choice of theme was invariably dictated by a poetical and sentimental need for the intimate4 ,in ,guillaumin we have a man who gave promise of good work but who1 up to the last1 failed in its fulfilment4 ,indubitably talented1 he never succeeded in reaching that point where talent is only a means to an end4 ,but nevertheless there was in him a solidity of modelling1 a real feeling for the ponderous hardness of hills and plains4 ,he was a friend of ,cezanne1 and undoubtedly learned much from that master of form4 ,at first he had painted in sombre tones1 but later1 after meeting ,cezanne and ,pissarro in the ,academie ,suisse1 he adopted their lighter and more joyous colour schemes4 ,there is a canvas in the ,caillebotte ,collection in the ,luxembourg which1 in its broadness of treatment and extensive planes1 suggests ,gauguin both as to gamut and conception4 ,guillaumin was the most masculine talent of the early ,impressionist group4 ,he cared less for the transient views of nature than for its eternal aspect4 ,his colour1 by its liberality of application1 counts more forcibly than that of ,pissarro1 ,monet or ,sisley4 ,his contributions to the new idea1 however1 were comparatively small4 ,he was not an explorer1 but followed diligently in the path others had marked out4 ,only after he had won a fortune in a lottery did he break away from his environment4 ,but this release came to him too late4 ,his formative period of development had passed1 and his work1 from that time on1 did not alter in technique4 ,only in his picturesque and bizarre subject-matter is noticeable any deviation from his habitual routine4 ,illustration3 ,,paysage by ,,guillaumin ,the individual achievements of the ,impressionists1 however1 no matter how competent1 are of minor importance4 ,impressionism was a new weapon in the hands of art's anarchists4 ,it has come to be regarded as a faultless faith whose devotees can do no wrong4 ,there has been little or no adequate literature devoted to its exposition1 its causes and influence2 and the exaggeration of its attainments are as grotesque as the calumny with which it was at first received4 ,it was not an ultimate and isolated movement1 but a simple and wholly natural offshoot in the evolution of new means4 ,the artists who fathered it were1 except in one instance1 men whose enthusiasm outstripped their abilities as composers4 ,their greatest good lay in that they turned the thoughts of painters toward colour1 and outlined1 summarily to be sure1 the uses to which this new and highly intense element might be put4 ,they expressed just what their desires permitted them3--nature in all its visible changes4 ,those exquisite moments of full sunlight on land and water1 of cloud shadows over the hills1 of the warm brilliancy of a blue sky on the upturned faces of flowers2 the stillness of summer amid the woods2 the cold serenity of snow-clad fields--all were seen and captured and immortalised by these men4 ,they were the greatest painters of effects the world has ever known4 ,they never strove to evoke the sensation of weight in the objects they painted2 and that organisation of parts1 which is a replica of the cosmos1 they were too busy to attempt4 ,their very deficiencies were what permitted them so complete a vision of the only side of realism which still remained for painting to investigate4 ,the ,impressionists did not embody concretely the teachings of their forerunners1 but used them all in the abstract4 ,delacroix had sacrificed photographic truth in drawing in order to present a more intense impression of truth4 ,daumier had built form as nature builds it1 colour aside4 ,courbet had turned painters from the poetic contemplation of a great past to the life about them4 ,manet had made images of whatever was at hand for the pure love of painting4 ,the ,impressionists turned to the things nearest them1 paid scant heed to scholastic drawing1 translated ,daumier's doctrine of form into light1 and like ,manet painted for the joy of the work4 ,as experimenters they were valuable2 but their pictures1 to those unsentimental persons whose appreciations of art are wholly aesthetic1 mean little more than records of how a cabbage patch appears at sunrise1 a lily pond at midday1 or a country lane at twilight4 ,the ,impressionists did not amalgamate and express the dreams of their forerunners4 ,they were one of those transitional generations whose vitality is spent in a stupendous endeavour to conceive before the time is ripe4 ,the need for a great birth had not yet made itself felt2 for only when the period of embryo is complete can great art be born4 ,renoir brought forth that issue2 and with him evolution seems to halt a moment before plunging onward4 ,the meagre aesthetics of the early ,impressionists could not lead to the highest artistic results4 ,indeed1 their animating aims had to be abandoned before ,renoir could attain to true significance4 ,v ,,auguste ,,renoir ,the entire past progress of painting is condensed and expressed in each of its great men4 ,the creation of new art cannot be accomplished overnight1 any more than that of a new organism2 it must stem from first impulses and be formed on the differentiations of the past4 ,those men who declare themselves primitives and seek to acquire the eyes and minds of the ,phoenicians or ,aztecs are as conscious of their inability to create new art forms as are those visionaries who live in a mythical future and try to prophesy the forms that are to come4 ,no man is born too soon or too late4 ,there are those who strive toward classic intellectual ideals1 toward ,utopian economic states1 toward new orders of society3 but such reformers are only the malcontents4 ,the truly great and practical men quickly assimilate the impulses of their own epochs and push the frontiers of the mind's possibilities further into the unknown4 ,these latter comprise the maligned vanguard of heroic thinkers who fight the battles for their weaker followers4 ,often1 however1 these followers rise to great heights1 for in the world of endeavour two conspicuous types exist--the man who experiments and the man who achieves4 ,delacroix1 ,manet and the ,impressionists belong to the first2 ,courbet and ,renoir are of the second4 ,in ,renoir's life story1 as in that of ,titian1 ,rubens and ,rembrandt1 we see in miniature the evolution of all the painting that preceded him--the bitter struggles with the chimeras of convention1 and each slow change that came over drawing1 style1 colour and composition4 ,in the end1 after a life full of near defeats1 strife1 yearning and anxiety1 we behold the great man emerge triumphantly from his broken fetters and take his place beside the masters of the past4 ,some painters have more arduous fights than others1 for the odds against them are greater4 ,rubens and ,delacroix seemed the pampered favourites of a high destiny3 ,courbet and ,renoir had to cleave and chisel each step of the way through the adamant of public suspicion4 ,the world appears incapable of recognising either an intensification or a modification of an old and accepted formula4 ,hence ,courtois and ,puget were preferred to ,delacroix2 ,ribera and ,rembrandt to ,courbet2 the ,avignon painters to ,manet2 ,corot1 ,diaz and ,rousseau to the ,impressionists2 and ,rubens and ,ingres to ,renoir4 ,in all of these parallelisms1 the latter had their roots in the former4 ,they were complications and variations of their forerunners--dissimilar only in method and manner4 ,renoir began to paint at an early age4 ,the poverty of his family necessitated him to make his own living1 and at the age of thirteen he was in a factory painting porcelains4 ,five years later he applied for work at a place given over to the decoration of transparent screens4 ,here his unusual facility permitted him to paint ten times as fast as his fellow decorators1 and since he was paid by the piece1 he soon saved enough money to give himself an education in the art which had now become with him a conscious instinct--painting4 ,from his earliest youth he had evinced a discontent with the slow-moving minds about him1 and it was natural that he should first look upon art through the eyes of his great revolutionary contemporary1 ,courbet4 ,his earliest work1 of which ,le ,cabaret de la ,mere ,anthony and ,diane ,chasseresse are the best-known examples1 reflected ,courbet in both palette and conception4 ,even later1 when ,manet claimed him1 he clung to his first influence4 ,for while his work now reached out toward the substance of light to be found in ,la ,musique aux ,tuileries1 it revealed at the same time all the form of the ,ornans master4 ,le ,menage ,sisley and ,lise strikingly combine these two early influences4 ,since humanity has emerged from the darkness of unconsciousness and the individual from the darkness of the womb1 it is consistent with nature that in a man's creative development--the route of which lies between dark and dark--the use of black should be his first instinct4 ,renoir1 like all painters of great promise1 started with this negation of colour4 ,but wherein his intellectual distinction manifested itself was his innate proclivity for the rhythm of surface lines which he alone of all his contemporaries recognised in ,courbet4 ,in ,lise1 painted in #ahfg1 a year after his ,diane ,chasseresse1 both of these early penchants are evident4 ,black is the keynote of his sunlight2 and while in conception the canvas is akin to ,manet1 it is a ,manet made dexterous and masterly4 ,it contains a balance and a linear rhythm of which that painter was ignorant4 ,lise is one of the few ,renoirs into which the influence of ,velazquez and ,goya can be imagined4 ,even in its pyramidal form1 which when used by most painters becomes a static figure1 there is a movement at its apex which opens into a shape like a lily4 ,this is brought about by the tilt of the sunshade and the continuation of the line of the sash outward in the tree trunk4 ,by just such obvious and simple signs as these in early works1 can we foretell an artist's later developments4 ,the next year1 #ahfh1 ,renoir's work is more net1 more able in its balance1 more sure in its effect4 ,le ,menage ,sisley is one of his finest early examples of how this rhythmic continuity of line obsesses a mind avid for form1 colour1 vitality4 ,at first glance we see only an irregular pyramid formed by the outline of the two figures2 but after a minute's study we notice that on the right the line of the skirt curves gracefully inward to the waist-line1 sweeps up to the woman's neck1 then begins an outward flexure1 and finally disperses itself amid the tree's slanting branches in the right-hand upper corner4 ,on the left1 the outline of the man's right leg and arm and hair forms another curve which bends back the line of the opposing curve of the woman's dress1 and completes the figure of the pyramid4 ,but the first curve1 the force of which is seemingly ended at the woman's waist1 is continued in the outline of the light tonality which begins at the man's right elbow1 curves outward to the frame1 then inward1 and ends on the upper frame a little to the left of the man's head4 ,furthermore1 the volume made by the light tonality in the upper left-hand corner serves as a balance to the form of the woman's tunic4 ,this composition is1 in all essentials1 the same as in ,lise1 and embraces that rhythm in two dimensions which ,manet did not know1 and that balance of tonal form of which ,manet was never capable4 ,manet's mind was that of the lesser ,dutch and ,spaniards4 ,renoir's was the plastic and flowing mind of the ,latin races1 never satisfied with angularity and immobility1 but needful of the smooth progression of sequence and movement4 ,the recognition of the artistic necessity for linear rhythm led ,renoir to search for it in others than ,courbet4 ,among the painters by whom he might profit1 ,delacroix stood nearest his own time4 ,to him ,renoir turned2 and it was out of him that ,renoir's greatness was to grow4 ,delacroix's organisations appealed to him--especially the triangular one which opens at the top4 ,his admiration for this artist's talent led him to paint in #ahgb a canvas called ,parisiennes ,habillees en ,algeriennes1 an ambitious essay to compete with ,les ,femmes d',alger dans ,leur ,appartement4 ,intrinsically the picture was a failure1 but it taught its creator more than he had heretofore learned concerning colour and drawing4 ,in it are discernible indications of the formal unconventionalities and the chromatic brilliancies which later were to be such dominant qualities in ,renoir's work4 ,although for two years he had used ,impressionistic methods1 it was through this picture that ,delacroix introduced him to the ,impressionists' colour4 ,manet had already introduced him to ,ingres3 and these two incidents went far toward laying the foundation for his greatness4 ,on neither the ,impressionists nor ,ingres did he build a style2 but from both he learned something of far more value3--freedom from the dictates of style4 ,here again ,delacroix had a hand1 for by studying this artist's uses of ,ingres's simplifications1 ,renoir was able to make these simplifications plastic4 ,renoir's colour up to this time had been restrained by the dictates of his epoch4 ,but with the inspiration and encouragement given him by ,les ,femmes d',alger dans ,leur ,appartement1 it burst forth with all the force of long-imprisoned energy1 and drove him out of doors4 ,in this picture he found excuse to carry colour to any extreme he desired4 ,at once the instincts of the porcelain painter1 ever latent in him1 came uppermost4 ,delacroix1 in giving him the ,impressionists' freedom of colour1 had brought him back to those rich and full little designs he had painted on china between the ages of thirteen and eighteen4 ,in this early training alone lies the explanation of his later matiere which has for so long puzzled the critics4 ,many attribute his colour effects to ,watteau4 ,but ,renoir had developed his technique before he knew the older master4 ,years previous he had been intensely interested in the very material of his models4 ,in ,le ,menage ,sisley1 ,la ,baigneuse au ,griffon and ,la ,femme a la ,perruche is evinced the love of the connoisseur for rare and rich stuffs4 ,furthermore he had begun to turn his eyes toward ,impressionist methods two years before he painted ,les ,parisiennes ,habillees en ,algeriennes4 ,up to that time his brushing had been broad like ,manet's or ,courbet's2 immediately afterward it tended toward spotting1 and ,monet took the upper hand4 ,watteau's manner of application served only to substantiate ,renoir in his choice of method4 ,the years from #ahfe to #ahgf constitute a period of ,renoir's life rich in its promise of splendid things4 ,his keen admirations and high enthusiasms made of him throughout this time a disciple4 ,but his achievements1 small as they were1 were more sumptuous and effectual than either ,manet's or ,monet's4 ,their true significance1 though1 lay in their assurance of what was to come after he had completed that unlearning process through which all great men must pass4 ,only by sitting at a master's feet can one acquire the knowledge that informs one which influences should be utilised and which cast aside4 ,one cannot learn from experience the total lessons of many men1 each one of whom has given a lifetime to the study of a different side of a subject4 ,if these men are to be surpassed their life work must be used as a starting point4 ,renoir began thus4 ,he had fallen under the sway of ,courbet1 ,manet1 ,delacroix and ,monet2 but after eleven years he had exhausted his creative interest in both their theories and their attainments4 ,these men had expressed all that was in them4 ,for ,renoir to cling to them was to stand still4 ,if he was to go down in history as a constructive genius and not merely as an able imitator1 it was time for him to strike out alone4 ,he did not hesitate4 ,the portrait of ,mlle4 ,durand-,ruel1 done in #ahgf1 marks his transformation4 ,in it he achieved the scintillation of light which is not linked with colour or painting1 but which seems to arise1 by some mysterious alchemy1 from the surface of the canvas4 ,in this picture1 and also in the ,moulin de la ,galette1 finished in the same year1 he consummated the fondest ambition of the ,impressionists1 namely3 to make the spectator feel a picture1 not as a depiction of nature's light1 but as a medium from which emanates the very force of light itself4 ,but ,renoir did not stop here3 to this achievement he added form and rhythm--two attributes which the ,impressionists1 preoccupied with objectivity1 were too busy to attempt4 ,and in addition he displayed a technique so perfect in its adaptability to any expression1 that its mannerisms were completely submerged in the picture's total effect4 ,these were the qualities which ,renoir was to develop to so superlative a degree4 ,he had begun to express form in #ahgj in his ,portrait de ,dame4 ,two years later in his ,delacroix adaptation he had branched out into colour4 ,and in his very first canvases there was rhythmic balance of lines4 ,in #ahgf all these tendencies coalesced4 ,in consequence ,renoir blossomed forth free from aggressive influences1 knowing his own limitations and possibilities4 ,this cannot be said even of those excellent works1 ,la ,loge1 ,la ,danseuse and ,la ,fillette ,attentive1 done the two preceding years4 ,it is only by contemplating such pictures as the portrait of ,mlle4 ,durand-,ruel1 ,la ,chevelure and ,la ,source that we can perceive the path along which his development was to take place4 ,for these canvases1 though far more significant than the works of ,pissarro and ,monet1 are almost negligible beside his later work4 ,he was a man never satisfied with results1 no matter how exalted4 ,his every new achievement was only a higher elevation from which his horizon ever receded4 ,illustration3 ,,le ,,dejeuner ,,des ,,canotiers by ,,renoir ,one of ,renoir's important advances in method is his liberation from the circumscribed use of black4 ,although in some of his work of #ahgf there are still traces of that tone used organically1 they are so slight that they may be disregarded4 ,black was the very keynote of the paintings of his day4 ,it was looked upon as a necessity in the creation of volumes4 ,courbet did little without it1 and ,manet brightened it only with occasional flashes of colour4 ,today we know that it is not a technical necessity1 that pure colours1 in fact1 when properly used1 can produce the most solid forms4 ,but whereas we have been able to profit by the teachings of ,cezanne and the ,synchromists1 ,renoir had to learn this fact by bitter experiments in a new element4 ,in ,la ,balancoire1 done in the same year as the ,moulin de la ,galette and now hanging with that picture in the ,luxembourg1 black is entirely absent4 ,this little canvas was probably an experiment actuated by ,monet1 for never afterward did he on principle lay black aside4 ,while he realised its unimportance as a fundamental for constructing volume1 he nevertheless felt its need as a complement to colour--the need of the static and the dead to accentuate the plastic and alive4 ,it is during this period that critics are prone to see ,gainsborough in ,renoir4 ,but their reasons for such a comparison are superficial1 and go no further than the fact that both painters dealt with feminine themes in a similarly intimate manner4 ,no genuinely artistic likeness can be found between ,mrs4 ,siddons1 for instance1 and the ,ingenue4 ,the one is merely a spirited portrait without composition or tactility3 the other is an exquisite bit of form and colour1 which we feel would be as solid to the touch as it appears to the eye4 ,if we are to compare ,renoir to ,english painters at all1 let us designate ,hogarth and ,romney1 although any such comparative method of criticism is apt to lead at once to misunderstanding4 ,however1 even these two men are distinctly inadequate as measures for ,renoir4 ,in the graphic arts ,englishmen exhibit no feeling for rhythm4 ,indeed1 it may correctly be said they possess no graphic arts4 ,rhythm is a factor which has made itself felt only in their poetry1 and here it can hardly be called more than a division of interval1 or tempo4 ,rossetti in his paintings is seemingly more conscious of its power than any other ,englishman1 and occasionally attempted to produce it by the primitive device of curved lines4 ,but1 after all1 ,rossetti was ,italian4 ,on the whole ,renoir and the ,english artists are two fundamentally dissimilar to be estimated relatively4 ,the finest qualities of ,renoir's art grew out of his instinct for fluent movement1 for intense undulations1 for hot gorgeous colour1 for freedom from all traditional prescriptions4 ,the evolution of these instincts was by no means a mechanical one4 ,after he had amalgamated the leading qualities of his art1 his interest would often reveal itself more strongly in one direction than another4 ,thus many of his canvases show a retrogression toward emphasis of light2 others toward form2 still others toward linear rhythm4 ,yet no matter which one of these qualities predominated1 the others also remained intact4 ,more importance1 however1 attached to his preoccupation with the treatment of light4 ,his experiments and consequent development in this field are of initial significance in judging his later work4 ,in #ahgh he had evidently foreseen the cul-de-sac into which the natural distribution of light would lead4 ,the very volatility and translucency of illumination and its matter-dispelling qualities1 constituted the greatest drawback to its use in the creation of form4 ,in other words its sheer beauty nullified the deeper aims of painting4 ,in two decorative ,panneaux of reclining nudes1 done in the same year1 ,renoir makes his first attempt to escape from the naturalism of light4 ,the use of light is here restricted to a colour force which serves only to bring form into relief4 ,from that time on1 although he had many struggles with its power over him1 he had conquered its insidious influence4 ,it became his servant1 whereas before it had been his master4 ,in his earlier canvases1 wherein sunlight had played a leading part1 he had placed the sun patches1 gleaming and vibrant1 wherever they naturally fell4 ,after #ahgh he began placing them arbitrarily on points where formal projection was needed4 ,the subtle manner in which he constructed and posed these patches precluded any discovery of his reasons for altering their natural location4 ,but ,renoir was not fully satisfied1 and soon abandoned this phase of pleinairisme4 ,later the spots of sunlight appeared on cheeks1 shoulders1 knees1 or any other salients which called for powerful relief1 thereby losing their flat and detached appearance4 ,this moulding of them into intense aggregations had much to do with ,renoir's fullness of form4 ,his long experience had given him a complete knowledge of their naturalistic effect4 ,he knew it was impossible to make them remain on the same plane with the surrounding shadow1 and he understood the reasons for this phenomenon4 ,it was not therefore remarkable that1 in his later method of applying them1 he was sure of his results4 ,as soon as he realised that sunlight dispersed matter by obscuring some points and accentuating others1 he knew that by an intelligent employment of this factor of luminosity he could at will accentuate certain parts of his canvas and obscure others4 ,this knowledge led him naturally to create his own light1 irrespective of how it actually existed4 ,this was an important step toward its complete abrogation1 and brought arbitrary means in painting just so much nearer4 ,he had already distorted volumes for purposes of organisation in the same manner that he now distorted light4 ,indeed every great painter has taken this liberty with form2 but each one has to learn the device anew in its relation to his own separate vision4 ,there are few shadows1 as such1 in ,renoir4 ,we find darks and lights in scintillating succession1 but we may search in vain1 even in his canvases of #ahgh or #ahgi1 for those shadowed outlines which are the result of light4 ,if light there is1 it is only the light which springs from our own eyes--light which seems to come from the direction of the beholder1 like the reflection of a light in water4 ,move as you will before his pictures1 it follows you1 for it is the illumination of that part of the picture nearest the eyes of the painter4 ,where a form is full1 there ,renoir contrives to have a light fall4 ,this artifice may strike us today as childish1 since we have outgrown our concern with light2 but let us remember that from the beginning the depiction of lights and shadows had been a fixed practice1 and that their tones had formed the only basis for chiaroscuro4 ,with the ,impressionists light became the atout of painting4 ,renoir made of it a vital form-creating element4 ,herein we have its evolution3 first1 a convention2 next1 an obsession2 last1 a utility4 ,so were the aesthetic possibilities of light exhausted1 just as the aesthetic possibilities of the human form were exhausted by ,michelangelo4 ,in this last step of liberating light from convention1 ,renoir approached nearer to nature than any antecedent painter4 ,after all1 a human being in the sunlight appears to us as a solid moving mass4 ,only those who look upon nature as a flat pattern of shades and lights are misled by sun patches4 ,so1 in ,renoir's adapting the source of light for the purpose of producing solidity of form1 we are cognisant of the palpability of his figures whether they are in light or shadow1 or both4 ,thus he created the actual impression of volume we all get before a moving form4 ,this arbitrary disposition of light and shadow also gave fullness and intensity to his form1 and accentuated the poise1 so subtle and unexpected1 we feel in even his slightest works4 ,but while this was the secret of his attainment of volume1 the compositional use to which he put this volume requires another explanation--one which has its roots in the very depths of the man's genius4 ,there had never been such form in the ,french school as that which ,renoir gave it in #ahhj4 ,the ,tete de ,jeune ,fille and ,les ,enfants en ,rose et ,bleu1 done about this time1 must have been the despair of even the sculptors of his day4 ,and these were but the beginning4 ,many phases of his art were yet to be emphasised and developed before the ,renoir we know today was to be perfected4 ,it was in #ahhd that he began to apprendre le dessin4 ,for four years he continued this self-training in the precision of draughtsmanship4 ,as a boy he had begun his painting in a manner more competent than the most advanced style of the average artist1 as is evidenced by the able use of colour as design in his early porcelains4 ,and although he was driven to this work by necessity1 the incident was a salutary one4 ,it turned his thoughts toward those abstract organisations of colour which always afterward haunted him4 ,later he learned all the tricks of the day in the school of the realists1 and succeeded in surpassing his masters4 ,next he studied the ,impressionists and went beyond them also4 ,then he co-ordinated his knowledge and established his individual greatness4 ,this period of his development gave ,france much of its finest painting1 and his ,baigneuse done at this time is an undoubted masterpiece4 ,his reversion to the rudiments of drawing was the result of a burning desire to develop rhythm and form4 ,his technical difficulties had been conquered at an early date3 he needed only dexterity in drawing to achieve his end4 ,not only did ,renoir attain to his objective1 but1 by comprehending the principle of the placements and displacements of volumes1 he learned the advantages of line accentuation in obtaining movement4 ,we now come to those pictures which show ,renoir's intimate relation to ,rubens through ,boucher and ,watteau3 to his alfresco bathing figures4 ,some one has pointed out that his ,baigneuses of #ahhe1 one year after he had devoted himself to drawing1 was inspired by ,girardon's lead-reliefs in the gardens at ,versailles4 ,the commentary is undoubtedly true2 but even so1 of what significance is it8 ,aside from the superficial fact that in the works of both appear bathing women in more or less abandoned poses1 ,renoir had nothing in common with the school of ,largilliere1 ,pater1 ,fragonard1 ,le ,moyne1 ,santerre and ,girardon4 ,in all such observations one senses the restriction of the critic's viewpoint to illustration4 ,an artist may find inspiration in any visual form1 but this form is of no more aesthetic importance to him than a photograph4 ,in ,picasso's paintings of violin fragments we are scarcely permitted to deduce an inspiration from ,stradivarius4 ,grotesque as this analogy may seem1 it is applicable to the contention that ,renoir stemmed from ,girardon4 ,for there is nothing whatever in ,renoir's bathing girls to suggest a psychological parallel between them and the leaden frieze at ,versailles4 ,if ,renoir saw in that frieze an attractive pose1 it was with an eye to its adaptability to composition4 ,in ,girardon there is only a pretty and sensual chaos4 ,in ,renoir we have a masterly organisation wherein the actual positions of the young women are not even remarked4 ,compare1 for instance1 ,girardon's version of the figure of the girl throwing water on her playmates1 with the corresponding figure in ,renoir's drawing4 ,the body of the former is without doubt a more faithful replica of its model2 in ,renoir it has become impossibly elongated and voluminous4 ,its head is too small2 its back too long2 its hips are too large--and yet withal it is an exquisite bit of rich form which has as concrete a tangibility as that of a real body4 ,one cannot judge it by its contour2 one must bury oneself in its very weight4 ,had ,renoir advanced no further than his masterly ,baigneuse of #ahhd1 he would nevertheless have gone down in history as a great artist4 ,but compared with the same subject done in #ahhh1 it appears stiff4 ,we feel in it the rigidity of a master whose great qualities are without a directing intelligence4 ,in the later canvas1 ,renoir is less preoccupied with details4 ,as a result there is a greater plenitude of bulging form1 a purer rhythm4 ,and there is also an added movement caused by the linear harmony of the background1 by the hair over the shoulder1 and above all by the turning of the head so that its weight is shifted over a hollow4 ,an apparently simple thing--this turning of a head4 ,yet ,michelangelo's genius1 as well as that of all great artists1 is dependent on the knowledge of when a head should be turned or a limb advanced4 ,this knowledge is what transforms action into movement1 tempo into rhythm1 the static into the plastic1 the dead into the living4 ,it is the final penetration into composition2 on it all aesthetic form is built4 ,renoir acquired it in his period of so-called dry drawing4 ,its dawn came in ,la ,natte and ,mere et ,enfant4 ,it was still developing in the ,baigneuse2 and in ,la ,baigneuse ,brune and ,nu a l',etoffe ,vert et ,jaune1 both done after #aijj1 this knowledge was becoming sure of itself4 ,between #ahhd and #ahib1 however1 ,renoir's new strength was not wholly mastered4 ,there was conscious effort in its employment4 ,this is seen in ,la ,fillette a la ,gerbe and ,les ,filles de ,catulle ,mendes and in that otherwise miraculous canvas1 ,au ,piano4 ,in ,le ,croquet1 #ahib1 he begins to exhibit1 in his use of new means1 the same prodigious adroitness he displayed in his earlier and slighter works4 ,and in ,les ,deux ,soeurs the effects of labour entirely vanish1 and he once more paints with magistral unconcern4 ,from that time forward ,renoir's complete genius was but a matter of evolution4 ,and here let it be remembered that his transcendent competency was the result of academic training1 for of late we have heard many objections to this kind of discipline4 ,we have been invited to behold the water-colour and crayon works of the untutored1 assured that they were as fine as ,matisse's drawings4 ,and we have been asked to accept1 as a corollary1 the statement that all painters are better off without the pernicious influence of schools4 ,we have had modern paintings pointed out to us as examples of what inspiration and freedom from convention can do4 ,we have heard the constantly reiterated assertion that academies cramp genius1 restrict vision and force all expression into stipulated moulds4 ,to concede to these extravagant assertions would be to ignore the history of great painting1 for during all the significant epochs of art the school was at its zenith4 ,without it there could be no genuine achievement4 ,no amount of mere inspiration has ever enabled an artist to paint an eminent canvas4 ,no amount of uncontrolled emotionalism has ever permitted one to make an aesthetically moving work of art4 ,no untrained man1 no matter how high his natural gifts1 has yet been able to record adequately his feelings4 ,all the records of past accomplishment go to show that no person who has not been profoundly educated in the purely objective 7not utilitarian7 forms1 and in the abstract qualities of painting1 such as anatomy and technique1 has succeeded in conceiving an artistic organisation4 ,the school has never obscured or dwarfed genius1 nor is it probable it ever will4 ,to the contrary it assists the truly great man in his self-fulfilment and weeds out the mediocre man4 ,it turns the student's thoughts to methods rather than to inspiration4 ,it directs the attention of incompetent and merely talented persons1 incapable of rising above its teachings1 into side issues4 ,thus it relegates their work to the soupentes of the world3 whereas1 if they had been permitted to labour at random1 they would only have choked the market of genuinely aesthetic production4 ,the school teaches discipline1 precision1 and the control of wayward impulses1 without all of which the greatest artist could only incompletely express himself4 ,these are the things which ,renoir felt he lacked2 and in the midst of his career he halted long enough to acquire them4 ,it may be argued that his was intelligent training1 while that of the schools is unintelligent4 ,but all discipline is beneficial to the artist4 ,only slavish minds1 hopeless from the first1 succumb to it4 ,the fact that a man capitulates to academic training attests to an incompetency so great that1 under no circumstances1 however favorable1 could it have arisen to a point capable of producing great art4 ,giotto1 ,el ,greco and ,rubens passed through rigid training and rose above it4 ,and the apprenticeship demanded of the old ,egyptian1 ,chinese and ,greek artists was longer and more tedious than any of our school courses today4 ,renoir's scholastic training was his salvation4 ,with the advent of the twentieth century he struck his pace4 ,all his qualities converged toward the construction of rhythm4 ,in #aijj he painted a large and ambitious canvas of an attired maid combing a nude's hair1 ,la ,toilette de la ,baigneuse1 which is more extended and conclusive than any of his previous works4 ,the forms lean in opposition and complete each other4 ,in them is a perfect poise which subjectively evokes an emotion of movement4 ,even the lights and darks are separated so as to give the strongest effect4 ,the very hat and tree trunk are integral parts of the whole1 and there is not a line in the picture which does not develop logically to a harmonic completion4 ,the luscious plenitude of form is equalled only by the finality of the rhythm4 ,another picture of the same period is the ,baigneuses in the ,vollard collection1 a duplicate of his ,baigneuses of fifteen years before4 ,now all the hardness is gone from the contours4 ,the differentiation of texture between the flesh and water and foliage is absent4 ,the lines are less angular and true1 and both the distant nudes' attitudes are changed4 ,the first canvas recalled ,ingres2 but the second brings up ,cezanne1 for it is pure composition with every nugatory quality eliminated4 ,it demonstrates the possibility of creating abstract unity in three dimensions with the objective reality at hand4 ,the picture contains movement in the vital sense1 and possesses a tactility as great as a ,giorgione done with modern means4 ,in fact1 comparison of these two ,baigneuses will straightway divulge the advantages that lie in modern methods4 ,the first is extremely able1 and has the unfinished foundation of a great composition4 ,the second1 because of what ,renoir had learned of freedom1 is as intense as a ,rubens in that painter's own manner2 and in addition it has an emotional element to which the ,antwerp master never attained4 ,two years later this obsession to create form as an impregnable block1 no matter in how many integers it might be divided1 made him turn his attention to ,daumier2 and in ,le ,jardin d',essoyes and his heads of ,coco he surpasses even this master of organisation4 ,having assimilated this new influence ,renoir added it to his own store of knowledge1 and four years later painted his greatest picture1 ,le ,petit ,peintre4 ,after this there was little more to be done in ,renoir's style unless he extended his vision to greater surfaces4 ,this he has not done4 ,but he has added other masterpieces to the ones already mentioned4 ,his ,ode aux ,fleurs 7d'apres ,anacreon71 the two decorative ,panneaux of the tambourine player and the dancer1 ,coco et les ,deux ,servantes1 ,la ,rose dans les ,cheveux and ,la ,femme au ,miroir are all worthy of a place beside the greatest pictures of all time4 ,in these last paintings nature's form is transcribed in a purely arbitrary manner4 ,many of the parts are exaggerated to create greater projection or more perfect proportion in relation to the whole4 ,texture has developed into a unified surface1 and simple linear balance has become poise in depth4 ,the colouring has grown so subtle that it is impossible in many places to tell just what it is1 for in it is a whole spectrum that makes it living4 ,illustration3 ,,baigneuses1 #ahhe by ,,renoir ,illustration3 ,,baigneuses1 #aijb by ,,renoir ,renoir was a man who fundamentally was not revolutionary1 an artist who was shown the way by others1 a genius who culminated a great and febrile epoch4 ,his beginnings were imitative of the painters of his day4 ,he climbed the ladder from dark to light1 from the stiff to the mobile4 ,his first works under ,courbet and ,manet were no better than those of ,hankwan4 ,later his pictures began to flow rhythmically in simple lines as in the ,head of a ,chinese ,lady by ,ririomin4 ,then they began to extend into depth1 and as early as #ahha they surpassed ,titian4 ,from then on they approached steadily to the completeness of a modernised ,rubens4 ,that ,renoir never reached that master's greatness is due1 not to his lack of acute and complete vision1 but to his restriction of it to small works4 ,a composer who writes a symphony in which each minute part is an intimate factor of the whole1 is greater than he who writes only an overture whose entirety is no greater than one of the symphony's movements4 ,renoir1 in so far as he went1 was as great as the greatest4 ,one cannot think of a ,renoir canvas merely as a painting4 ,it is a new and visually complete cosmos4 ,in looking at his work the intelligence enters a world in which every form has interest1 every line completion1 every space a plasticity3 in short1 a world in which everything is visibly interrelated4 ,a host of influences have been read into ,renoir1 and indeed there were many in his development4 ,but they were only the steps by which he mounted to high achievement4 ,so unimportant are the works of most of these other men when compared with ,renoir's personal accomplishments1 that one may visualise this artist as a raindrop on a window1 which1 as it flows downward1 consumes and embodies all those in its path4 ,courbet1 ,monet1 ,delacroix and ,manet1 had they no other claim on posterity than as instructors of ,renoir1 would not have lived in vain4 ,the ,chinese1 the ,greeks1 the ,renaissance1 even that full ,indian sculpture in the ,chaitya of ,karli of the eleventh century ,b4,c4--are all within him4 ,that they are temperamental affinities rather than direct influences none can deny2 but1 strange as it may seem1 he has traits which directly recall each one of them4 ,they all have the ineradicable germ of genius in them2 and that germ1 being changeless and eternal1 lies at the root of all aesthetic creation4 ,for this reason a great man belongs to all time4 ,he embraces all the results of the struggles which have gone before4 ,in the possession of ,renoir we have no apologies to make to antiquity1 any more than in having produced ,cezanne must we abase ourselves before the artists who are yet to come4 ,,vi ,,paul ,,cezanne ,the dilettante1 avid for accounts of an artist's eccentricities1 will find abundant and varied material of this nature in half a hundred books written by critics of almost every nationality on that astounding and grotesque colossus1 ,cezanne4 ,perhaps no great artist in the world's history has been so wantonly libelled1 maligned and ridiculed as he4 ,nor has there ever been a painter of such wide influence so grossly misunderstood4 ,cezanne has been endowed with most fantastic powers1 dismissed with a coup d'esprit for attributes he never possessed1 and canonised for qualities he would have repudiated4 ,like ,michelangelo he has been both the admiration and the mystery of critics4 ,and he is at once the idol and the incubus of present-day artists4 ,his letters alone have formed the technical basis of one great modern art school4 ,a fragmentary phrase of his mentioning geometrical figures was seized upon by a ,spaniard and made the foundation for another school4 ,his mention of ,poussin drove a horde of ,scandinavians1 ,austrians and ,bohemians to a contemplation of that artist4 ,cezanne's very limitations have been the inspiration for an army of hardy imitators who believe it is more vital to imitate modernity than to reconstruct the past4 ,indeed it may be said that all art since ,impressionism is divided into two groups1 one which endeavours to develop some quality or qualities in ,cezanne1 the other which attempts the anachronism of resuscitating the primitive art of a simple-minded antiquity4 ,for even this latter group1 ,cezanne is in part responsible4 ,did he not say that we must become classicists again by way of nature8 ,and did this not give reactionary and servile minds ample excuse to cling with even greater passion to a dead and rigid past8 ,in his great sense of order his disciples saw only immobility2 their minds1 redundant with parallels1 harked back to the ,egyptians4 ,thus has he been emulated3 but1 among all these branches shot out from the mother trunk1 it can be stated incontestably that only one has understood him1 has penetrated beneath the surface of his canvases1 has realised his true gift to the art of the future4 ,and this one1 strangely enough1 is the furthest removed from imitation4 ,cezanne's biography is of value to the art student1 for it embodies in concrete form the factors which motivated his aesthetic apperceptions4 ,by ,cezanne's biography is meant1 not the distorted interpretations of the incidents of his life1 now so well known1 or the superficial conclusions deduced by his biographers from hearsay2 but those actions and temperamental characteristics which are impartially set down at first hand by ,emile ,bernard4 ,to this chronicler we are indebted for practically all the authentic personal anecdotes of the artist4 ,he had always admired ,cezanne1 and in #aijd a personal friendship was established between them1 which endured until the latter's death4 ,after ,cezanne had overcome parental objections and had definitely decided on an artist's career1 he spent much of his time in ,paris4 ,many influences entered into his early life4 ,he had met ,zola at school and had been intimate with him4 ,through him he had become acquainted with ,manet1 and while he appreciated ,manet's friendliness1 he could never understand that artist's great popularity4 ,he preferred ,courbet as a painter1 and studied him sedulously4 ,his great influence1 however1 came from ,pissarro4 ,for that persuasive ,jew's memory he always harboured a deep respect4 ,cezanne's youth1 if one may call forty years a youth1 was1 as he himself put it1 filled mostly with literature and laziness4 ,not until his final renunciation of city life and his return to the south did his best work begin4 ,at first he made friends timidly4 ,he was a man who could not brook opposition1 who was extremely sensitive to rebuffs2 and those good people of provincial ,france were brusquely aggressive in all their beliefs and traditions4 ,at every thought he expressed they sneered4 ,he clashed violently and disastrously with the local celebrities who had the sanction of the established schools4 ,in ,paris he had been a frank and even garrulous companion2 but at each contact with the narrow1 self-centered and righteous community of ,aix1 he withdrew into himself4 ,his natural spontaneity and good-fellowship turned inward1 became restrained and pent-up4 ,he grew sensitive and wary1 and in later life this defensive attitude developed into abnormal irritability4 ,to those who could understand1 however1 he unburdened himself on all subjects1 and his opinions were always the result of profound thought4 ,but he never entirely divulged his methods4 ,if questions became too pertinent1 he consciously led his interrogators astray4 ,they think ,i've got a trick1 he would cry1 and they want to steal it4 ,but nobody will ever put his hooks on me 7pas un ne me mettra le grappin dessus74 ,he had already suffered enough at the hands of self-seekers4 ,he had been extravagantly ridiculed by his boyhood friends4 ,he had been robbed and bullied by his hired architect2 and having money he had been considered prey by the village widows4 ,he permitted himself to be browbeaten because of his antipathy to any kind of friction4 ,it is small wonder he became misanthropic4 ,the popular opinion of ,aix was that he was crazy1 and his chroniclers1 almost without exception1 have echoed this belief4 ,but1 to the contrary1 his was the highest type of the creative mind1 always in search for something better1 never satisfied with present results2 the type of mind which gives no thought to the acquisition or retention of property4 ,his joy lay in his creations of the moment1 but his desires were far ahead4 ,some one who showed him one of his early treasured canvases was ridiculed for liking such things4 ,every day ,cezanne watched his evolution3 to him this progress was the essential thing4 ,he left his unfinished works in the meadows1 in studio corners1 in the nursery4 ,they have been found in the most out-of-the-way places4 ,he had given large numbers of them to chance friends on the impulse of the moment4 ,his son cut out the windows of his masterpieces for amusement1 and his servant and his wife used his canvases for stove cleaners4 ,he saw his work put to these uses tranquilly1 knowing that later he would do better1 that he would realise more fully4 ,his mind was too exalted to be impatient with the pettinesses of life4 ,his great aversion was politics1 and unlike ,delacroix1 he was above nationality4 ,during the ,franco-,prussian ,war he hid with a relative that he might pursue his own ideal rather than sacrifice himself for the protection of his tormentors4 ,what did he care for ,france when his whole admiration was for ,italy and ,holland8 ,painting1 not the preservation of nationality1 was his innermost concern4 ,in evading conscription he called down upon him the public abuse which such actions evoke4 ,but it passed him by3 he was too absorbed in his work to heed1 just as later he was too engrossed to follow his mother's hearse to the funeral or to seek a market for his pictures4 ,at every step he paused to study the rapports of line1 of light1 of shadow1 of colour4 ,at table1 in conversation or at church1 he never for a moment lost sight of his desire4 ,one can find a parallel for this intellectually ascetic creature only in the old martyrs4 ,he was the type that renounces all the benefits and usufructs of life in order to follow the face of a dream4 ,with such self-confidence no adversity could daunt him1 no logic draw from him a compromise1 no flourish of enthusiasm distract him from his course4 ,zola says of him3 ,he is made in one piece1 stiff and hard under the hand2 nothing bends him2 nothing can wrench from him a concession4 ,this quality of character was a thing which ,zola1 the slave of words1 could not understand4 ,cezanne1 through much contact with letters1 saw the danger of literature to the painter4 ,literature1 he wrote1 expresses itself through abstractions1 while painting1 by means of drawing and colour1 makes concrete the artist's sensations and perceptions4 ,zola libelled him at great length in ,l',o,euvre4 ,cezanne's reply was simply that ,zola had a mediocre intelligence and was a detestable friend4 ,in their youth ,cezanne took the ascendency over ,zola in ,latin and ,french verse2 even in his old age he could recite long passages from ,virgil1 ,lucretius and ,horace4 ,he knew literature and was able to judge it4 ,his criticisms of ,zola are as penetrating as any that realist has called forth4 ,his reputation for barbarism1 vulgarity and ignorance has little foundation in fact4 ,to be sure1 he did not desert his work for social activities3 he despised the polished and shallow wit of men like ,whistler3 and he bitterly attacked those painters who strove for salon popularity4 ,it is therefore not incredible that the accusations against him were but the world's retaliation for having been ignored by him4 ,cezanne's work from the first contained the undeniable elements of greatness4 ,in his first1 almost black-and-white still-lives1 executed under the influence of ,courbet 7it is not tenable that they were done under ,manet1 as is commonly believed3 they are too solidly formed for that71 there is exhibited a passionate admiration for volume and for full and rich chiaroscuro4 ,we are conscious of the artist's gropings for those fundamentals he was finally to discover in the seclusion of his rugged country of the south4 ,even his early figure pieces carry this sensual delight in objectivity to a greater height than did ,delacroix by whom they were inspired4 ,and they attest to a freedom from academic principles which was not surpassed by the ,impressionists4 ,these paintings are classic in the best sense2 in them is an orderliness which ,manet and the ,impressionists never possessed4 ,yet1 withal1 they are only the results of the literary influences from ,delacroix and of his admirations for other painters4 ,they are not purely creative1 but the qualities of creation are there4 ,to those who can read the signs1 they unmistakably indicate the beginnings of a full and masterly growth4 ,his potentialities began to actualise with his comprehension of ,el ,greco and the ,venetians4 ,from that period on his power for organisation steadily developed1 and it was still advancing at the time of his death4 ,but organisation touched only the compositional side of his work3 it was the resultant element4 ,his inspiration toward colour which emanated from ,pissarro was what precipitated him irrevocably into painting4 ,colour1 by presenting so many problems1 claimed him entirely4 ,to that ,impressionist he owes much1 not to that artist's actual achievement1 but to the incentive he furnished4 ,during his intimacy with ,pissarro1 ,cezanne completed his assimilation of all the traits in others which were relative to himself4 ,his beliefs and intransigencies became crystallised4 ,the road opened into fields where that new element of colour1 which had taken on so vital a significance1 led to an infinitude of emotional possibilities4 ,though ,cezanne never completely became a defender of ,pissarro's theories1 he always looked upon the ,impressionists as innovators whose importance as such could not be overestimated4 ,he realised that without them he himself would not have existed1 and that they had sketched out a preface to all the great art which was to come4 ,without them there undoubtedly would have been great artists1 but he knew that a painter with the means of a ,renoir is greater than one who1 though equally competent in organisation1 is limited in the mechanics of method4 ,restricted means permit only of restricted expression4 ,the ,impressionists1 having made an advance in aesthetic procedure1 facilitated the experimentations of ,cezanne4 ,but he in turn recognised the restrictions of the ,impressionists' methods3 indeed1 he saw that their theories could apply only to a very circumscribed aesthetic field2 and he was not content with them4 ,he studied assiduously in the ,louvre and absorbed the myriad impulses which had impelled the great masters of the past4 ,the ,louvre and ,pissarro constituted his primer4 ,from the one he got his impetus toward voluminous organisation2 from the other1 his impetus toward colour4 ,from their fragmentary teachings he went on to greater achievements4 ,there is little or no documentary history of ,cezanne's early years4 ,consequently his youthful admirations are not recorded in detail4 ,but we know enough to gauge his early tastes4 ,he travelled in ,holland and ,belgium1 and though he never went to ,italy1 he greatly admired ,tintoretto and ,veronese4 ,he had a high esteem for that master of style1 ,luca ,signorelli1 who1 had he not gone into architecture1 might have become one of the world's great painters4 ,in his studio ,cezanne kept a water-colour by ,delacroix--hung face to the wall that it might not fade1 and beside it a lithograph by ,daumier whom he regarded highly4 ,we may be sure he fully understood the limitations of these men aside from their ambitions4 ,to him they were points of departure rather than goals to aspire to4 ,both of them he surpassed early in his career4 ,cezanne admired also the ,dutch and ,flemish masters4 ,he had an old and dilapidated book of their reproductions full of bad lithographs done by inferior craftsmen4 ,but he overlooked all their defects in his remembrance of the originals4 ,here1 as elsewhere1 he ignored those details which to another would have militated against enjoyment4 ,his mind was too comprehensive and analytic to be led astray by the flaws on an otherwise perfect work3 it penetrated to the essentials first and remained there4 ,thus it was in his work4 ,the exact reproduction of nature in any of its manifestations never held him for a moment4 ,he saw its eternal aspect aside from its accidental visages caused by fluctuating lights4 ,in this he was diametrically opposed to the ,impressionists who recorded only nature's temporary phases4 ,they captured and set down its atmosphere and were satisfied4 ,cezanne1 regarding its atmosphere as an ephemerality1 portrayed the lasting force of light4 ,one is the master of one's model and above all of one's means of expression1 he wrote4 ,penetrate what is before you1 and persevere in expressing yourself as logically as possible4 ,it is this penetration which separates ,cezanne by an impassable gulf from those purely sensitive artists who are content with the merely physiological effects of an emotion4 ,in the process of penetrating he became familiar with those undercurrents of causation from which has sprung the greatest art of all ages4 ,in a ,cezanne of the later years not only is the form poised in three dimensions1 but the very light also is poised4 ,we feel in ,cezanne the same completion we experience before a ,rubens--that emotion of finality caused by the forms moving1 swelling and grinding in an eternal order2 and added to this completion of form1 heightening its emotive power1 is the same final organisation of illumination4 ,the light suggests no particular time of day or night2 it is not appropriated from morning or afternoon1 sunlight or shadow4 ,so delicate and perfectly balanced is this light that1 with the raising or the lowering of the curtain in the room where the picture hangs1 it will darken or brighten perfectly1 logically1 proportionately with the outer light4 ,it lives because it is painted with the logic of nature4 ,whether the picture be hung in a bright sunlight or in half gloom1 it is a creature of its environment4 ,its planes1 like those of nature1 advance and recede1 swell and shrink4 ,in short1 they are dynamic4 ,illustration3 ,,baigneuses by ,,cezanne ,if this feat of ,cezanne's seems to border on metaphysics1 the reason is that there has been no precedent for it in history4 ,it was1 in fact1 a purely technical accomplishment based wholly on the most stringently empirical research4 ,the manner in which he arrived at this achievement may not be entirely insusceptible of explanation4 ,it has been pointed out how the ,impressionists broke up surfaces into minute sensitive parts1 some of which reflected or absorbed more than others4 ,that which gives us our sensation of colour is the atomic preponderance of one of these attributes4 ,thus if an atom or combination of atoms reflects highly it translates itself through the retina into our brains as a high force1 namely1 as a yellow4 ,if an atom absorbs more than it reflects1 it takes and retains the reflective force of light1 and1 in discharging this limited power1 produces in us the sensation of blue4 ,now1 that point on a round object where the light is strongest is the point nearest the light4 ,as the planes of the object curve away from the light they diminish in brilliancy4 ,the further the plane from the point nearest the illumination1 the less light it has to reflect4 ,consequently it will appear bluish4 ,the ,impressionists were satisfied with recording this blue of shadow merely as the complement of the light which was yellow4 ,but ,cezanne studied each degradation of tone from yellow to blue4 ,in this study he discovered that light always graduates from warm to cold in precisely the same way2 and1 that1 provided the model is white1 each step down the tonic scale is the same on no matter what object4 ,but this discovery was little more than a premise4 ,he was now necessitated to solve the problem of just how much the local colour of an object modifies the natural colours of the light and shadow which reveal that object4 ,in all coloured objects the modifications are different1 according to the laws of colour complementaries and admixtures4 ,by keeping these laws always in mind1 and by applying his discovery of the consistent gradations of the colours of light1 he was able to paint in such a way that1 no matter how much or how little outside light of a uniform quality fell on his canvas1 the colours he had applied would1 as they retreated from the most highly illuminated point on the picture1 absorb a graduatingly smaller quantity of actual light1 and would thus create emotional form in the same manner that nature creates visual form4 ,hence1 the planes in a ,cezanne canvas advance or recede en masse1 retaining their relativity1 as the eye excludes or receives a greater or a lesser quantity of light2 and since the light never remains the same for any period of time1 the planes bulge toward the spectator and retract from him with each minute variation of illumination4 ,in all painting prior to ,cezanne1 the natural variations of light distorted the objects of a picture3 that is to say1 the colours of external light changed the character of the applied colours1 making some advance and others retreat2 and because these applied colours were not put on with the exact logic of natural gradations1 the proportions between them could not be maintained4 ,thus in one light certain objects advanced more than others1 and in another light certain objects receded more than others4 ,their relativity was lost4 ,hence1 not only was the picture's composition and balance altered1 but the appearance of its objects belied the actual measurements4 ,these variations were so small that the untrained eye might not have seen them1 any more than an untrained ear may not detect the slight variations of pitch in music4 ,but to the man whose eye is trained1 even to the degree that a good musician's ear is trained1 pictures appear off in the same way that a poorly tuned piano sounds off to the sensitive musician4 ,cezanne1 had he never achieved any intrinsically great art1 would still be a colossal figure in painting because of this basic and momentous discovery4 ,the ,impressionists had been content with the mere discovery of light4 ,their theory was1 not that one can enjoy the natural light of out-of-doors more than the abstract light in a canvas1 but that1 since every one of nature's moods is the result of degrees of illumination1 these moods can only be recorded by the depiction of natural light2 and therefore out-of-door light is an aesthetic means4 ,cezanne recognised the limitations of this theory1 but considered it an admirable opening for higher achievement4 ,he thereupon stripped the ,impressionists' means of their ephemeral plasticity1 and1 by using the principles1 and not the results1 of nature's method1 gave them an eternal plasticity which no great art of the future can afford to ignore1 and which in time1 no doubt1 will lead to the creation of an entirely new art4 ,although ,cezanne had many times given out broad hints of his methods1 his friends and critics were too busy trying to discover other less concise qualities in his work to appreciate the full significance of his occasional words4 ,herein lies the main reason why an untechnical onlooker and admirer can never sound the depths of art4 ,he is too detached1 for1 not having followed its logical evolution from the simplest forms to the most complex1 he is unable to understand the complicated mechanism on which it is built4 ,critics for the most part are writers whose admiration for art has been born in front of the completed works of the great masters4 ,unable to comprehend them fully1 they turn to a contemplation of the simple and naif4 ,their process of valuation is thus reversed4 ,great art is as a rule too compounded for their analytical powers1 and they end by imagining that the primitives and the mosaicists represent the highest and most conscious type of the creative will4 ,what to them is incomprehensible appears of little value2 and here we find the explanation for the popular theory that the test of great art is its simplicity1 its humanitas1 its obviousness4 ,persons who would not pretend to grasp without study the principles of modern science1 still demand that art be sufficiently lucid to be comprehended at once by the untutored mind4 ,a physician may tell them of profundities in medical experimentation1 and they will accept his views as those of an expert in a science of which they are ignorant4 ,but when an artist tells them of recondite principles in aesthetics they accuse him of an endeavour to befuddle them4 ,the isolation of bacilli and the application of serums and anti-toxins are mysteries which call for respect4 ,the equally scientific and obscure principles of colour and form are absurd imaginings4 ,and yet without a scientific basis art is merely an artifice--the ,new ,thought in aesthetics4 ,readily comprehensible painting is no further advanced than readily comprehensible therapeutics4 ,emile ,bernard was little different from the average critic4 ,in attributing to ,cezanne his own limitations1 he restricted what he might otherwise have learned4 ,but the literalness with which he recorded the artist's sayings makes his book of paramount interest4 ,we read for instance that ,cezanne once remarked3 ,here is something incontestable2 ,i am most affirmative on this point3 ,an optical sensation is produced in our visual organ by what we class as light1 half tone or quarter tone1 each plane being represented by colour sensations4 ,therefore light as such does not exist for the painter4 ,by this he broadly hinted at an absolute relativity between the degrees of light forces--a relativity which translates itself to us as colour gradations4 ,again ,cezanne said3 ,one should not say model but modulate4444 ,drawing and colour are not distinct2 as one paints one draws4 ,the more the colours harmonise namely3 follow nature's logical sequences1 the more precise is the drawing4 ,precision in drawing to ,cezanne meant among other things the ability to produce volume4 ,again3 ,when colour is richest1 form is at its plenitude4 ,in the contrasts and rapports of tones lies the secret of drawing and of modelling4 ,in a letter he wrote3 ,lines parallel to the horizon create vastness 7donnent l'etendue71 whether it be a section of nature1 or if you choose1 of the spectacle that the ,pater omnipotens aeternus ,deus spreads before our eyes4 ,lines perpendicular to this horizon give depth4 ,and since nature for us human beings exists in depth rather than surfacely1 the painter is necessitated to introduce into light vibrations1 represented by reds and yellows1 a sufficient amount of blue to make the air felt4 ,these observations are of paramount interest because they touch on the essential principles of his esthetique4 ,they are at once an explanation and a measure of his significance4 ,like all great truths they appear simple after we know them1 or rather after we have experienced them4 ,daumier might have stated with certitude the same principles in relation to tone1 for he always practised them qualifiedly4 ,though his means were limited1 he employed those means as fully as his materials permitted4 ,cezanne1 because he possessed the greater element--colour1 constructed his canvases as nature presents its objects to the sight1 as a unique whole4 ,with all of the older painters drawing came first1 chiaroscuro second and colour third--three distinct steps1 each one conceived separately4 ,daumier was the first painter to approach simultaneity in execution4 ,ignorant of colour1 he conceived his drawing and chiaroscuro together4 ,cezanne went a step beyond1 and conceived his drawing1 form and colour as one and the same1 in the exact manner that these qualities1 united in each natural object1 present themselves to the eye4 ,his method was the same as the mechanism of human vision4 ,compared with ,cezanne1 ,monet was only fragmentary4 ,not only in methods did they differ but in objective as well4 ,the ,impressionists' aim was to reproduce nature's externals3 ,cezanne's desire was to reproduce its solidity4 ,both achieved their ends4 ,cezanne's pictures are as impenetrable as sculpture4 ,every object seems hewn out of marble4 ,solidity alone1 however1 though a high and necessary virtue of painting1 is a limited quality4 ,unless it is made mobile it gives off the impression of rigidity4 ,it is to painting what the rough clay is to sculpture--the dead material of art4 ,in order for it to engender aesthetic empathy it must be organised1 that is1 it must be harmonised and poised in three dimensions in such a way that1 should we translate our bodies into its spacial forms1 we should experience its dynamism4 ,this ,cezanne did1 and therein lay his claim to greatness4 ,in his best canvases there seems no way of veering a plane1 of imagining one plane changing places with another1 unless every plane in the picture is shifted simultaneously4 ,cezanne's solidity is organised like the volumes in ,michelangelo's best sculpture4 ,move an arm of any one of these statues1 and every other part of the figure1 down to the smallest muscle1 must change position4 ,their plasticity1 like ,cezanne's1 is perfect4 ,there is a complete ordonnance between every minute part1 and between every group of parts4 ,nothing can be added or taken away without changing the entire structure in all its finest details4 ,cezanne once said to ,ambroise ,vollard1 a picture merchant1 who had called attention to a small uncovered spot on a canvas which the artist had pronounced finished3 ,you will understand that if ,i were to put something there haphazardly1 ,i should have to start the whole picture over from that point4 ,the individual solidity of ,cezanne's colour planes is due to the eternalism and absolutism of his light4 ,but it was the other qualities which entered into his art which brought about the interdependence of the parts and evoked the sensation of unity we feel before them4 ,one of these qualities was a perfect rapport of lines4 ,cezanne1 better than any other painter up to his day1 understood how one slanting line modifies its direction when coming in contact with another line moving from a different direction4 ,when colour was first investigated realistically1 artists saw that two pure complementary tints1 when juxtaposed1 tended to draw away from each other and to differentiate themselves4 ,therefore they set about to study the influence that one colour has upon another1 assuming that lines were more static and absolute and consequently did not change at contact with other lines4 ,cezanne recognised the fallacy of this assumption1 and wrote3 ,i see the planes criss-crossing and overlapping1 and sometimes the lines seem to fall4 ,he realised that the laws governing the opposition of line are most important in the production of the emotion of movement4 ,in all the old painters this emotion was engendered by just such devices1 but with them the laws were only dimly suspected--instincts rather than applied science4 ,in contemplating their work we seem torn by some physical impulse to follow one line1 but cannot1 because the lure of the other line is equally great4 ,to the man of sensitive and trained eyesight this physical emotion is incited also by nature1 only nature is more complex than art and is without aesthetic finality4 ,thus in regarding the rapports of two lines in nature1 one leaning to the right and one to the left1 the highly sensitive person feels unrest and strife1 and subconsciously produces order and calm by imagining a third line which harmonises the original two4 ,cezanne looked upon nature with perhaps the most delicate and perceptive eye a painter has ever possessed1 and his vision became a theatre for the violent struggles of some one line against terrible odds1 for the warring clashes of inharmonious colours4 ,he saw in objective nature a chaos of disorganised movement1 and he set himself the task of putting it in order4 ,in studying the variations and qualifications of linear directions in his model1 he discovered another method of accentuating the feeling of dynamism in his canvases4 ,he stated lines1 not in their static character1 but in their average of fluctuation4 ,we know that all straight lines are influenced by their surroundings1 that they appear bent or curved when related to other lines4 ,the extent to which a line is thus optically bent is its extreme of fluctuability4 ,cezanne determined this extreme in all of his lines1 and by transcribing them midway between their actual and optical states1 achieved at once their normality and their extreme abnormality4 ,the character1 direction and curve of all lines in a canvas change with every shifting of the point of visual contact4 ,since the unity of a picture is different from every focus1 all the lines consequently assume a slightly different direction every time our eye shifts from one spot to another4 ,cezanne1 by recording the mean of linear changeability1 facilitated and hastened this vicissitude of mutation4 ,another contribution he made to painting was his application of the stereoscopic function of the eye to all models by means of colour4 ,from the earliest art to ,cezanne1 objects have been portrayed as if conceived in vacuo1 with absolute and delimited contours4 ,such portrayals are directly opposed to our normal vision1 for whenever we focus our sight on any natural object whatever1 each eye records a different perspective representation of that object2 there is a distinct binocular parallax4 ,certain parts are seen by one eye which are invisible to the other4 ,but these two visual impressions are perceived simultaneously1 combined in one image2 that is to say3 the optic axes converge at such an angle that both the right and left monocular impressions are superimposed4 ,the single impression thus produced is one of perspective and relief4 ,this is a rudimentary law of optics1 but on it our accuracy of vision has always depended4 ,in the lenticular stereoscope the eye-glasses are marginal portions of the same convex lens1 which1 when set edge to edge1 deflect the rays from the picture so as to strike the eyes as if coming from an intermediate point4 ,by this bending of the rays the two pictures become one impression1 and present the appearance of solid forms as in nature4 ,the problem of how to transcribe on a flat surface in a single picture the effect later produced by a stereoscope with two pictures1 has confronted painters for hundreds of years4 ,leonardo da ,vinci in his ,trattato della ,pittura recorded the fact that our vision encompasses to a slight degree everything that passes before it2 that we see around all objects2 and that this encircling sight gives us the sensation of rotundity4 ,but neither he1 nor any artist up to ,cezanne1 was able to make aesthetic use of the fact4 ,the vision of all older painting 7although by the use of line and composition it became plastic because used as a detail7 was the vision of the man with one eye1 for a one-eyed man sees nature as a flat plane3 only by association of the relative size of objects is he capable of judging depth4 ,cezanne saw the impossibility of producing a double vision by geometric rules1 and approached the problem from another direction4 ,by understanding the functioning elements of colour in their relation to texture and space1 he was able to paint forms in such a way that each colour he applied took its relative position in space and held each part of an object stationary at any required distance from the eye4 ,as a result of his method we can judge the depth and sense the solidity of his pictures the same as we do in nature4 ,cezanne was ever attempting to solve the problem of the dynamics of vision4 ,an analysis of his pictures often reveals a uniform leaning of lines--a tendency of all the objects to precipitate themselves upon a certain spot1 like the minute flotsam on a surface of water being sucked through a drain-hole4 ,we find an explanation for this convergence in one of his letters4 ,he says3 ,in studying nature closely1 you will observe that it becomes concentric4 ,i mean that on an orange1 an apple1 a ball or a head there is a culminating point2 and this point1 despite the strong effects of light and shadow which are colour sensations1 is always the nearest to our eye4 ,the edges of objects retreat toward a centre which is situated on our horizon4 ,it is small wonder that ,cezanne1 obsessed with the idea of form and depth1 should have had little admiration for his contemporaries1 ,van ,gogh and ,gauguin1 both of whom were workmen in the flat4 ,he let pass no opportunity of expressing himself on these artists who of late years have become so popular4 ,van ,gogh was to him only another ,pointillist2 and he called ,gauguin's work des images ,chinoises1 adding1 ,i will never accept his entire lack of modelling and gradation4 ,does not this explain his aversion to the primitives in whom he saw but the rudiments of art8 ,how could ,cezanne1 preoccupied with the most momentous problems of aesthetics1 take an interest in enlarged book illuminations1 when the most superficial corner of his slightest canvas had more organisation and incited a greater aesthetic emotion than all the mosaics in ,s4 ,vitale at ,ravenna8 ,cezanne was never attracted by the facial expressions1 the manual attitudes1 or the graceful poses of his models4 ,the characteristics of materiality meant nothing to him4 ,he was perpetually searching for something more profound1 and began his art where the average painter leaves off4 ,realistic attributes are interesting only as decoration2 they are indicative of the simplicity of man's mind2 they are unable to conduce to an extended aesthetic experience4 ,van ,gogh and ,gauguin said well what they had to say1 but it was so slight that it is of little interest to us today4 ,we demand a greater stimulus than an art of two dimensions can give2 our minds instinctively extend themselves into space4 ,so it was with ,cezanne4 ,he left no device untried which would give his work a greater depth1 a more veritable solidity4 ,he experimented in colour from this standpoint1 then in line1 then in optics4 ,with the results of this research he became possessed of all the necessary factors of colossal organisation4 ,he knew that1 were these factors rightly applied1 they would produce a greater sensation of weight1 of force and of movement than any artist before him had succeeded in attaining4 ,their application presented to ,cezanne his most difficult problem4 ,he must use his discoveries in these three fields in such a way that the very disposition of weights would produce that perfect balance of stress and repose1 out of which emanates all aesthetic movement4 ,the simplest manifestation of this balance is found in the opposition of line2 but in order to complete this linear adjustment there must be an opposition of colours which1 while they must function as volumes1 must also accord with the character of the natural object portrayed4 ,in short1 there must be an opposition of countering weights1 not perfectly balanced so as to create a dead equality1 but rhythmically related so that the effect is one of swaying poise4 ,obviously this could not be accomplished on a flat surface1 for the emotion of depth is a necessity to the recognition of equilibrium4 ,cezanne finally achieved this poise by a plastic distribution of volumes over and beside spacial vacancies4 ,he mastered this basic principle of the hollow and the bump only after long and trying struggles and tedious experimentations4 ,he translated it into terms of his own intellection3 to the extent that there was order within him so was he able to put order into his pictures4 ,this vision of his was intellectual rather than optical2 and ,m4 ,bernard unnecessarily tells us that1 so sure was ,cezanne of his justification1 he placed his colours on canvas with the same absolutism he used in expressing himself verbally4 ,his art was his thought given concrete form through the medium of nature4 ,his painting was the result of a mental process--an intellectual conclusion after it had been weighed1 added to1 substracted from1 modified by exterior considerations1 and at last brought forth purged and clarified and as nearly complete as was his development at the time4 ,for this reason ,cezanne resented the presence of people while he worked4 ,to attain his ends his mind had to be concentrated on its ultimate ambition4 ,it could support no disturbing factors4 ,even though he had no trick which might be copied1 he once said to a friend3 ,i have never permitted anyone to watch me while ,i work4 ,i refuse to do anything before anyone4 ,had he allowed spectators to stand over him he probably would have fatigued them1 for his work progressed by single strokes interspersed by long periods of reflection and analysis4 ,m4 ,bernard would hear him descend to the garden a score of times during the day's work1 sit a moment and rush back to the studio as if some solution had presented itself to him suddenly4 ,at other times he would walk back and forth before his picture awaiting the answer to a problem before him4 ,it is such deliberateness in great artists that has1 curiously enough1 acquired for them a reputation for esotericism4 ,their moments of deep contemplation and their sudden plunges into labour have been interpreted as periods of intellectual coma shot through occasionally by divine flashes of inspiration coming from an outside agent4 ,the reverse is true1 however4 ,an artist retains his sentiency at all times4 ,he necessarily works consciously1 with the same intellectual labours as a scientist4 ,a painter can no more produce a great picture unwittingly than an inventor can construct an intricate machine unwittingly4 ,they are both labourers in the most plebeian sense4 ,cezanne's hatred for facile and thoughtless workmen who continually entertain amateurs1 was monumental4 ,to him they were pupils who1 by learning a few rules1 were able to paint conventional pieces after the manner of thousands who had preceded him4 ,they represented the academicians with whom every country is overrun--the suave and satisfied craftsmen who epitomise mediocrity1 whose appeal is to minds steeped in pedantry and conservatism4 ,in ,france they come out of the government-run ,beaux-,arts school to which the incompetents of both ,america and ,england flock4 ,cezanne harboured a particular enmity for that school2 anyone who had passed through it aroused his scorn4 ,with a little temperament anyone can be an academic painter1 he said4 ,one can make pictures without being a harmonist or a colourist4 ,it is enough to have an art sense--and even this art sense is without doubt the horror of the bourgeois4 ,thus the institutes1 the pensions and the honours are only made for cretins1 farceurs and drolls4 ,in writing of ,cezanne one is led to make a comparison between him and his great compatriot1 ,renoir1 for it is almost unbelievable that one century could have produced two such radically different geniuses4 ,renoir1 first of all1 was not an innovator3 he was the consummation of ,impressionistic means4 ,in ,cezanne1 to the contrary1 we see a man dissatisfied with the greatest results of others1 ever tortured by the search for something more final1 more potent4 ,let us not be satisfied with the formulas of our wonderful antecedents1 he said many times1 and he might have added1 and of our wonderful contemporaries4 ,renoir was the apex of an art era1 while ,cezanne was the first segment of a greater and vaster cycle4 ,renoir1 by mastering his means at an early date1 acquired a technical facility to which ,cezanne1 ever on the hunt for deeper conceptions1 never attained4 ,renoir's genius was for linear rhythm4 ,in the acquisition of this there entered1 in varying degree1 form1 colour and light2 but the line itself was his preoccupation4 ,cezanne's genius was for plastic volume out of which the rhythmic line resulted4 ,that is3 the one constructed his creations out of colour and made colour appear like form2 while in the other's creations1 which are the result of colour1 the colour is felt to be form4 ,in ,renoir is recognised the solidity and depth of form1 while in ,cezanne the colour is a functional element whose dynamism gives birth to form which is felt subjectively4 ,renoir synthesises nature's forms1 by grouping them in such a way that the lines move and are harmonious4 ,cezanne looks for the synthesis in each subject he sits before1 and instead of grouping his forms arbitrarily1 he penetrates to their inherent synthesis4 ,this is why almost every one of his pictures is built on a different synthetic form4 ,his penetration gave him at each essay a different vision of the organisms of a particular subject1 a vision which varied as the subject varied4 ,in ,renoir movement is attained by relating the lines3 ,cezanne has produced harmony by accentuating their differences4 ,in the former the lines lead smoothly and fluently into others1 until they all culminate in a line which carries the movement to a finality2 while in the latter we feel little of that suavity of sequence3 the lines are formed by the spaces between his volumes rather than by linear continuation4 ,cezanne1 if less pleasing1 is the more powerful2 and with all his lack of suavity he is the more complex and less monotonous4 ,the extraordinary imprevu of his formal developments and his unique manner of stating parallels recall the symphonic works of ,beethoven4 ,the ensembles of both are made up of an infinitude of smaller forms1 and both display a colossal power of absoluteness in setting forth each smallest form4 ,renoir's work is more on the lines of ,haydn4 ,after ,michelangelo there was no longer any new inspiration for sculpture4 ,after ,cezanne there was no longer any excuse for it4 ,he has made us see that painting can present a more solid vision than that of any stone image4 ,against modern statues we can only bump our heads3 in the contemplation of modern painting we can exhaust our intelligences4 ,cezanne is as much a reproach to sculptors as ,renoir is to those who continue to use ,impressionist methods4 ,he is the great prophet of future art1 as well as the consummator of the realistic vision of his time4 ,both men deformed nature's objects--,renoir slightly to meet the demands of consistency in his preconceived compositions2 ,cezanne to a greater extent in order to make form voluminous4 ,some of his deformations resulted from extraneous line forces which1 when coming in contact with an object's contour1 made it lean to the right or left1 or in some other way take on an abnormal appearance as of convexity or concavity4 ,m4 ,bernard thinks these irregularities in ,cezanne the result of defective eyesight4 ,but such an explanation is untenable4 ,there is abundant evidence to show that1 to the contrary1 they are the result of a highly sensitised sight--a sight which simultaneously calls up the complementary of the thing viewed1 whether it be a line1 a colour or a tone4 ,this double vision is only a dependency of the plastic mind which1 instead of approaching a problem from the nearest side1 throws itself automatically to the opposite side1 and1 by thus obtaining a double approach1 arrives at a fuller comprehension4 ,while slanting his line and distorting his volumes ,cezanne was unconsciously moulding the parts to echo the organisation of the whole4 ,in turning his pictures into block-manifestations1 he strove for a result which would conduce to a profounder aesthetic pleasure than did the linear movements of ,renoir4 ,after we have enjoyed ,renoir's rhythms we can lay them aside for the time as we can a very beautiful but simple melody4 ,the force of ,cezanne strikes us like that of a vast bulk or a mountain4 ,contemplating his work is like coming suddenly face to face with an ordered elemental force4 ,at first we are conscious only of a shock1 but when our wonder has abated1 we find ourselves studying the smaller forms which go into the picture's making4 ,in the #aijb ,baigneuses of ,renoir each separate figure is a beautiful and complete form which fits into and becomes part of the general rhythm4 ,in ,cezanne the importance of parts is entirely submerged in the effect of the whole4 ,here is the main difference between these two great men3 we enjoy each part of ,renoir and are conducted by line to a completion2 in ,cezanne we are struck simultaneously by each interrelated part4 ,viewing a canvas of the latter is like going out into the blazing sunlight from the cool sombreness of a house4 ,at first we are aware only of the force of the light1 but as we gradually become accustomed to the glare1 we begin to perceive separately objects which before had been only a part of the general impression4 ,the fact that ,cezanne invariably spoke of the motif should have given his friends a clue to his conception of composition4 ,before him composition had been to a great extent the formation of a simple melody of line in three dimensions1 constructed by the forms of objects4 ,it corresponded to the purely melodious in music1 the opening of the theme1 its sequence of phrasing and the finale4 ,cezanne chose a motif1 and in each movement of his picture it is to be found1 varied1 elaborated1 reversed and developed4 ,each part of his canvas is a beginning1 yet each part1 though distinct as a form1 is perfectly united both with the opening motif and with every variation of it4 ,illustration3 ,,pommes ,,sur ,,une ,,table by ,,cezanne ,in this little-understood side of ,cezanne's genius lies an infinitude of possibilities4 ,without an ability to organise1 all his knowledge is worthless to the painter4 ,he himself could apply it1 and his understanding of the exact adaptability of a form to a hollow permitted him to express his knowledge with a force his followers lack4 ,his sensitiveness to spaces and the characters of his forms recall at times the works of ,mokkei who used protuberances and hollows 7namely3 accidents of portraiture and landscape7 to enrich and diversify form4 ,nature to ,cezanne was not simple1 and he never depicted it thus4 ,even in his bathing pieces1 whose disproportions are deplored by many1 the composition is minutely conceived1 not on a simple harmonic figure1 but on complicated oppositional planes4 ,not only are the surface forms perfectly adapted to a given space1 but the directions taken by these forms are as solidly indicated and the vacancies made by them are as solidly filled in1 as in a ,rubens4 ,indeed these canvases1 as block-manifestations1 are nearly as perfect as the pictures of ,el ,greco who was the greatest master of this kind of composition4 ,cezanne should be numbered among the experimenters in art4 ,with him1 as with the ,impressionists1 the desire was to learn rather than to utilise discoveries4 ,the painters from ,courbet to ,cezanne were the first to usher in an authentically realistic art mode1 and they were also the first who sensed the possibilities of inanimate reality for aesthetic organisation4 ,others before them had regarded nature strictly en amateur1 using only the human body for abstract purposes4 ,even ,michelangelo said that aside from it there was nothing worth while4 ,these modern innovators refuted his assertion by proving the contrary1 namely3 by introducing order into chaotic nature4 ,their simple arrangements1 however1 would not have satisfied ,michelangelo who1 like all men who come at a florescence when the lessons have been learned and it remains only to apply them1 demanded an arbitrary organisation which should be not only ordered but composed4 ,cezanne did little composing in the melodic sense of the word4 ,he stopped at the gate of great composition which1 after pointing the future way1 he left for his successors to enter4 ,his synthetic interest was limited to the eternal fugue qualities of nature4 ,he undoubtedly saw the futility of creating polyphonic composition from lemons and napkins1 but he had not found a menstruum in which the qualities of his materials would disappear4 ,the old masters had done all that was possible with the recognisable human body2 ,cezanne's desires for the purification of painting kept him from attempting to improve on their medium4 ,among a great scope of oil subjects one cannot say through which of them ,cezanne has exerted the strongest influence4 ,his landscapes have made as many disciples as his portraits1 and his figure pieces and still-lives are universally copied4 ,but his greatest work1 his water-colours1 has almost no following4 ,in these he found his most facile and fluent expression4 ,his method of working in oil had always been the posing of small1 slightly oblong touches of colour which gave1 his canvases the appearance of perfect mosaics4 ,in his water-colour pictures these touches are placed side by side with little or no thought of their ultimate objective importance1 and they become larger planes of unmixed tints juxtaposed in such a way that voluminous form results4 ,his work in this most difficult medium has an abstract significance1 for in it even the objective colouring of natural objects is unnoticeable4 ,the colours stand by themselves2 and while the aspect of ,cezanne's pictures in this medium is flat and almost transparent1 the subjective emotion we feel before them is greater than in his oil work4 ,in these pictures there was no going back to retouch4 ,they had to be visualised as a whole before they could be commenced4 ,each brush stroke had to be a definite and irretrievable step toward the completion of the ensemble4 ,as we study them a slow shifting of the planes is felt3 an emotional reconstruction takes place1 and at length the volumes begin their turning1 advancing and retreating as in his oil paintings1 only here the purely aesthetic quality is unadulterated by objective reality4 ,in these water-colours1 more than in any of his other work1 has he posed the question of aesthetic beauty itself4 ,when we contemplate them1 we are more than ever convinced that ,cezanne was the first painter1 that is1 the first man to express himself entirely in the medium of his art1 colour4 ,unfortunately these pictures are difficult of access4 ,only occasionally are they exposed in a group4 ,bernheim-,jeune has a magnificent collection of them1 and it is to be hoped they will soon find their way into public museums4 ,eventually1 when a true comprehension of this great man comes1 they will supplant his other efforts4 ,his desires for a pure art are here expressed most intensely4 ,cezanne1 however1 is not always able to realise1 as he put it4 ,even in these water-colours he did not attain his desire4 ,he started too late in life to acquire complete mastery over his enormous means4 ,one must be a workman in one's art1 must know one's method of realisation1 he said4 ,one must be a painter by the very qualities of painting1 by making use of the rough materials of art4 ,he failed to gain that great facility by which supreme realisation is achieved1 because the span of life accorded him was too short4 ,he was old when his best work was begun1 and like ,joseph ,conrad1 he had passed his youth before the great ambition fired him4 ,realising to him meant the handling of his stupendous means as easily as the academicians handled their puny ones4 ,this he could never do1 and his age haunted him to the end4 ,many have taken him literally when he said he desired to expose in ,bouguereau's ,salon1 but though he earnestly wished it1 he desired to be received there as ,bouguereau was3 as one who had mastered his expression4 ,the exterior appearance is nothing1 he explained4 ,the obstacle is that ,i don't realise sufficiently4 ,in other words1 he did not have great enough fluency to permit only the highest qualities of his art to be felt4 ,in his gigantic efforts to realise1 his pictures changed colour and form many times before they were finished4 ,his respect and admiration for inferior men like ,bouguereau and ,couture was due to their enviable facility in handling their means4 ,he knew that the fundamental and unalterable laws of organisation had been found and perfected by the old masters1 and that1 so long as we were human1 we must build on their discoveries4 ,only to realise like the ,venetians6 he cried4 ,and later3 ,we must again become classicists by way of nature1 that is to say1 by sensation4444 ,i am old1 and it is possible ,i shall die without having attained this great end4 ,a year before his death he said3 ,yes1 ,i am too old2 ,i have not realised1 and ,i shall never realise now4 ,i shall remain the primitive of the way ,i have discovered4 ,the prediction proved true1 but his destiny was none the less a glorious one4 ,deprived of the phrenetic impulse which took him in all weathers over country roads to the motif from six o'clock in the morning until dark1 he would never have achieved what he did4 ,the fact of this great modern genius going to work in a hired carriage1 too weak to walk1 should be a lesson to those painters who are always awaiting the combination of propitious circumstances which will provide them with a perfect studio1 a perfect model and a perfect desire4 ,cezanne1 however1 knew his high place in art history4 ,once when ,balzac's ,le ,chef-d',o,euvre ,inconnu was brought up in conversation and the name of its hero1 ,frenhofer1 was mentioned1 he arose with tears in his eyes and indicated himself with a single gesture4 ,so sure was he of what he wanted to do that when he failed he discarded his canvases4 ,many of them are only half covered4 ,he could never pad merely to fill out an arbitrary frame4 ,with ,cezanne's death came his apotheosis4 ,as he had predicted1 thousands rushed in and cleverly imitated his surfaces1 his colour gamuts1 his distortions of line4 ,his white wooden tables and ruddy apples and twisted fruit-dishes have lately become the etiquette of sophistication4 ,but all this is not authentic eulogy4 ,derain1 his most ardent imitator1 is as ignorant of him as ,nadelmann is of the ,greeks or ,archipenko is of ,michelangelo4 ,and the majority of those who have written books concerning him merely echo the unintelligent commotion that goes on about his name4 ,cezanne's significance lies in his gifts to the painters of the future1 to those in whom the creative instinct is a sacred and exalted thing1 to those serious and solitary men whose insatiability makes of them explorers in new fields4 ,to such artists ,cezanne will always be the primitive of the way that they themselves will take1 for there can be no genuine art of the future without his directing and guiding hand4 ,his postulates are too solidly founded on human organisms ever to be ignored4 ,he may be modified and developed3 he can never be set aside until the primal emotions of life are changed4 ,only today is he beginning to be understood1 and even now his claim to true greatness is questioned4 ,but ,cezanne1 judged either as a theorist or as an achiever1 is the preeminent figure in modern art4 ,renoir alone approaches his stature4 ,purely as a painter he is the greatest the world has produced4 ,in the visual arts he is surpassed only by ,el ,greco1 ,michelangelo and ,rubens4 ,,vii ,,the ,,neo-,,impressionists ,the ,impressionists1 although they turned their backs upon casual selectivism and branched out into analytic research1 had--contrary to the generally accepted opinion--no precise and scientific method of colour application4 ,this came later with the advent of a group of painters who have been called1 in turn1 ,pointillists1 ,divisionists1 ,chromo-luminarists and ,neo-,impressionists1 but who chose to regard themselves only as the last of these four designations4 ,and there is perhaps more logic in this nomenclature1 for it is not limited technically2 it contains no claim to achievement as does ,chromo-luminarism2 and it suggests this new school's consanguinity with the movement out of which it grew4 ,with ,delacroix's ,journal1 the pictures of ,claude ,monet and ,chevreul's pioneer treatise on colour1 ,de la ,loi du ,contraste ,simultane des ,couleurs1 the ,neo-,impressionists evolved a coldly scientific method of technique4 ,by carrying a simple premise to its ultimate conclusion1 regardless of everything save the exacting demands of logic1 they endeavoured to heighten the emotional effect of the ,impressionist vision4 ,in this movement1 as in other similar ones1 can be detected the spirit which animates the ardent visionary when he contemplates a novel method--the spirit which invites him to go to even greater extremes4 ,in it there is as much enthusiasm as serious purpose1 as much of the essence of youth as of the arriviste4 ,in no instance has such a spirit led to significant results2 and the ,neo-,impressionists prove no exception4 ,in looking too fixedly at means1 they lost sight of their ends4 ,their debut took place at the last concerted exhibition of the ,impressionists in #ahhf where the canvases of ,seurat and ,signac were hung beside those of ,cassatt1 ,bracquemond1 ,morisot1 ,camille and ,lucien ,pissarro1 ,gauguin1 ,guillaumin1 ,redon1 ,schuffenecker1 ,tillot1 ,degas1 ,forain and ,vignon4 ,here was seen for the first time the logical extension of the earlier methods of ,monet and ,pissarro4 ,georges ,seurat had once been a good student at the ,beaux-,arts1 but his quick1 precise and questioning intelligence had saved him from falling under the professorial injunctions4 ,most of his studying was done in the art museums where he contemplated for long the old masters4 ,here he discovered that there are analogous laws which govern line1 tone1 colour and composition1 as much with ,rubens as with ,raphael1 with ,michelangelo as with ,delacroix3 rhythm1 measure and contrast4 7,by rhythm1 measure and contrast he meant curved lines1 space and opposition47 ,still searching for the secrets of art he studied the works of the ,orient and the writings of ,chevreul1 ,superville1 ,humbert1 ,blanc1 ,rood and ,helmholtz4 ,then1 by analysing ,delacroix1 he found substantiation for his discoveries4 ,the result of this study was1 as ,signac tells us1 his judicious and fertile theory of contrasts4 ,from #ahhb on he applied it to all his canvases4 ,the theory in brief was to use scientifically opposed spots of colour of more or less purity4 ,this method he might have learned direct from the first modern ,french master1 for in that artist's ,journal are discussed at length colour division2 optical admixture2 the dramatic unity of colour1 line and subject2 and the juxtaposition of complementaries for brilliancy4 ,paul ,signac's evolution was different4 ,he had first been under the influence of ,pissarro1 ,renoir1 ,monet and ,guillaumin1 and though being a zealous pupil of their methods1 he knew little of their motives4 ,it was only after he had observed the interplay and contrast of colours in nature that he sought explanation in the works of his masters1 the ,impressionists4 ,failing1 he turned again to nature4 ,in copying it1 he discovered that in the gradation from one colour to another1 let us say from blue to orange1 the transition was always muddy and disagreeable when mixed on the palette1 although if distinct spots of these two colours were juxtaposed in alternating ratio1 the modulation would be smooth and clean4 ,this observation impelled him to seek a method whereby this passage could be highly clarified4 ,consequently he completely divided the ,impressionists' spots so that each individual touch remained pure and at the same time left patches of the white canvas showing for purposes of brilliancy4 ,his next step led him to ,chevreul whose theory of complementaries he committed to memory4 ,his technical education he now deemed complete4 ,seurat and ,signac first met at the ,salon des ,artistes ,independants in #ahhd1 and their discoveries were at once mutually appropriated4 ,signac's colour divisions1 combined with ,seurat's more scholarly equilibrium of elements1 formed the nucleus from which evolved the ,neo-,impressionists who later repudiated ,impressionism1 using it only as the point from which they leapt off into a morass of set formulas4 ,it was a laudable desire on the part of these new men1 especially of ,seurat1 to try to snatch from a purely inspirational school its halo of mystery and to place painting methods on a sound rationalistic basis4 ,but while they were right in believing a picture should be more than the visual accompaniment to sentiments1 they should have gone deeper than the mere exterior of painting4 ,for example1 they should have tried to see in what plastic way their colour theories could be used1 instead of limiting themselves to the synthetic unity of aesthetic illustration4 ,and they should have tried to make a form-producing faculty of their light instead of introducing into it another poetic element in the shape of dramatic line4 ,but they were more concerned with the clothes in the wardrobe of art than in its body4 ,their painting1 as a result1 was without sustaining structure4 ,with the ,impressionists1 as with all significant art movements1 the desire for change and for higher emotional power came first3 the method came later4 ,with the ,neo-,impressionists this order was reversed4 ,their canvases for this reason are less emotional than those of their forerunners4 ,by limiting their palettes to certain pure colours they restricted their diversity of interest4 ,even their aim at a scientific art has gone far of the mark because their science was in many instances faulty4 ,by conditioning their methods on the observations of inaccurate writers they were able to progress only so far as these observations went4 ,chevreul is far from authoritative today3 in fact there is no comprehensive scientific work on colour in existence4 ,tudor-,hart1 the greatest of all colour scientists1 has blasted many of the older accepted theories of such men as ,helmholtz1 ,rood and ,chevreul1 and his experiments have shown conclusively that many of their postulates are unreliable4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists were unaware of ,chevreul's errors1 and their minds were too literal to enable them to make new and more advanced observations in the realm of colour4 ,the meagre attention paid them is not due to their novelty1 but to the fact that they have done nothing the ,impressionists did not do better4 ,they are like a cartridge which1 having all the combustible ingredients1 fails to explode because it is wet4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists may1 in refutation1 point to music as a scientific art4 ,but it must be remembered that taste brought about the construction of chords and that the mathematical explanation came later4 ,the primitive peoples who found an aesthetic pleasure in broken-up major chords were ignorant of nodal points and the laws of vibration4 ,the early ,assyrians had a pipe of three notes1 ,c1 ,e and ,g1 perfectly attuned1 yet they were ignorant of the science of harmony4 ,taste in the arts has always come first3 science follows with its interpretations4 ,the ,impressionists1 through instinct1 created their marvels of light and atmosphere4 ,afterward the science of optics explained their efforts4 ,personal taste was their only criterion1 and no books could have taught them their lesson1 because their methods were so plastic that whatever was to them artistically consistent was right4 ,had they been familiar with science1 it still would have remained to be applied3 and it is only by the superimposition of taste that knowledge in the artist becomes pregnant4 ,the ,divisionists1 by making a hard and fast code of science1 enslaved themselves to the demands of theories4 ,the functioning of their tastes was nullified4 ,they therefore fell short of art4 ,in ,signac's book1 ,d',eugene ,delacroix au ,neo-,impressionnisme1 are explained many points of divergence between this school and that of the ,impressionists4 ,the difference of the two methods may be exemplified by describing the manner in which each approached a landscape wherein the grass and foliage were partly in shadow and partly in sunlight4 ,in such a landscape the artist's eye records a fleeting1 dimly-felt impression of red in that part of the green of the shadow which is nearest the light region4 ,the ,impressionists1 satisfied with having experienced this sensation1 hastened to put a touch of red on their canvas1 while the actual colour in nature might have been an orange1 a vermilion1 or even a purple4 ,in this haphazard choice of a red ,signac detected slovenliness4 ,he says that the shadow of any colour is always lightly tinted with the colour's complementary2 that if the light is yellow-green the shadow will be touched with violet2 if orange1 the shadow will contain blue-green4 ,had the ,impressionists known this fact and cared to use it1 says ,signac1 they could have made their pictures scientifically correct by posing the exact complementary of light in their shadow4 ,and he adds that it is difficult to see in just what way this process would have harmed their work4 ,it is1 however1 not so difficult as he imagines4 ,if1 in copying nature by a strictly scientific vision as the ,neo-,impressionists advocate1 we closely study the light1 we will discover not only that a local colour is modified by the colour of the sun's rays1 but that an added suite of colours is introduced by the absorption of some of the object's particles1 by the encompassing air1 and by the circumjacent reflections4 ,we may have 7#a7 the local colour which1 let us say1 is green1 7#b7 the colour of sunlight1 7#c7 the colour caused by atmospheric conditions1 7#d7 the reflection of sky1 and 7#e7 the reflection of the ground4 ,furthermore1 if the object has any indentures their shadows will lower to a limited degree the whole tone of the object4 ,at the least calculation then we have 7#a7 green1 7#b7 yellow-orange1 7#c7 any colour in the cold region of the spectrum1 7#d7 blue or violet1 and 7#e7 green1 brown1 ,venetian red or any colour in the warm region of the spectrum3--all of which colours change and shift unceasingly1 dependent on the density of the air which obscures1 to a lesser or greater degree1 the sun's rays and hence changes the reflection from sky and ground1 thereby modifying the local colour4 ,thus it is impossible when copying nature even to determine the colour of its lightened parts4 ,and if a colour premise cannot be established1 it is obviously impossible to find its exact complementary4 ,suppose we admit that an approximate colour can be recorded for that part of the landscape's green which is in the light1 that is1 the green whose complement is to be placed on the outskirts of the shadow4 ,let us say that this green is technically a yellow-green1 since it is in the sun4 ,now the complement of yellow-green is not1 as the ,neo-,impressionists hold1 violet1 but red-violet or purple4 ,but1 were red-violet used in the shadow1 its effect would be false1 because1 in order for yellow-green to call up its pure complementary1 the light itself must be an intense yellow-green--so intense in fact that the local colour of the object 7whatever it is7 is entirely absorbed and unable to influence the light4 ,then1 and only then1 would the shadow be pure purple1 for the local colour1 being nullified1 would not interfere with the optical sensation of complementaries4 ,but on an object which appears yellow-green in the light1 the yellow of which is the sun's rays and the green the local colour1 the shadow also is modified by the local colour in the same proportion that the light is modified1 only its modification is in an opposite direction2 that is1 the yellow of the sun's rays1 in raising green to yellow-green1 lowers the green of the shadow to blue-green4 ,therefore the shadow is not the complementary of the light colour4 ,but in the darkest part of the shadow1 which is the boundary dividing it from the light1 there is a sensation of red derived from purple1 purple being the complementary of the yellow-green4 ,thus in a blue object1 though the pure complementary of the lighted part would be orange1 the shadow in sunlight is merely dark blue with that fugitive sensation of red through it4 ,in the shadow on such an object ,signac calls for pure orange1 claiming that a vermilion1 a lake or a purple is out of place4 ,his colour science in the abstract may be unimpeachable1 but his physics is faulty4 ,the sensation caused by the complementary of the lighted part is that of a reddish tint2 and so long as the painter introduces a colour into the shadow so as to give this impression of red1 he is at least empirically1 though not scientifically1 correct4 ,there is only a sensation of red1 not a definite spot where red can be placed2 and for the canvas to be truthful emotionally there must be only that sensation of red in the painted shadow4 ,and the only way to produce it without making a spot of orange1 which is a light colour and which in its pure state has no properties in common with shadow1 is to use a colour which is intimately connected with shadow and which contains the elements of both light and shadow4 ,thus in the cold bluish-orange shadow of a blue object there must be placed a cold lake or a purple which partakes of both the light and shadow and therefore does not offend the eye by its isolation4 ,in the bluish or blue-green shadow of a yellow-green object1 a purple is too aggressive and blatant1 while a blue-violet or an attenuated violet is doubly harmonious4 ,indeed there is another reason why complementaries should not be used1 but merely their approximations set down4 ,perfect complementaries neutralise each other and1 when optically mixed or applied in such small particles in a pure state that at a short distance the eye cannot distinguish their limitations1 produce a metallic and acid grey which is to colour harmony what noise is to music4 ,when ,c and ,g-flat are struck together the sensitive ear revolts in the same way a sensitive eye revolts at complementaries in colour4 ,but while in music a minor1 or diminished1 fifth is displeasing1 by increasing or reducing the interval a semitone1 by making it1 for instance1 ,c--,f or ,c--,g1 a pleasing effect can be obtained4 ,in colour also this principle holds good4 ,the complementary combination of red and green is harsh1 but by placing red with one of the spectrum tones on either side of green a pleasurable harmony is at once established4 ,the ,impressionists through instinct generally made use of colours which primitively or softly harmonised1 again proving the ascendency of taste over system1 for if taste is sensitive it will be verified by science4 ,science1 however1 cannot create taste4 ,when we consider the ,neo-,impressionists' antagonistic and neutralising complementaries1 it is difficult to understand their criticism of ,impressionism4 ,the ,impressionists1 they said1 put a little of everything everywhere1 and in the resulting polychromatic tumult there were antagonistic elements3 in neutralising each other1 they deadened the ensemble of the picture4 ,now in the entire range of colour from violet to yellow there is hardly a possible dual combination which cannot be made harmonious by the addition of one or two other colours4 ,in this process of complication lie the infinite harmonic possibilities of sound as well as of colour4 ,there are no two notes in music which1 though when struck together are jarring1 cannot be drawn into a perfect chord by the introduction of certain other notes4 ,and any two lines1 no matter how inapposite1 can be aesthetically related by other lines properly placed4 ,even were the ,neo-,impressionists1 in their criticism1 referring to the placing of blue in light and of yellow in shadow1 they would still be open to refutation1 for their predecessors1 by placing on their canvases the colours they had felt in contemplating their models1 were once more emotionally right although not exactly right from the standpoint of abstract science4 ,with all the brilliancy of their pure pigments the ,neo-,impressionists have yet to produce a canvas as brilliant or as harmonious as those of the ,impressionists4 ,the reason is not far to seek4 ,in an ,impressionist picture there is a certain amount of neutrality caused by mixing the colour of light with that of blue shadow2 and this mixture heightens the scintillation of the ensemble4 ,the ,divisionists1 on the other hand1 went so far as to abolish neutrality altogether4 ,in raising all values to a point of saturation1 they diminished the brilliancy of the picture as a whole4 ,it is to be doubted seriously if even ,signac is still of the belief that the ,pointillists' squares of colour blend optically4 ,theoretically they should1 but actually the impression we receive is not one of vibrant light4 ,we see only an extended series of spots which are all about the same size--a size which was varied but little as the dimensions of the canvas varied1 as was the case with the ,impressionists4 ,but these latter artists mixed their spots not only on the palette but on the canvas as well1 and blent them into neighbouring spots4 ,the result was a richly decorated surface whose minute parts do not foist themselves upon our sight4 ,but in ,signac1 ,cross1 ,van ,rysselberghe1 ,dubois-,pillet1 ,luce1 ,petitjean1 ,van de ,velde or ,augrand1 who developed these means to their ultimate limits1 these spots are so displeasing and obtrusive that it is mentally impossible to lose sight of them in the contemplation of the pictures4 ,all of these artists produce flat work1 with the possible exception of ,van ,rysselberghe who has merely superposed this technique on an obvious and insensitive academism4 ,he is to the ,neo-,impressionists what ,henri ,martin is to ,monet4 ,illustration3 ,,les ,,tours ,,vertes ,a ,,la ,,rochelle by ,,signac ,there has been too much credit taken by the ,neo-,impressionists for the discovery of this stippling technique4 ,as a matter of fact it is not wholly original with them4 ,turner1 ,constable1 ,delacroix1 ,jongkind1 ,fantin-,latour1 ,cezanne and the ,impressionists were all interested in breaking nature up into parts in order to arrive at a dynamic representation of the whole4 ,the process with them was commendable1 but the ,chromo-luminarists carried it to such an extreme that they saw nature only in order to break it into spots4 ,they repudiate vehemently the appellation of ,pointillists1 and the name that ,emile ,bernard gave them--,pointists--has remained beneath their notice4 ,they point out that one may be a ,pointillist without being a ,divisionist1 for ,pointillism is the using of colour in spots so as to avoid its flat application1 while division is the application of separated spots of pure pigment for the purpose of bringing about an optical admixture4 ,the idea of optical admixture was born when some one placed several planes of different colours on a disc and1 by revolving it rapidly1 caused them to blend perfectly4 ,immediately the ,neo-,impressionists jumped to the conclusion that distance would accomplish the same result with any-sized spots4 ,this assumption was their initial error4 ,there is a very definite limit to the size of colour spots which at a distance will blend optically1 and the artists of this school1 with the one exception of ,seurat1 made their spots too large4 ,delacroix never juxtaposed large strips of complementaries in one plane1 but applied hachures of almost the same tint4 ,the effect would have been little different had he painted flatly1 except for the richer matiere this method produced4 ,the ,impressionists mixed their colours both on the palette and on the canvas1 except when they wished to reproduce a certain texture that called for small lights and shadows placed side by side4 ,and ,cezanne modulated his colour spots so that there were no jumps or hiatuses between them4 ,the ,neo-,impressionistic methods have no such subtleties4 ,in applying their colour these painters keep each spot separated from its neighbour by a tiny bit of white canvas which is intended to give added light to each part4 ,the spots are unmixed and are applied straight from the palette in preponderating proportions to obtain certain general colour impressions4 ,they use only the seven colours of the prismatic spectrum1 and in thus restricting their palette they have limited their range of greys4 ,since nature itself is a series of high-pitched greys in which only occasionally does a pure colour appear1 they were inadequately equipped for reproducing it4 ,if1 by raising all tints to their purity1 they hoped to obtain the maximum of colouration and therefore the maximum of luminosity1 they overlooked the fact that to produce any light whatever there must be negation or shadow4 ,they failed to achieve light because they equalised the brilliancy of all colours4 ,even to produce colour there must be black or grey4 ,their equilibrium of elements led to the cold grey aspect of their work and to the acid and inharmonious effect of their colour4 ,the desire of the ,neo-,impressionists to improve upon the ,impressionistic vision was a sincere one1 and in their striving for dramatic means for heightening the already intense emotional power of their forerunners' work1 they showed themselves to be animated by an ambition for change and improvement without which no vital innovation can be made4 ,their desire was commendable1 but their science was inadequate4 ,their modern spirit was best shown in their search for the significance of line in its harmonic relation to colour and tone4 ,the impetus to this search emanated from ,seurat who dictated to his biographer1 ,jules ,christophe3 ,art is harmony2 harmony is the analogy of contraries 7contrasts71 the analogy of likes 7gradated71 of tone1 of tint1 of line2--tone1 that is to say1 the light and dark2 tint1 that is to say1 red and its complement green1 orange and blue1 yellow and violet2 line1 that is to say1 horizontal directions4444 ,the means of expression is the optical admixture of tones and tints and of their reactions 7shadows7 following fixed laws4 ,delacroix had already turned his eyes in the direction of the harmony of lines and colours4 ,it will be recalled that he wrote in his ,journal3 ,if to a composition1 interesting in its choice of subject1 you add a disposition of lines1 which augments the impression1 a chiaroscuro which seizes the imagination1 and a colour which is adapted to the characters1 it is then a harmony1 and its combinations are so adapted that they produce a unique song4444 ,it is good not to let each brush stroke melt into the others2 they will appear uniform at a certain distance by the sympathetic law which associates them4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists1 taking their cue from ,seurat's observations1 state that the first consideration of a painter before a blank canvas should be to determine what curves and what arabesques are going to divide the surface1 and what colours and tones cover it4 ,even in this aim they went further than the ,impressionists who neither ordered nor synthesised their works formally4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists say they do not commence a canvas until they have determined its complete arrangement4 ,then1 guided by tradition and science1 they harmonise the composition with their conception4 ,that is to say1 they adapt the lines1 colours and tones to an order which aesthetically expresses the character of emotion their model calls up in them4 ,they hold that horizontal lines give calm2 ascending lines1 joy2 descending lines1 sorrow2 and that the intermediary lines represent the infinite variations of emotions that lie outside these first three types4 ,but they offer no explanation of the analogies between these intermediate lines and the kinds of emotion they are supposed to call up4 ,they go on to explain that hot tints and light tonalities should be applied to ascending lines1 cold tints and sombre tonalities to descending lines1 and an equal amount of light and dark to the horizontal lines4 ,thus1 they add1 the painter becomes a creator and a poet4 ,all this theorising would be important for the dramatic illustrators were it entirely true4 ,but while a line placed horizontally may represent calm1 the same line made perpendicular or laid at an angle of forty-five degrees will also produce calm4 ,the straight line varies so little in its significance1 no matter at what angle it is placed1 that its direction is negligible from an emotional standpoint4 ,the degree of curve in a line is its emotional element1 and only when varying curves come in contact is the highest formal emotion obtained4 ,the straight line is the lifeless1 the static1 the immobile4 ,as such it can serve only as a foil to the curved line1 for it is the straight that makes the curved of value4 ,their theory concerning hot colours and high tones is sounder than their linear theory2 but in copying a joyous landscape is one not forced to put on high tonalities and hot colours1 since it is in seeing these high values that we experience the sensation of joy8 ,and is it not from the low values in nature that we receive our sensation of sorrow8 ,one may accentuate the colours and tones1 but if they are too strongly intensified they will approach the other extreme and produce dead and mournful landscapes4 ,this accentuation the ,neo-,impressionists carried to the limit permitted by their pigments4 ,their ideas of line and of joyous and sombre colours are undoubtedly of value if profoundly and extensively comprehended and properly applied4 ,but1 in order to become significant1 line must only delimit organisation and become volume2 and colour1 instead of merely producing joy and sorrow1 must bring about form4 ,then again1 there is that world lying on the further side of flatness which must be explored4 ,with all their theorising and attempts to obtain brilliancy1 the ,neo-,impressionists produce only grey work4 ,from the first these artists were too coldly intellectual1 and it matters little whether their science was right or wrong when we contemplate their pictures4 ,were their science perfect they could never have created art which goes beyond the arabesque and the poetry of arrangement1 for they were not fundamental even in their aims4 ,they have all painted different subjects in slightly varying manners1 but1 apart from ,seurat's1 all their canvases have these things in common3 a uniform range of colour1 a set method of technique1 and the hard and noisy contrasts which in their larger works produce a veritable din4 ,those of the ,neo-,impressionists who are still living claim to have completed ,cezanne1 ,pissarro and ,delacroix1 to have perfected a method1 to have expanded logically the ,impressionists to something worth while1 to be in accord with ,rood and ,chevreul1 to have brought great harmony into painting1 to have taken painting into the pure realms of poesy and symphonic musical composition4 ,alas1 that their claims have no substantiation in our receptivities6 ,illustration3 ,,un ,,dimanche ,a ,,la ,,grande-,,jatte by ,,seurat ,seurat1 the founder1 was the only genuinely artistic man of the movement1 and an early death denied him his chance to develop4 ,though seduced by too exacting a process1 he has nevertheless given us some sensitive and delicately beautiful canvases4 ,le ,chahut1 ,le ,cirque and ,un ,dimanche a la ,grande-,jatte are saturated with light1 and in them is an undeniable order of parallel lines4 ,his colours were never as harsh and acid as those of his confreres1 and his pictures have a blond tonality which the other men of the movement entirely lack4 ,his crayon drawings1 from the standpoint of tonal experimentation1 are interesting and seem almost like paintings4 ,he had a great talent1 and had he lived we might have expected great things from it4 ,he was more vitally interested in style than in technical methods1 and in his conclusions stemmed directly from ,delacroix4 ,his spottings were much smaller and more effective than those of the other ,pointillists4 ,his desire was to express an idea through the medium of nature1 not to copy nature in order to relate the sensation it gave the artist4 ,his painting was synthetic4 ,all details and accidents of colour and silhouette he set aside as useless4 ,his is an art of parallels and analogies1 of sensitivity and analysis2 in fact1 it has all those qualities which1 were they present in greater strength1 would produce significant pictures4 ,he was of one piece2 and his development1 once he had begun to paint1 was an even one toward a definite goal4 ,in him1 alone of the members of the group1 we find an artist and not an illustrator4 ,those who liken him to ,aubrey ,beardsley have less reason for their comparison than the ones who see parallels between ,gainsborough and ,renoir4 ,compare the quoted remarks of ,seurat concerning tone1 line and colour with ,signac's summing up of his method1 and the temperamental differences between the artist and the scientist will at once be seen4 ,signac says his method is observation of the laws of colour1 the exclusive use of pure tints1 the renunciation of all attenuated mixings1 and the methodical equilibrium of elements4 ,one of the most noted followers of the ,neo-,impressionistic methods was the ,hollander1 ,vincent van ,gogh4 ,although generally considered in critical essays as an unrelated phenomenon in the art heavens1 he is closely allied to ,signac and to ,delacroix through ,seurat4 ,he adopted painting1 one is inclined to believe1 because his verbal eloquence was inadequate to bring the ,belgian miners to repentance4 ,he had studied for the ministry1 but like most men who1 finding themselves strictly limited in one vocation1 essay another1 he found himself equally limited in his second4 ,he drifted back to ,holland and began to study painting in the studio of ,mauve1 a relative of his by marriage4 ,his ardent1 even flamboyant1 desire to do good to everyone who crossed his path needed an outlet1 and he found an emotional substitute for pamphleteering in the physical and mental exertion of painting4 ,in this work he could preach unchecked1 secure from arrest4 ,he loved ,millet because ,millet loved the down-trodden4 ,he loved ,delacroix because of that artist's dramatic inspiration4 ,he loved ,daumier because he imagined he saw in ,daumier a satire on the beast in man4 ,he loved ,monticelli because in that ,provencal he sensed a wild gypsy mind and a kindred unrestraint in the use of colour4 ,and he loved ,diaz because ,diaz was a poetic woodman4 ,before coming to ,paris ,van ,gogh had studied in the ,antwerp ,academy1 and while in the ,french capital he met and was influenced by ,pissarro4 ,here he also became acquainted with ,bernard and ,gauguin1 adopting the ,divisionistic methods from ,seurat4 ,he used only pure colours on his palette and mixed them only with white and black4 ,later he went to ,arles where in two years1 from #ahhg and #ahhi1 he painted the great bulk of his work1 averaging four canvases a week through sickness1 drink1 insanity and disease4 ,in him we have a perfect example of just how little can be done with pure enthusiasm unorganised by intellectual processes4 ,his pictures display an entire lack of order1 whether it be of colour1 line or silhouette3 there was never any form in them4 ,his work is plainly the labour of the fanatic who1 in a fury of pent-up desire to express himself1 suddenly seizes a palette and brush and applies colours almost at random4 ,indeed1 some of his pictures were completed in a few minutes4 ,even many of those in which the symbology had to be thought out at length1 were painted in an hour4 ,that ,van ,gogh was an illustrator is undeniable2 but he was an illustrator of the abstract gropings of an unbalanced mind avid for dramatic emotions1 rather than of exterior nature4 ,his landscapes seem to portend the calm before some great upheaval1 or to express a supernatural energy poised for an act of total annihilation4 ,in them there are frenzied lines running zigzag and at random1 and rolling clouds of purple and lurid yellow hanging over raucously bright roofs4 ,his portraits remain with us as memories of a feverish nightmare4 ,they are too hollow and immaterial to appear even as a depiction of form4 ,his colours carried out this feeling of dramatic terror1 and because they were not harmonised with either line or tone1 they became all the more chaotic4 ,he never kept to the spots that ,signac and ,seurat had given him4 ,his impatience was too great2 the fire burned too furiously4 ,he elongated them into strips like straw1 and they give his work the appearance of haystacks4 ,he covered with one stroke more space than ,seurat covered with twenty strokes4 ,this has been called his own apport to art4 ,in ,gauguin1 however1 the same stroke is used1 not so heavily loaded with pure colour1 to be sure1 but just as long4 ,but in ,gauguin the strokes are less noticeable because they all have an analogous direction4 ,with ,van ,gogh they rush wildly about1 now one way1 now another1 sometimes covering the canvas entirely1 sometimes separated to let the white show through4 ,this separating was not done for the same reasons as in ,signac1 but because ,van ,gogh's impatience was too great to permit him to go back and cover4 ,his figures are outlined in broad black or coloured lines1 and colours are juxtaposed with their complementaries4 ,in a ,portrait d',homme1 done in #ahhi1 the background is laid in with a bright green over which are superimposed polka-dots of pure vermilion surrounded by a darker green1 the whole striped with yellow and light vermilion flourishes4 ,on this is a yellowish face whose pompadour hair is made of black1 vermilion and light violet4 ,the collar is light green1 red and blue2 the striped cravat1 red and white2 the coat1 violet and green2 the shirt1 pure green outlined in pure lake1 with orange buttons on it2 and the picture's inscription--,vincent1 ,arles1 '#hi--;is signed in vermilion4 ,in this painting is evidenced his impetuous method4 ,he seemed to feel that the greater the exertion1 the greater the relief from that repressed passion which egged him on to action4 ,illustration3 ,,portrait ,,de ,l',,artiste by ,,van ,,gogh ,landscapes he liked1 and he took pleasure in doing copies of other men4 ,in such works there was no hard and set reality to follow as in still-lives and portraiture4 ,here the colour could be splashed on almost haphazardly4 ,he himself said that still-life was a relaxation4 ,he felt this because to paint still-life his enthusiasm was restricted4 ,anything served for a subject--an old boot1 a single vase1 a coffee-pot4 ,one imagines he tossed these models onto a table from the opposite side of the room1 and painted them in whatever position they fell4 ,in this carelessness the public sees inspiration4 ,and indeed his canvases were inspired1 but only in the same way a starving man is inspired to throw himself upon a sumptuous meal4 ,he painted because he was forced to1 and when painting is merely a physical necessity indulged in to express an unordered religious mania1 it ceases to interest the aesthetician who searches for a complete cosmos bodied forth in subjective form4 ,as a decorator ,van ,gogh is too turbulent and forward2 as a painter of easel pictures he is too chaotic and unintelligible2 but as a blast of misdirected enthusiasm he is not without power4 ,his symbolism1 while not being of the variety which presents ,grecian figures as abstract virtues1 is nevertheless of the same order4 ,he tells us that in painting a young man he loved1 he would make the head a golden yellow and orange1 and the background a rich and intense blue1 as well as transcribing the physical likeness to epitomise his love4 ,thus depicted the young man would be like a bright star in the boundless infinite taking on a mysterious importance4 ,again he writes3 ,had ,i had the strength to continue1 ,i would have done saints and holy women from nature1 who would have seemed to belong to another age4 ,they would have been the bourgeois of the present1 having many parallels with the old primitive ,christians4 ,we see what he was after4 ,van ,gogh possessed all the modern socialistic ideals4 ,he held that individuals could do nothing alone1 but should work in communities1 one doing the colour1 one the drawing1 another the composition1 etc4 ,in his desire for this democratic art factory is seen his absence of self-confidence4 ,it is not strange when we consider his adherence all his life to so childish a technical programme as ,divisionism4 ,this adherence marked the main difference between him and ,gauguin4 ,the latter detested the ,divisionistic method4 ,he wanted to adapt nature's colour and effect to decoration1 while ,van ,gogh wanted to make only abstract dramatic tapestries4 ,they both succeeded2 and though the canvases of ,gauguin have the peaceful utilitarian destiny of interior decoration awaiting them1 ,van ,gogh's work1 once we are rid of the modern habit of welcoming all disorganised and purely enthusiastic work as profound1 will be laid aside forever4 ,he was psychiatric and expended the greater part of his feverish energy through the channel of painting4 ,but he did little more than use a borrowed and inharmonious palette to express ideas wholly outside the realm of art4 ,,viii ,,gauguin ,,and ,,the ,,pont-,,aven ,,school ,the descriptive in art has always seduced the eye of the superficial majority4 ,from this accidental and nugatory side of painting the public has derived all its enjoyment4 ,the moment a depicted object is recognised1 the general pleasure in the arts increases2 and the moment the accepted vision of the object is modified or distorted1 this pleasure decreases and in many instances ceases altogether4 ,one school which deals with a certain class of subjects has its own admirers2 while another school which treats of dissimilar subjects has a different following4 ,furthermore1 the manner in which subjects are portrayed--realistically or impressionably1 poetically or prosaically--has its individual adherents4 ,persons whose temperamental tastes make them antipodal to one method of transcription become enthusiastic over another1 irrespective of the fact that the aesthetic merits of the different procedures are equal4 ,those whose criterion is prettiness are naturally attracted to ,whistlerian and ,cubistic modes4 ,idealists lean toward the symbolic and transcendental painters like ,van ,gogh and ,redon4 ,hardy persons who live largely on the physical plane prefer ,ribera1 ,franz ,hals1 ,sorolla or ,duerer4 ,simple sensualists admire ,goya1 ,rubens1 ,bronzino1 the erotic prints of the ,japanese1 or the pictures of the ,little ,dutchmen4 ,biblical students choose the primitives or the painters of religious subjects4 ,architects like ,guardi1 ,gentile ,bellini and ,canaletto4 ,personal tastes in life dictate tastes in art2 the reason some have a wider taste than others is because their interests are larger4 ,the average person forms his art attachments in the same way he chooses friends4 ,for this reason many art lovers are passionately attracted to ,gauguin1 while others1 obsessed with the theories of modernity1 are impervious to the inherent appeal he incontestably possesses4 ,the ,impressionists were enamoured of nature4 ,their pictures have an almost human physiognomy and are thoroughly joyous4 ,in them one senses the abstract love of beautiful country-sides1 blue distances and scintillating lights4 ,they arouse an emotion in the popular mind because of the familiarity of their themes4 ,gauguin was not content with the landscapes of civilisation4 ,he wanted something more elemental--scenes where an unspoilt and untamed nature gave birth to a race of simple and colourful character4 ,he felt the need of harmonising his people with their milieu4 ,to him it seemed inconsistent to place a fully dressed man or woman in a primitive forest or on the banks of a turbulent stream innocent of commercial traffic4 ,there was a positive immodesty in combining a puny figure1 whose body was too distorted by work to show itself unclothed1 with the majestic nakedness of a primeval landscape4 ,millet's peasants in plowed fields and ,raffaelli's clothed figures in busy streets were not incongruous2 but in most of the landscapes of ,gauguin's day cultivated moderns stalked where ,corot had once put nymphs and ,titian1 ,antiopes4 ,gauguin's sense of harmony in idea precluded any such irrelevancies and anachronisms4 ,his painting was perhaps the highest and most consistent type of illustration the world has produced4 ,judged from this standpoint1 on which it was based consciously1 his art was complete4 ,and inasmuch as he did not strive for profounder things1 it is from this standpoint that he must be approached4 ,what impetus he gave to art came out of his desire to view nature simply1 like a child1 at the same time equipped with all the weapons of a modern intelligence4 ,his art consequently has not only the interest of historic reconstruction but an added interest which1 in spite of our veneer of cultivation and education1 we all feel at times for perfect lassitude and elemental unrestraint4 ,no man is so intellectual that he cannot enjoy occasional recreation and a forgetfulness of mental activities4 ,indeed the greatest minds react so completely at times that they demand the crudest stimulants--melodrama1 wild ,arabian chants1 romance and physical intoxication4 ,gauguin1 appearing in the midst of gigantic and epoch-making aesthetic endeavours1 embodied this spirit of reaction4 ,it was a grave and serious world in which he found himself--the world of ,cezanne1 ,impressionism and ,neo-,impressionism4 ,his nature was too timid and simple for him to throw himself into the whirlpool4 ,instinctively he sought a haven far removed from the strife about him4 ,in the contemplation of the canvases of this modern savage we enter that side of the broad field of aesthetics where the whole world can escape1 as for a holiday1 from the stress of intellectual research1 there to enjoy art simply and receptively1 as one enjoys a dream of strange lands4 ,in ,gauguin there is a power which impels our interest1 hunts out our instinct for the exotic and calls to the fore a romantic love of adventure and a desire for far countries4 ,in this appeal no other painting succeeds like his--not even the ,persian landscapes1 the ,chinese pictorial visions of heaven1 or the lurid images of ,gustave ,moreau4 ,in ,gauguin's ,south ,sea ,island canvases are crystallised our hopes for a ,utopian peace1 our vague memories of an untramelled prehistoric age4 ,calm and sunlight1 the sea and wild mountains--all are here4 ,and we find ourselves amid a peaceful1 music-loving and simple people who1 we imagine1 would welcome the tired traveller and gather round him with offerings of fruit and flowers as he lands on their golden beach4 ,gauguin is purely an image-maker4 ,so abstract a painter is he that his pictures are merely the point of departure from which our thoughts leap into an unlimited world of pleasurable visualising4 ,they move us emotionally1 even mentally1 but never aesthetically4 ,we feel before them exactly what we feel when reading that extraordinary and unique book of his1 ,noa ,noa4 ,indeed he was more literary than artistic1 and to appreciate him fully one should read first his biography written by ,jean de ,rotonchamp1--then ,noa ,noa4 ,after that his pictures will take on a new meaning4 ,he makes his dreams so forceful that we too start to dream before them4 ,his art is of the same calibre as that of ,altichiero1 ,michelino da ,bosozzo1 ,ortolano1 the ,borassa school1 ,manet and ,degas4 ,all these men are illustrators of a high order2 all are impelled by the complete sincerity of their visions2 and all are interesting because of their freedom of expression4 ,it is a new adventure each time we see one of their works1 for adventure is merely contact with the unexpected4 ,in ,gauguin this imprevu is not restricted to unconventionality of balance and the extraordinary arrangement of objects2 but expresses itself in the actual subject-matter as well4 ,his savages1 ready to kill or love with equal unconcern1 bring up to us our childhood enthusiasms for the tales of ,swift1 ,defoe and ,pierre ,loti4 ,his pictures epitomise the call of the natural1 the delight in perfect freedom1 the ideal of an unclothed age4 ,but though his work is calm and outside the world of strife and endeavour1 his life was turbulent1 and tortured by reiterated disappointments4 ,toward the end he wrote to a friend that he fell over-often1 and arose only to fall again4 ,as with the sailor new horizons ever stretched before him1 and their promise of better things was never consummated4 ,his energy was drained by a continual struggle against the forces of civilisation just as the sailor's is weakened by unceasing battles against the elements4 ,the spot where at last he found refuge was far from his ideal4 ,but in this ideal world he always imagined himself living1 and his painting took on its colour and atmosphere4 ,just as he advised his followers to draw a curtain in front of their models1 so he drew the veil of imagination before his eyes and saw only what he wished to see4 ,in this almost fanatic idealism he was undoubtedly actuated by fear of life's gross realities1 for he was not content merely to live apart3 he was forever attempting to ameliorate the trying conditions which arose from ,french misrule in the ,marquesas4 ,for his pains he was condemned to gaol and later was made an outcast4 ,this friction with the established order1 however1 had to do only with ,gauguin the man4 ,gauguin the artist remained to the end a contented and passionate dreamer4 ,to understand his art and its actuating impulses it is necessary to know something of his colourful and adventuresome life4 ,of all modern painters1 he1 more than any other1 was reflected in his work4 ,as a youth he had gone to sea and served a six-year apprenticeship before the mast4 ,he next became a successful banker and to all outward appearances was satisfied with the status of a wealthy citizen4 ,but all the time the love of change and the nostalgia for strange lands were at work within him1 and though spending six days a week in an office he painted every ,sunday4 ,it was ,pissarro1 admired by ,gauguin from the first1 who persuaded him to forego everything save his art4 ,this he did in #ahhc4 ,from that time on he became a derelict who had to seek support from his friends4 ,although at times he was forced to work in offices1 edit papers and grow fruit1 the donations from those he knew were the backbone of his resources4 ,he had met ,van ,gogh in ,paris in #ahhf1 and two years later accepted the latter's invitation to visit him on the bounty of ,van ,gogh's brother ,theodore at ,arles in the south of ,france4 ,here1 where he had expected to find conditions conducive to work1 his life was1 according to his own accounts1 in constant danger4 ,the ,dutchman1 he says1 attacked him often1 and sometimes ,gauguin1 awaking with a start1 would see ,van ,gogh stealing across the room to him with a knife4 ,such a life was impossible1 and after a regrettable incident in which he was blamed for the amputation of ,van ,gogh's ear1 he returned to ,paris4 ,the year before this he had made a short trip to ,martinique1 and while in ,europe had lived at ,pouldu1 ,copenhagen1 ,rouen1 ,pont-,aven1 ,concarneau and ,paris4 ,again he went to ,brittany4 ,he wanted quiet and was ever ill at ease among the superficialities of a hypocritical civilisation4 ,but there1 while protecting a negress1 he was attacked by some sailors1 and his injuries forced him to return once more to ,paris4 ,the negress had preceded him1 and when he arrived he discovered that she had robbed him of his entire studio equipment4 ,at this time1 ,verlaine1 ,moreas1 ,aurier1 ,julien ,leclerc and ,stuart ,merril1 who called themselves the symbolist poets1 saw in him a comrade4 ,in #ahia they gave a benefit performance in the ,vaudeville for him and ,verlaine4 ,maeterlinck's ,l',intruse was staged for the first time1 and ,gauguin's share of the proceeds was enough to pay his passage to his longed-for tropics4 ,two years later found him back again with many canvases and a strange and grotesque costume1 heavy rings on every finger1 wooden shoes and a cane of his own carving4 ,he was impatient for praise and admiration and large sales2 but none of these came to him4 ,at a sale of his work in the ,hotel ,drouot in #ahie so small a sum was realised that his friends again took pity on him1 and ,carriere secured him a cheap passage back to his beloved islands4 ,his adventures in the tropics make poetic and romantic reading4 ,his premature death1 at which only one old cannibal was present1 was a fitting climax to a life given over to a hopeless search for the ideal4 ,while still in a banker's office1 and before he had met ,pissarro1 ,gauguin had painted as an amateur2 and as early as #ahgc he had exposed a landscape4 ,but when he became personally acquainted with ,pissarro1 who had a way of inflaming the minds of the younger and naturally revolutionary men of his day1 his impulses toward art became overpowering4 ,his early training under this violent heretic was so thorough that he never made a concession to the public or retrogressed toward scholastic formulas4 ,being a born painter1 he quickly absorbed the ideas of the ,impressionists1 and exposed with them in the ,rue des ,pyramides in #ahhj and #ahha4 ,his first canvases were wholly ,impressionistic and much like ,guillaumin's4 ,even as late as #ahhg1 after he had known ,cezanne and had become imbued with the blazing brilliancy of ,martinique1 ,gauguin still clung to his earlier technique4 ,his ,paysage de la ,martinique is one of his best-ordered works and also one of his most fluent4 ,however1 he had become dissatisfied with ,impressionist precepts and had gone to ,brittany to get closer to a more natural people1 to a cruder and more rugged landscape4 ,there he had seen and admired the ,gothic statues1 the simplicity of which appealed to him intensely4 ,on his return from the ,south ,seas these statues1 direct1 stiff and archaic1 combined with his late vision of scintillant light and hot1 luscious colour1 became active influences in his work4 ,gauguin had a considerable amount of ,peruvian ,indian blood in him1 and his desire for the ,south was not a superficial one4 ,rather was it an atavistic necessity for the wild that made him intolerant of cities and culture and highly complex modes of living4 ,this same instinct1 manifesting itself through his art1 drove him toward a simple and direct statement of a vision1 toward an unrestraint which no civilised community would permit him4 ,he wanted something naive--something expressed by broad planes and rich colours4 ,he had imitated the ,impressionists1 copied ,manet's ,olympia and seen ,giottos2 and by reducing these varied influences to their simplest terms he made his art4 ,emile ,bernard1 an indifferent painter and writer1 who temperamentally was not unlike ,gauguin1 claims priority for this manner of painting2 but even if it were true1 it would mean nothing4 ,gauguin's canvases of #ahhh give undeniable promise of what he would eventually do1 and in #ahhi his ,jeunes ,bretonnes fully reveals the trend of all his later endeavours4 ,bernard was at best but a clever imitator1 and his canvases in ,gauguin's style appear inferior and superficial when compared with such pieces as ,tahitiennes and ,ruperupe4 ,the ,impressionists went toward descriptive beauty1 but ,gauguin searched for and found an emotional interpretation of nature adapted to large decoration4 ,it is problematical whether or not he is artistically indebted to ,van ,gogh1 for one can attribute the fact that he painted his best ,european pictures immediately after his return from ,arles either to ,van ,gogh's teachings or to the effects of southern colour and atmosphere4 ,the question though is of little importance4 ,every man1 no matter how great or small1 goes through a formative period in which he receives numerous influences4 ,at any rate1 just before ,van ,gogh died he called ,gauguin maitre4 ,during their final periods1 however1 we know that the two men differed totally2 and in #ahia ,gauguin showed that he was under no man's influence4 ,in the ,femmes ,assises a l',ombre des ,palmiers and ,vairaoumati ,tei ,oa1 he was already the ,gauguin we know so well4 ,the first is a sunlit landscape with the hills and palm-trees broadly and flatly painted4 ,the women who are seated in the great pool of cool shade have all the sagely childish drawing that we find later in his more complete pictures4 ,in the second1 the flowered stuffs1 the heavy limbs and the perpendicularity of design1 which appear so frequently later on1 are more than suggested2 and the colour has all the beauty of his best efforts4 ,it was after ,gauguin's first sojourn to the ,islands that he came back to ,france a barbarian1 eager to stupefy the world of arts not only by his pictures but by his very attire4 ,in this he failed4 ,the public had barely recovered from its ,impressionist shock1 and ,gauguin went to ,brittany4 ,here he gathered about him many of the painters he had known before1 as well as some new ones1 and formed a group of young men who were ready to react against the pettiness of the ,neo-,impressionistic methods and to establish a new art school4 ,they called themselves ,synthesists1 afterward ,cloisonnists1 and some of them later became ,classicists4 ,here forgathered ,serusier1 ,maurice ,denis1 ,filiger1 ,de ,hahn1 ,seguin1 ,verkade1 ,anquetin1 ,laval1 ,louis ,ray1 ,chamaillard1 ,fauche1 ,bernard and ,schuffenecker1 few of whom are discoverable today4 ,among these painters the slightest tendency toward divisionistic methods was looked upon as heresy2 and religious pictures were in the ascendant1 especially with ,verkade4 ,the enthusiasm of these young men for their simple and synthetic retrogression to the elemental led them to decorate tavern walls and ceilings1 to paint windows and barn doors1 and to proclaim themselves on all occasions as the only authoritative and vital artists of the day4 ,they had forgotten ,renoir and ,cezanne because they detested all intellectual and scientific accuracy4 ,and they had not known the latter with sufficient intimacy to be directly influenced by his work4 ,under the sway of ,gauguin's unsophisticated aesthetics and ,bernard's rhetorical eloquence they went far afield in their search for a simple and elemental synthesis4 ,zeal was not wanting4 ,they argued1 caroused and fought continually4 ,this last activity was the cause of ,gauguin's lameness all the rest of his life4 ,little or nothing of lasting merit came out of this group which1 though it moved from ,pont-,aven to ,pouldu1 has come to be known as the ,pont-,aven ,school4 ,most of its members are dead or have been swallowed up in the commercial currents of today4 ,a few1 like ,bernard1 ,fauche and ,schuffenecker1 are doing indifferent art4 ,they contributed nothing to the modern idea outside of the impetus they gave to the anti-academic spirit4 ,there was among them more enthusiasm than talent1 more polemical energy than genius4 ,gauguin1 though he talked as loudly as the others1 painted also4 ,at length their conversations lost their novelty for him4 ,he felt once more the call of his ,islands4 ,he was still after an ideal1 a congenial setting4 ,these things ,france could not give him4 ,again1 the necessity of accepting charity from his friends was too humiliating a trial for a nature so timid4 ,his high-handed attitude was only a mask to hide his desire to shrink away4 ,he was always uneasy in cities and unhappy among people who did not try to understand him4 ,he detested the artificialities of ,parisian women4 ,his robust sensuality craved a more solid and artless ,eve4 ,in ,france his nature1 so responsive to the glow of colour and the primitive lure of archaic forms1 saw only chill tints and inutile complications4 ,to him the ,south meant the richness and heat of romantic emotions1 the satiety of the senses4 ,it appealed to his deep love of chaotic and untrammelled nature4 ,he had tasted it before in his seafaring1 and he turned to it now as to an only salvation4 ,it was at this time that ,carriere arranged the passage4 ,gauguin was never to see ,europe again4 ,the ,impressionists had made infinitesimal spots of colour in order to imitate as exactly as possible the colour effect of nature and to increase the dynamic power of a canvas by making it give off a light of its own4 ,by this technique they had incorporated both air and sunlight into their art4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists made mathematical the ,impressionists' haphazard stippling and had turned the spots into almost symmetrical squares4 ,the squares were slightly separated1 and the bare canvas was permitted to show between them in order to achieve a greater brilliance and a more vivid light4 ,van ,gogh later elongated these squares into threads until his pictures resembled tapestries4 ,there was no longer the technical unconcern in painting which ,pissarro and ,monet had prescribed4 ,paradoxically enough1 while art was growing more scientific it was also becoming less significant4 ,with the men of ,pont-,aven the reaction against a too technically self-conscious painting began to set in4 ,their ardent advocacy of primitive conception and method was the rebound from the pseudo-scientific verbiage which1 in the advanced studios1 took the place of good painting4 ,consequently they favoured the broad arrangement of surfaces2 classic1 if the artist leaned temperamentally in that direction2 barbaric1 if his tastes so inclined him2 ,gothic1 ,chinese1 ,japanese or primitive--all according to which his inclination led him4 ,but all work had to be completed during the first fury of inspiration1 conceived imaginatively1 and executed from the decorative standpoint4 ,gauguin1 by his quick wit and youthful impetuosity1 easily dominated the circle and developed1 through the constant interchange of opinions1 his vague ideas concerning a synthetic art4 ,on his third and last voyage to the ,islands his greatest work was done4 ,here he carried out those ideas which had had their inception at ,arles and which had become crystallised at ,pont-,aven4 ,he made his art entirely out of colour1 but instead of profiting by the teachings of ,daumier and ,cezanne whose visions were the most simultaneous in the history of art1 he chose rather to emulate the early and ingenuous schools of plastic expression4 ,in this his painting was retrogressive4 ,but there was another and more important side to ,gauguin4 ,he at least strove for a larger and more purely emotional interpretation of nature than had been attempted before3 and our interest in him is due largely to the broad and peaceful vision he gives us4 ,monet put many greens in one tree4 ,gauguin saw the tree as green1 but by depicting it in broad planes of pure pigment1 he made it a more intense green than ,monet could ever have done4 ,a metre of green is greener than a centimetre of green1 said ,gauguin2 and this principle he applied to all his work4 ,instead of portraying light by colour as the ,impressionists did1 he interested himself only in the colour which resulted from light4 ,thus he was able to raise his paintings to the highest possible pitch of purity1 while still being preoccupied with nature4 ,in painting a landscape where a woman with a cerulean blue dress was seated among green trees on an ochre beach with purple hills in the rear1 and where the yellow sunlight shone on the tree trunks and in the woman's hair1 ,gauguin would first of all draw apart the blues as much as possible4 ,the woman's dress would be painted almost blue-green1 and in order to contrast this colour with the other blue in his subject1 he would paint the sky blue-violet-violet4 ,thus he would produce a greater range of emotional colour than if the two blues had been pale and similar in tint4 ,furthermore1 he would make the sunlight a yellow-orange-orange and the sand a spectrum yellow4 ,the trees would then be recorded as yellow-green and the hills as red-red-purple4 ,by this process all the parts of the picture were differentiated1 with the result that the canvas had a strong carrying power4 ,this power was further increased by the figures being sharply outlined4 ,gauguin's composition has little importance4 ,it takes the form of perpendicularities1 and rarely is any rhythmic order discernible4 ,it is of a piece with the ,romanesque painting in ,saint-,savin near ,poitiers4 ,all his objects are personifications of calm1 and are rooted in their environment as well as in the earth4 ,they do not seem merely to pose there3 ,gauguin's work is not superficial to this extent1--but they grow naturally out of their matrix like flowers or trees1 unconscious but immovable4 ,the passivity which pervades them is not the calm of completion or of the perfect rest which comes after mental exercise1 but rather the calm of the lethargic mind which avoids thought1 dislikes action and is content to dream4 ,technically this feeling is caused by lines at right angles to the horizon1 by big simple planes on which the eye can rest free from the disturbance of line opposition1 by large flat patterns of dark tonality conducive to peace and introspection4 ,even the contoured volumes have a greater extent of base than of apex and thus add to the picture's aspect of immobility4 ,gauguin's drawing is interesting in that it portrays a race highly susceptible of picturisation4 ,his models are impelling because it is an adventure to explore their parts1 their joints1 their distortions and disproportions4 ,their beauty is heavy and cumbersome1 like that of the stone images of the ,aztecs4 ,that which interests us most in ,gauguin however is his colour4 ,in this medium he arrived at a sumptuousness unsurpassed by preceding painters4 ,his art was a new application of the old principle of wall decoration4 ,many had made use of broad planes of colour before his advent1 but none had heightened the significance of these planes sufficiently to express nature4 ,he was the first realist in decoration1 and from him come1 by direct descent1 ,matisse and a horde of lesser men like ,fritz ,erler1 ,leo ,putz1 ,r4 ,m4 ,eichler1 ,adolf ,muenzer1 ,rodolphe ,fornerod1 ,alcide ,le ,beau and ,gustave ,jaulmes4 ,the aesthetic import of a ,puvis de ,chavannes is almost equal to that of ,gauguin1 but the former's greys and grey-blues appear washed-out and dead1 while ,gauguin's pictures vibrate with the heat of tropical sunlight and the richness of tropical colour4 ,gauguin1 however1 could get no orders4 ,his work was too sensuous4 ,interior decoration would have had to be far more joyous than it was at that time for his exotic creations to find a place on walls and ceilings4 ,gauguin's animating desire was to synthesise his picture--to make each part of them relative to all the other parts1 to order them as to colour1 line and tone in such a way that they would give forth the impression of a simple vision1 a perfect ensemble4 ,this desire was in the air of the day4 ,the ,impressionists had unconsciously approached synthesis by using light and air as a solvent4 ,cezanne had gone much deeper and ordered form by means of colour4 ,in ,seurat ,gauguin saw almost completely set forth an expression which by its simplicity satisfied him4 ,some assert that he was also influenced by ,degas4 ,but whether this is so or not1 certain it is that there is more of ,ingres in him than of ,giotto4 ,with ,seurat as a starting-point--that is1 the linear ,seurat of ,la ,baignade and ,un ,dimanche a la ,grande-,jatte--,gauguin quickly abolished the tiny and labourious spotting which ,impressionism and ,pointillism had taught him1 and branched out into simpler design and greater chromatic brilliancy4 ,by these departures he achieved his synthesis4 ,but this triumph must not be overestimated4 ,there are degrees of synthesis4 ,rubens1 ,giotto1 ,degas1 ,ingres1 ,boecklin1 ,botticelli--all are synthetic1 but all are by no means of equal importance4 ,while synthesis is necessary to art1 it is not the ear-mark of great art alone4 ,the order which is obtained by three harmonious lines is not so extended an order as that found in the multilinear drawings of ,pollaiuolo3 and this complication of aesthetic ordonnance is what makes a ,donatello more significant than a piece of negro sculpture1 a ,scarsellino greater than a ,matisse1 and an ,el ,greco more puissant than a ,mazzola-,bedoli4 ,furthermore1 when this complete surface order extends itself into three dimensions it becomes an infinitely greater moving power4 ,when from simple straight lines on a flat surface the artist carries his creation into opposition1 development and finality1 he is pushing the frontiers of his painting to art's extreme limits4 ,gauguin's temperament was simple in the extreme4 ,he had fallen under the sway of ,manet3 he had gone to a rugged country of primitive instincts where singular costumes were a part of the landscape3 he had studied the stone and wooden figures in the old churches and cross-roads of ,brittany1 and had found the elemental to his liking4 ,consequently in synthesising his art he used simple forms1 straight lines and large planes of shadow and light1 all of which were presented on a flat surface1 so that all the parallelisms and elementary curves of the picture would deliver themselves to the average spectator at first glance4 ,his method of filling or balancing a canvas was little more than primitive1 and the curved lines of light and shadow1 which are intended to entice the eye1 are so isolated that when we at length arrive at their end we discover they are without rhythmic intention4 ,nor is there a generating line out of which the others grow4 ,gauguin's linear harmony is no greater1 if a trifle more diverse1 than in the ,byzantine mosaic decorations in ,s4 ,vitale4 ,indeed the emotion we experience before each of them is to all purposes the same4 ,the richness of medium in the mosaics is amply compensated for by ,gauguin's richness of foliage forms and floral designs4 ,the decorative colours in both are equally effective4 ,as moderns we might get more enjoyment out of ,gauguin's heat and brilliance and the diversity of his silhouette1 but at the same time there is a greater archaeological attraction and a more spiritual interest for us in the ancient work4 ,intrinsically one is as great as the other4 ,those seeking for calm will find it in equal degree in both1 for in each it is produced by the same method3 by the static representation of form rather than by a sequence of movement4 ,gauguin's sculpture has the same qualities as his paintings1 and resembles the religious effigies of some barbaric tribe4 ,the figures are upright and rigid1 their backs against a straight support1 as in ,egyptian architectural art4 ,illustration3 ,,deux ,,tahitiens by ,,gauguin ,gauguin said many times that when a painter was before his easel he must not be the slave either of nature or the past4 ,this is true1 but as a principle it is too limited4 ,although he himself lived up to it1 he did not go far enough beyond it to do truly significant work4 ,he arrived at the brilliancy of nature by a method distinctly different from nature's2 and while refusing to be dominated by the past1 his temperament was such that he fabricated an art much closer to antiquity than that of the ,zaks and the ,rousseaus who servilely imitated it4 ,he accomplished what he set out to accomplish4 ,his failure to give birth to great art was due to the intellectual limitations of his ambitions4 ,his place in modern painting1 however1 is secure4 ,that great cycle of aesthetic endeavour which was set in motion by the discovery of oil painting found its termination in ,rubens4 ,the cycle which ,delacroix and ,turner ushered in was less extended4 ,being more concrete in its aims1 it took only five decades to reach completion in the works of ,renoir4 ,the first cycle1 born with fixed materials1 was based on an absolute and physiological law of composition which can never radically change1 and therefore permitted of an extensive development and variation4 ,decadence naturally set in after its means had lost their ability to inspire artists4 ,the second cycle was one of research1 and during it artists were so narrowly focused on nature that they lost sight of the foundation laid down during the first cycle4 ,had their concentration not been rudely disturbed their data hunting would have carried them hopelessly afield4 ,gauguin exposed the futility of the meticulous imitation of nature's effects1 and by so doing took a step forward toward liberty of method4 ,for this reason he is of importance4 ,painters were rapidly becoming scientists4 ,by turning men's minds away from nature to broadly natural pictures ,gauguin invited them once more to become artists4 ,he was the link which joined experimental research to pure creation4 ,the first cycle gave us an absolute composition3 the second furnished a scientific hypothesis for art3 the third1 of which ,cezanne was the primitive1 combined the first two and thus opened the door on an infinity of achievement4 ,gauguin prevented the second from running into decadence by showing its uselessness as an isolated procedure4 ,,ix ,,degas ,,and ,,his ,,circle ,the development of art itself is no more mechanical than the artistic development of the individual3 in both there are irregularities1 retrogressions1 forward spurts1 divagations4 ,renoir first appeared with a rhythmic line-balance which first grew luminous1 then voluminous1 until it blossomed forth into his full form and line and colour4 ,sometimes he leapt ahead in one quality and deteriorated in another1 abandoned one for the glory of the other1 and sacrificed continually until by experience he knew his limitations4 ,then consciously1 with all the reins in hand1 he progressed steadily to his highest point of efficiency4 ,art in general also advances sporadically4 ,delacroix gave a new freedom to subject and drawing1 resuscitated composition and found a new use for colour4 ,he was the embryonic statement of the ends of modern art4 ,courbet1 ignoring colour1 totally divorced subject-matter from antiquity and liberated drawing from the accepted style4 ,he carried art forward1 but not in a direct line4 ,daumier gave us a new conception of form1 but contented himself with ,spanish colour3 his art1 though fragmentary1 was another step toward a unique vision4 ,then came ,manet who1 forgetting composition1 exalted the documentary freedom of ,courbet and began the study of light4 ,he1 also1 was a continuation of the modern art impulse1 but in his struggle for the new he forgot the foundations4 ,the ,impressionists accepted passively all that had come before4 ,they raised colour to an important place in painting and brought it to the consideration of all artists by showing its potency in the production of intense emotion4 ,renoir used their inspiration2 reverted to the past through ,delacroix1 ,courbet and ,daumier2 combined all that had preceded him2 and in an incomparable flourish closed up the possibilities of his experimental forerunners4 ,in him was a consummation4 ,but there had to be a transition also1 unless art was to stand still4 ,gauguin1 though he went so far back that he passed to a time when composition did not exist1 interpreted1 but did not imitate1 nature4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists continued the impetus of ,pissarro4 ,cezanne unearthed secrets from nature which linked him to ,impressionism1 and by applying them arbitrarily to classic organisations1 became an interpreter of the past as well as of the future4 ,at each step of this broad and prolific advance there were those painters who1 profiting by the teachings of the great1 set themselves to imitate and ornament the exteriors of their faintly-understood masters and to emphasise the qualities of texture1 matiere and prettiness4 ,so rapid was the evolution of modern endeavour that nearly every painter overlapped his seemingly remote predecessor4 ,edgar ,degas was born more than twenty years before the death of ,delacroix4 ,he was one of those painters who1 content to remain stagnant1 employ the qualities which have been handed down to them and breathe into old inspirations the flame of individual idiosyncrasy4 ,he was a man who impressed everyone by the strength of his personality and by the power of his caustic wit4 ,in his youth he travelled in ,italy and ,america and went to school1 not for artistic training1 but merely as a concession to the conventions of the day4 ,he copied ,holbein and ,lawrence4 ,in his earlier portraits there are undeniable traces of the ,german master3 the ,lawrence influence exhibited itself in his femininity more than in actual technical innovations4 ,he was an enthusiastic visitor to the ,cafe ,guerbois on the ,avenue de ,clichy where1 from #ahfe until the war1 ,manet was the dominating figure1 and where the ,impressionists and such men as ,lhermitte1 ,cazin1 ,legros1 ,whistler and ,stevens came to discuss aesthetics4 ,although never radically opposed to scholasticism1 as were these other men1 ,degas was nevertheless persuaded to share in a joint exhibition in #ahfg with his revolutionary companions4 ,but the ridicule of the public disgusted him so thoroughly that he never exposed again4 ,he shut himself up in his studio1 and there1 isolated from his fellow painters and the vulgar populace1 worked out his own salvation4 ,he instinctively hated the brummagem show of popularity and put into his every subject this disgust with life's hypocrisies4 ,even in his prancing ballet figures1 though they are in full light and amid joyous settings1 one senses the satire which led to the depiction of their apparent sans-souci4 ,one reads in them the sordid misery of their home life1 the long trying hours of muscular strain1 and the deceit of their simulated smiles4 ,his synthetic figures--synthetic in that they were without details and accidents of contour which would detract from the vision of the whole--came to him direct and with little variation from ,ingres--not the ,ingres of ,stratonice but the ,ingres of the drawings in the ,musee ,ingres at ,montauban4 ,his study of this master gave him a greater insight into the academic construction of the human figure than any school could have done4 ,it permitted him to set forth a firmly drawn body in any pose with equal ease4 ,this facile mastery of action is one of his greatest claims to popularity4 ,gauguin held that nothing should be moving in a canvas1 that all the figures should be static1 arrested in their pose1 and calm4 ,degas represented ,gauguin's antithesis4 ,he strove to catch his model in flight4 ,he immobilised their elan1 and registered those characteristics of a model which express action at its intensest dynamic instant4 ,in all his racecourse pictures the very horses have that delicate balance of mincing tread that we first feel when we look at their prototypes in life--that dainty and slight resiliency as of weight on springs4 ,monet1 on the one hand1 caught the ephemeral effect of light on nature3 ,degas1 on the other1 recorded the fleeting movement of objects1 that is1 the physical poise of a granted image1 not the aesthetic poise which transmits itself to our subjectivities4 ,he surprised the actional segment which epitomises the entire cycle of movement4 ,everything he touches becomes as charming and interesting as a wellstaged scene4 ,his sympathies with the ,impressionist colour methods and his manner of handling his material add to this charm and make pleasurable1 fresh and adventuresome what would otherwise be banal and sometimes even ugly and devoid of interest4 ,he paints the racehorse1 which ,gericault first introduced into ,french art1 and1 by surrounding it with a vernal spring atmosphere1 violet hills and green and ochre stubble1 and by catching its instantaneous action1 makes of it a picture with a rich and colourful surface--a surface beside which a ,gericault1 judged from the same illustrative standpoint1 appears stiff and black4 ,degas1 in short1 paints the kind of pictures which the general public calls artistic--a word which1 though loosely used1 has come to have a distinct connotation when applied to arts and crafts4 ,vases1 plaques1 panels1 screens1 decorations1 posters and book-plates are all artistic provided they fulfil certain simple requirements4 ,the bizarre exteriors of ,german art have given great impetus to this qualitative adjective4 ,the word is used indeterminately1 and its popular meaning has not been defined4 ,but in ,degas we find it exemplified2 and by studying him we may discover its exact limitations4 ,artistic commonly refers to paintings in which the exactitude of drawing is lost in a nonchalant sensibilite1 and in which the matiere takes on a seductive interest merely as a stuff or a substance1 the love of which lies deep in the most intellectual of men4 ,the tactile sense will be found at the roots of the average person's idea of an artistic work4 ,this desire for superficial and material beauty1 as of a rare porcelain or of scintillating old silk1 is a part of the same physical sensuality which makes some men choose rough-grained canvas1 others the stone of the lithographer1 others the fluid brushing of a ,whistler or a ,velazquez4 ,the desire for texture is what led ,degas to pastels4 ,his pictures have something more than an illustrative value2 they are highly attractive as objets d'art as well4 ,but while this attractiveness heightened the popular value of his work1 it indicated the inherent decadence of his aims4 ,nor was it the only sign of his retrogression4 ,there is not even pictorial finality in his work4 ,he never painted subjects as such1 but used them only as bases for arabesques4 ,surface-covering was his forte1 and it is not remarkable that one so sensitive to objective action should have been such a master of balance4 ,he could never have achieved such perfect balance had he not realised that a work of art must be done coldly and consciously and without passion for the model1 and that all enthusiasm should come only from the progressing work itself4 ,his arrangements are wholly natural ones1 and we feel that no studio posing has gone into their making4 ,in this naturalistic attitude he was continuing the modern spirit of arbitrary subject selection found in ,courbet1 ,manet and ,pissarro4 ,but where these men painted with colour1 ,degas only tinted his drawings4 ,consequently his colour1 as well as composition1 was a reversion to a sterile past4 ,although we may admire his ,apres le ,bain1 ,la ,toilette1 the ,trois ,danseuses1 ,femme au ,tub1 ,la ,sortie du ,bain1 ,torse de ,femme ,s',essuyant1 ,musiciens a l',orchestre for their verisimilitude and lightness of treatment1 their imprevu of arrangement and balance and their charm of colour1 we can never credit their creator with even a slight genius1 for all his pictures lack the rich volumes of a ,daumier and the order of a ,renoir4 ,illustration3 ,,danseuses ,a ,,leur ,,toilette by ,,degas ,degas was neither academic nor revolutionary4 ,he struck a middle course in which the scholastic and the heretical blent1 and in blending neutralised each other's characteristics4 ,in his canvases he tells inherently commonplace stories1 but he does it with the force and the graceful ease of one on whom all the visions of the world have made a powerful impression4 ,life meant to him a pageant1 neither moral nor immoral1 but real1 and as such interesting4 ,if in what he tells us there seems a bit of the cynical indifference of a mind too fully disillusioned1 it never obtrudes itself4 ,he himself might have been surfeited and bitter1 but his work contains only the barest hint of his temperamental retrospection4 ,his comprehension of life's tragedies did not spoil his enjoyment in depicting them4 ,louis ,legrand reveals the metropolitan lust of mankind2 ,forain1 its bestiality2 ,toulouse-,lautrec1 its viciousness4 ,each was prejudiced in some direction4 ,degas merely goes behind the scenes and by stripping his characters of their pretences shows them to us as they are1 intimately and unsentimentally4 ,the other men in this circle of illustrators of which ,degas was the dominant figure had distinctly individual traits4 ,in no sense were they followers of one leader4 ,their preoccupation with illustration alone held them together4 ,degas has given us well-balanced patterns with fragilely lovely surfaces4 ,he was little interested in the traits of his models3 he cared more for the picture than for individual character4 ,with ,henri de ,toulouse-,lautrec this mental attitude was reversed4 ,in his work are specific members of the demi-monde1 marionettes who have all the accentuated vices1 vulgarities1 fatigues and pretensions of their trade4 ,in their faces1 moulded by unrestrained indulgences1 joys and sorrows1 we can read their innermost hopes and aspirations4 ,we can reconstruct their entire day's activities4 ,in order to study his characters ,lautrec went to the milieu where gaiety was unchecked1 where the denizens of the under-world--those unreal beings who live like fantastic flowers nourished by artificial light and colour--come to work and play4 ,he saw and set down the principals in the ,bohemian music halls1 the cafes-concerts and the cirques1 and those daylight moralists who come to relax viciously at night with all the laisser-aller of violent reaction4 ,his search was for character2 and in these establishments character did not masquerade in the hypocritical garb of pride and dignity4 ,passions were aired frankly1 even proudly4 ,lautrec had personal as well as artistic reasons for choosing this sphere4 ,he had an ardent1 almost febrile1 desire to live fully and furiously4 ,he was deformed2 he had a man's head and body on a child's legs--the result of incompetent bone-setting in his youth4 ,his family was a very old and noble one3 his father was a sportsman1 a lover of horses1 a sculptor in his leisure moments4 ,all the pride of race and dignity of class tumbled from its pedestal in this young artist4 ,he had worked in the schools of ,bonnat and ,cormon1 had met and admired ,forain1 and had finally been revealed to himself by ,degas who led him to the theatre4 ,he drank much1 one suspects1 to forget his deformity1 just as ,van ,gogh drank to forget disease4 ,he sought solace in the ephemeral1 visionary life of the cafes2 and no action1 no type1 no expression escaped his probing notice4 ,he had many friends to whom he confided4 ,i am only half a bottle1 he would say4 ,he adored women impersonally and romantically1 but in his own station of life they looked upon him askance4 ,consequently he lived where money would always buy attention and where good-fellowship was repaid with good-fellowship4 ,lautrec was an indefatigable worker1 but his pictures possess little of the surface beauty of a ,degas4 ,rather do they attest to a love of exaggerated and uncommon form1 as do ,chinese paintings4 ,but in him is more order than in ,degas4 ,compare ,une ,table au ,moulin-,rouge with ,degas's ,cafe-,concert4 ,in the first the character in the physiques of the principals harmonises with the character of the faces2 and the female figure's hair1 hat and fur-trimmed coat indicate the artist's love for grotesque and beautiful abstract form4 ,there is more than balance here3 there is the rudiment of an instinctive composition which ,degas never had4 ,beside this picture the ,cafe-,concert seems flat silhouette1 sprightly and entertaining1 but far from profound4 ,the nucleus of composition can be found in all of ,lautrec's best canvases1 especially those he painted after his return from ,spain4 ,toward the end of his life he worked1 for the most part1 with a full brush and rich colours4 ,before this1 however1 pencil1 chalk1 lithographs and water-colours had claimed him4 ,his greatest fluency was in the use of separated hachures of rich greyish colour on neutral backgrounds4 ,this method of application permitted him line as well as colour2 and with his lines1 summary and economical though they were1 he caught the animality of his subjects with as sure a hand as ,monet caught the light and ,degas the action4 ,lautrec1 with ,cheret1 revolutionised the poster art4 ,there are few men today in this field who do not owe much to him4 ,his love of the eccentricities of his model was an ideal gift for the poster-maker1 and he had himself sufficiently in hand not to be led into the grotesque4 ,he was a caricaturist in that he exaggerated characteristic traits1 just as ,matisse did in his sculpture4 ,he always noted fully the uncommon1 and his love of every manifestation of life gave him a wide range of inspiration4 ,life was his great adventure2 his art was merely his diary4 ,he is a historian of the theatre of his time and has left salient portraits of ,loie ,fuller1 ,polaire1 ,sarah ,bernhardt1 ,mounet-,sully1 ,yahne and ,anna ,held4 ,his types of the raptorial woman of the past--the kind that today is found in the hidden corners of ,les ,halles1 at the fortifications and about the ,rue de la ,joie--are as real as the female characters of ,balzac1 ,daudet1 ,augier and ,prevost4 ,they live in his pictures because one feels that they once were realities3 his caricaturisations of them1 as of his clowns and dancers1 only intensify their intimate humanity4 ,to some it may seem strange that ,lautrec should have liked ,massys and ,memling4 ,but in the first he found trenchant characterisation1 especially in such things as ,head of an ,old ,man1 ,the ,courtesan and ,portrait of a ,canon4 ,and he was temperamentally akin to ,memling in such arrangements as the latter's ,the ,casting of the ,lots 7a detail of ,calvary7 and ,our ,lord's ,passion1 at the ,museum in ,turin4 ,that the illustrators of this group were decadent is borne out in their subject-matter as well as in their methods4 ,since the earliest recorded antiquity artists have been attracted to the moving1 the glittering1 the brilliant2 and the human occupation which embodies these three qualities most obviously is dancing4 ,the men who are in love with life and not art and who paint and draw pictures merely to record their impressions1 have always been hypnotised by the colour1 the grace1 the fluent movement and the rhythmic shiftings of dancers4 ,these men1 unable to analyse their emotions1 have dreamed only of depicting objectively their photographic impressions of the dance4 ,the artists who penetrated to the fundamental causes of rhythm used the dance only arbitrarily1 whereas the superficial painters of the past saw in it merely the mosaic1 the pattern1 the arabesque4 ,they thought that in portraying the dance literally they would arrive at its motive significance4 ,but in this they failed4 ,had they done their figures in clay or stone they would have approached nearer their desire4 ,but even this more masculine medium has1 with few exceptions1 resulted in failure4 ,the dancing girls in the ,grottoes of ,mahavelipore were used only by those puissant masters of form as friezes or shapes to fill in and ornament a vacant space4 ,the ,tanagra figurines are a purely decorative endeavour4 ,in ,greece it was not the men of ,praxiteles's calibre1 but the smaller talents like the potters who used the dance in their designs4 ,even a man as slight as ,hokusai leaves it to a ,toba ,sojo to make his models caper4 ,but the feminine talent of ,degas finds in the dance absolute and unordered expression2 and ,lautrec and ,legrand1 both more robust than ,degas1 though minor and ornamentally illustrative artists1 are seduced into portraying it often4 ,louis ,legrand was more of the maker of pictures than were his two contemporaries4 ,his nature leaned toward the heavy and boisterous ,sodoma rather than toward the ,latin ideal of ,tiepolo4 ,this almost ,teutonic racial penchant in him explains why the bestiality of his subject-matter is so often done in the manner of ,goya1 with broad black and white masses1 not with the suggested line and the attractive matiere of his master1 ,degas4 ,there is much ,teutonic blood in ,spain1 and ,goya1 while being far the greater artist even in his slightest etchings1 is the nearest approach to ,legrand in the treatment of themes4 ,goya paints moral decay with disgust and genius1 whereas ,legrand1 with his slight gropings after order of a surface variety1 glories in it as in a pursuit1 and paints it with a leer4 ,the ,spaniard uses it as a temperamental means4 ,the ,frenchman1 whose whole talent lies in a formula of draughtsmanship1 works toward its creation as an end4 ,his shallowness is at once apparent when we compare his ,maitresse or his illustrations for ,edgar ,allan ,poe's tales with etchings like ,donde ,va ,mama or ,buen ,viaje4 ,psychologically he is intimately related to the fin de siecle movement in ,england2 and1 although a better and more healthy workman1 he has a temperament singularly akin to that ineffectual ,victorian academician1 ,walter ,sickert4 ,in ,j4-,l4 ,forain we have a man of different stamp1 one who1 knowing his ability for certain things1 clings to them and does not attempt to thrust himself into the rank of artist4 ,by developing his small potentialities to their highest actuality he has achieved as much as his confreres have by extraneous tricks and appearances4 ,and there is no doubt that he comprehends art much better than they4 ,his iconoclastic and acidulous cynicism1 his ability to wrench from behind the veil of mundane hypocrisy the real motivation of an action1 and his probing analysis which cannot be imposed upon by pretence1 have touched on many sides of contemporary life--politics1 extortion1 courts1 merchants1 the beau monde1 prostitution1 religion1 the theatre and the tawdry ,bohemianism of ,montparnasse4 ,with a few straight and fluent strokes of the pencil he builds up a type of the blustering parvenu ,jew1 the mercenary picture dealer1 the childish and vain actor who is avid for praise and obsessed with his vocation4 ,forain calls the actor a ,m'as-tu-vu8 and depicts him as with that phrase ever on his lips4 ,baudelaire ,chez les ,mufles is one of the world's greatest monuments to human hypocrisy4 ,a chlorotic bourgeoise is standing in the centre of a small gathering reciting ,baudelaire's verses4 ,around her are grouped types of self-satisfied and vicious masculinity1 all pretending1 like the speaker herself1 to be feeling deeply the hidden spirituality of the poem4 ,some of the men have their heads raised high1 others bowed low1 for purposes of concentration4 ,the whole picture is rough-hewn as though done with an axe in a square of clay4 ,with the simplest means the artist gives us the impression of rugged stone and1 at the same time1 completion4 ,the titles to his drawings are in the exact spirit of the pictures themselves1 succinct1 brutal and penetrating4 ,forain is the second greatest caricaturist the world has produced4 ,he was not the artist that ,daumier was1 but as a serious creator of types and as a highly intelligent critic of contemporary shams1 he is a master1 even as ,daumier was a master of a realm far above him4 ,forain perfected what he set out to do1 and for this praise is due him4 ,that his ambition ran along a subpassage of aesthetic endeavour1 as did that of his three confreres1 he would be the first to admit4 ,as artists these men cannot be judged either by the surface quality of their works or by their penetration into life and character4 ,such considerations have nothing to do with aesthetic emotion4 ,no matter how much we may eulogise such painters--for they must be judged by their own standard rather than by a criterion set by a ,rubens--our praise will never place them in the rank of plastic creators4 ,they will ever remain in the realm of nearly perfect workmen with literary apperceptions4 ,toulouse-,lautrec1 because of his love of formal distortion for its own sake1 probably comes nearer the higher level3 there is in his work a slight aesthetic element4 ,degas will ever remain the piece of old velvet in a frame2 ,louis ,legrand1 the illustrator of the bachelor clubs2 ,forain1 the expositor of life's pretensions4 ,it is these men who have given the greatest impetus to realistic illustration in all countries4 ,viewed from this standpoint they were a salutary1 as well as a diverting1 manifestation4 ,by burrowing down into the depths of material existence they made unimportant such poetic men as ,beardsley1 ,rossetti and ,moreau4 ,all good illustration after them took on a deeper meaning4 ,it ignored the mendacious surfaces of things and strove to reproduce the undercurrents which lie at the bottom of human actions and reactions4 ,its mere prettiness was supplanted by subcutaneous characteristics4 ,it sought for motives rather than emotions1 for causes rather than effects4 ,it became critical where once it had been only photographic4 ,from ,degas1 ,lautrec1 ,legrand and ,forain comes directly the best illustrative talent in both ,europe and ,america4 ,without these four men we would not possess the best work of ,max ,beerbohm1 ,hermann ,paul1 ,bellows1 ,maxime ,dethomas1 ,roubille1 ,carlopez1 ,carl ,larson1 ,albert ,engstroem1 ,c4 ,d4 ,gibson1 ,e4 ,m4 ,ashe1 ,boardman ,robinson1 ,cesare1 ,blumenschein and ,wallace ,morgan1 the last of whom is unquestionably the most artistic illustrator in either ,america or ,england4 ,x ,,henri-,,matisse ,while the bitter struggle against the narrow dictates of a retrospective and so-called classic academy was in progress1 and before the older scholastic forces had finally been put to rout1 the ,impressionists calmly arrogated to themselves the authority of their dumbfounded predecessors4 ,their pictures1 because more restricted and not based on the fundamentals of art1 soon became as familiar and commonplace as the paintings of ,gerome1 ,cabanel and ,bouguereau1 and in becoming familiar settled into the groove of a new academism as immobile and self-satisfied as the old4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists were the first to react against them1 and later ,gauguin and his fellow synthesists openly declared war4 ,cezanne at that time was little known and less understood4 ,living apart and alone1 he was counted out of the main struggle4 ,the decadents of the movement1 ,degas and his circle1 continued their popularising process3 their eyes were so fixedly turned inward that they saw little of what was going on about them4 ,gauguin1 putting aside imitation of nature for interpretation1 began the great movement which was to culminate in the most extreme reaction against ,impressionism--,cubism4 ,and ,matisse who1 arousing public interest in the new1 is responsible for the popular ,cezanne discussions of today1 was the next man to carry on ,gauguin's work of pigeon-holing ,monet and his followers4 ,but whereas the ,impressionists had completely forgotten the classics1 ,gauguin wished to recommence the entire cycle by reverting to the forefathers of those very classics4 ,he also had his decadent followers1 but there was no one to continue his methods and inspiration4 ,if it is difficult to perceive an analogy between him and a painter like ,jacopo dei ,barbari1 compare the works of these men with a later drawing by ,matisse4 ,the similarity of the first two1 by being contrasted with the latter1 will at once become apparent4 ,gauguin clung close to the drawing of the primitive ,christians2 and the classic seed within him1 though it never flowered1 was never dead4 ,while the form in ,matisse at times has all the suavity of contour of a ,liombruno or a ,romanelli1 there is a more purely sensitive reason for it than in the well-taught decadents of the later ,renaissance4 ,in the classes of ,bouguereau and ,carriere at the ,beaux-,arts he had seen to what an impasse a too great love of antiquity would lead4 ,furthermore1 with his many copies in the ,louvre1 by command of the state1 he began gradually to realise that the classics had become a fetich1 and that the only salvation for a painter was to seek a different and less-known inspiration4 ,this course was not so difficult as it had once been1 for the younger men had already liberated themselves from popular mandates4 ,the freedom of the artist was now an assured thing1 and while the public still scoffed and offered suggestions1 it no longer felt that a man's expression was its personal concern4 ,to be sure1 popular rage against things which appeared incomprehensible was still evident1 but it was the impotent rage which sneers because it can no longer strike4 ,the ,salon des ,artistes ,independants was in full swing1 and the new artists who had ideas rather than tricks and who were intent on discovering new fields through devious experimentation1 found therein a refuge where they could expose as conspicuously as could the academicians4 ,in this healthful ,salon ,matisse has exhibited regularly up to a few years ago1 and it was here and in the ,salon d',automne--another exhibition which at first was animated by high ideals but which has lately fallen into the hands of cliques and picture merchants--that his fame took birth4 ,with ,matisse's advent we behold the paradox of an artist who is in full reaction against the ,impressionistic and classic doctrines and who at the same time reveals a certain composition and makes colour of paramount interest4 ,the ,matisse of exotic inspiration came from the studio of ,gustave ,moreau who1 by his intelligent toleration of the virile enthusiasms of his pupils1 facilitated the way toward complete self-expression4 ,there are ,matisse drawings extant which are impeccable from the academic standpoint--drawings in which is found all the cold right drawing of the school4 ,there are paintings in the ,neo-,impressionistic manner1 except that they display a sensitive use of harmonious colours1 which should have shown ,signac and ,cross the error of their rigid science4 ,also there are still-ives which recall ,chardin1 one of ,matisse's great admirations2 and at least one study of a head1 done in ,colorossi's old academy on the ,rue de la ,grande ,chaumiere1 in which a love of ,cezanne's form and colour mingles with a respect for ,manet's method of applying paint4 ,gauguin too served as a provenance for the later colour vision of ,matisse4 ,indeed it is as much from ,gauguin as from ,cezanne that he stems4 ,the broad planes of rich tones and the decorative employment of form in the former had as great an influence in ,matisse's art as did the perfect displacement of spaces in the canvases of the ,provencal master4 ,gauguin1 while still leaning to the classic1 desired a fresher impetus4 ,he therefore sought distortion in exotic inspiration2 but the man who was led to distortion through a pure love of unfamiliar form and to whom ,matisse owes the deciding influence toward a new body1 was the ,spaniard ,goya4 ,the deformed1 the grotesque and the monstrous were with ,goya a passion4 ,in his ,caprichos it is easily seen that he1 too1 was tired of the established formulas regarding the human body1 and strove to vary and enrich it4 ,by emphasising a characteristic trait1 by shifting a certain form1 by exaggerating a certain proportion1 he sought to obtain1 as did ,matisse1 the complete expression of what he felt to be essential in his model4 ,the deformations in ,gauguin came as a result of an outline which after the first drawing was left unchanged for the sake of its naif effect4 ,but in ,goya and ,matisse the deformations are the result of a highly developed plastic sense which glories in new and unusual forms4 ,with them the human body is treated as the means through which an idea is expressed--an idea of form1 not of literature4 ,compare1 for instance1 the drawing called ,deux ,tahitiens1 one of ,gauguin's best works1 with ,matisse's ,baigneuses1 a canvas of three nudes one of which is playing with a turtle4 ,in the former the proportions are distorted as much as in the latter1 but these proportions are flat and are an end in themselves4 ,they have no intellectual destiny4 ,in the ,matisse picture the exaggerations grow out of a desire to express more fully the form which the artist has felt to be important and characteristic4 ,in the seated woman the torso and neck constitute a personal and original vision1 and the crouching woman's back has as much solidity as the ,venus ,accroupie of the ,louvre4 ,matisse's simplified vision of form came1 as did all synthetic modern art1 from ,ingres and ,daumier through ,seurat1 ,degas and ,gauguin4 ,that ,ingres1 the master of so classic a school1 should have unconsciously felt the need for modifying and simplifying an object is a significant indication of the fatigue which is always produced by an adherence to a set form4 ,in his drawings the details are omitted merely because they do not further the achievement of his own particular kind of beauty4 ,in ,daumier they are absent because they detract from the spontaneous emotion of the whole2 in ,degas and ,manet1 because they hinder the fluency of action and obscure the complete and direct image2 in ,seurat1 because they interfere with the suavity of line itself2 and in ,gauguin1 because they preclude that naivete of appearance he wished to obtain4 ,in ,matisse began the conscious process of making form arbitrary1 of bending it to the personal requirement of expression4 ,in ,cubism form became even more abstract4 ,in ,ingres's drawings there is an entire lack of suppleness3 his figures appear like a first sketch in wood for a ,german carving4 ,in ,gauguin this wooden look becomes a trifle more fluent2 the proportions are artistically improved4 ,and in ,matisse there is no trace of the awkward or the stiff4 ,while his form is more simplified than that of the two other painters1 the simplifications come as a result of that artistic rightness of proportion which is an outgrowth of the ultimate refinement of knowledge and taste4 ,illustration3 ,,baigneuses by ,,henri-,,matisse ,the trick of drawing of a ,louis ,legrand has no parallel in ,matisse4 ,in the work of the latter each figure or object1 no matter how many times he has already drawn it1 has a distinctively novel construction and presents a new vision4 ,all familiar joints and hackneyed interpretations are absent4 ,we have seen1 for instance1 the deltoids drawn in every conceivable pose of stress or calm4 ,when one speaks of a nude we immediately visualise it with the angular shoulders1 with the accustomed bulges over the upper arm which have been painted there in the same manner since the early ,renaissance4 ,in the delineation of deltoids the painter had become stagnant1 accepting their conventional appearance as an external truth and recording them without thought4 ,matisse revolted against this fixed standard4 ,glance through his later nudes--and there are many of them--and every shoulder will present a different appearance2 every arm will take on a novel form4 ,we speak here of these particular muscles because they seem to obtrude themselves upon the sensitive sight more than any others4 ,matisse1 seeking to overcome this structural monotony1 made each shoulder he drew a new form1 a new adventure1 by expressing1 not the actual bone and muscle of the clinic1 but the salient meaning of that shoulder in a given milieu4 ,it is this same desire to do away with the hackneyed forms of art that has driven the modern poets away from classic metres and caused them to seek a more plastic and adaptable medium in vers libre4 ,rondeaux1 ballades1 quatrains1 octaves and the like are today as intrinsically perfect forms as they ever were1 but the significance of their beauty has been lost through overuse1 through too great familiarity4 ,our minds pass over them as over well-learned lessons committed to memory4 ,it is thus ,matisse felt about the classic forms of his predecessors4 ,these forms had once been beautiful2 intrinsically they were still beautiful2 but they had been habitualised by constant repetition2 and new ones were needed4 ,in order to find them ,matisse says that1 when before a model1 he tried to forget that he had even seen a nude before and to look upon it with the eyes of one who had never seen a picture4 ,by this he does not mean that his vision was naive1 but that it was innocent of set rules and preconceived ideas of how form should be obtained4 ,as a theory this attitude proved fruitful because1 while he did not succeed in setting aside memory1 he was nevertheless led to a conscious thrusting aside of his first impulses to depict form as he saw it4 ,all painters1 even the greater artists of the past1 had copied form as it presents itself to the eye1 but ,matisse forced himself1 through painstaking analysis1 to express form in a totally novel manner2 and to a certain extent he succeeded4 ,one might well ask why1 in modifying the human body1 he did not1 for instance1 omit a leg or a head1 thus making his expression at once purer and more abstract4 ,the answer is that he realised that the spectator1 after the first shock at seeing the unexpected form and the consequent mental readjustment to the new vision1 would nevertheless recognise the picture as a depiction of the human figure4 ,therefore a complete recognisability must be maintained4 ,if the artist omitted an eye or a mouth1 for example1 the spectator would experience physically the incompleteness of the vision4 ,he would feel1 through personal association1 the blindness or the suffocation as suggested in the picture2 and these shocks1 being secondary physiological sensations1 would detract from the aesthetic pleasure provoked by the work4 ,the point is an important one1 for it demonstrates the impossibility of appreciating art purely as abstract form so long as recognisable objects are presented4 ,as modern painting progressed the illustrative gradually became relegated4 ,much impetus for his abbreviations and accentuations of form came to him with his personal discovery of the wood carvings of the ,african negroes1 the sculpture of natives of ,polynesia and ,java and of the ,peruvian and ,mexican ,indians4 ,during the last five years we have heard much of these unknown artists and of their superlative ability for organisation and rhythm4 ,but they have been a little too quickly and enthusiastically accepted as criteria at the expense of those greater artists1 the ,greeks1 the ,egyptians1 the ,east ,indians and the ,chinese4 ,matisse found in them an inspiration toward synthesis and also a substantiation for his own desire to emphasise salient characteristics4 ,they influenced his motives in depicting only what was personally important and in doing away with unnecessary details4 ,after him there came a horde of imitators who saw in negro sculpture the quintessence of artistic expression1 who looked upon it as a finality of organisation and rhythmic composing4 ,such judgment1 however1 contains more of enthusiasm than of critical acumen4 ,negro sculpture has an interest for us only in so far as it is novel and untutored4 ,its organisation is of the most primitive kind1 symmetrical rather than rhythmic1 architectonic rather than plastic4 ,it is the work of slightly synthetic artists who were without models and whose visions encompassed only certain traits of form which1 when expressed1 became not composed but balanced1 not imitative but abstract4 ,the abstractness of negro sculpture1 its bending of all human forms to an ornament1 its archaic rigidity which is the antithesis of fluent movement--these are the qualities which have so gripped the imaginations of minor modern artists4 ,in reality the negro sculptors did not seek these qualities consciously4 ,their lack of realistic observation was due to their partial isolation from exterior influences such as the ,greeks and ,egyptians1 and to their desire to make an ornament of all images4 ,it was the ,persians1 however1 who influenced ,matisse more than did negro sculpture4 ,he found in these artists a practical lesson in the application of his beliefs--a lesson which substantiated the tonic division and formal improvisation of ,goya and the decorative colour application of ,gauguin4 ,besides he learned from them a more direct method of image making1 a method which was at once more delicate and more femininely sensitive4 ,after seeing the pictures done by ,matisse in ,algiers1 and such paintings as ,la ,glace sans ,tain1 and after looking at the vistas through the open doors and windows in some of his large interiors1 one realises at once the great influence these exquisitely delicate painters of ancient ,persia had on him4 ,the decorative illustrations of the ,mille et ,une ,nuits1 published in ,paris by ,fasquelle1 are so similar to some of his pictures that one is inclined to believe he studied this book before painting them4 ,his superiority lies in his liner comprehension of the human form and in the great diversity he exhibited in the repetition of its component parts4 ,persia1 like other nations1 had an academy1 and while its yield was more charming and less given to complex reproductions1 it had no more aesthetic importance than have the art schools of our own day4 ,but unlike ours it had not forgotten the necessity of formal distribution in the making of artistic arrangements4 ,this distribution in its flat sense ,matisse appropriated to his own ends1 and by applying to it freer modern means1 made his art more aesthetically significant than that of the ,persians4 ,his modern means were the outgrowth of his understanding of colour in its capacity to incite emotion4 ,his first essays in this field were greyish4 ,later1 through divisionistic methods1 they grew brighter2 and finally his colour became pure and was applied in large planes4 ,his works of this period shine as a source of light1 and with his development of exaggerated forms his colour interpretations also become exaggerated4 ,where he saw a green in a shadow he painted it a pure green2 where he saw a yellow in light he made it a pure yellow2 and so on with the other colours4 ,but in these interpretations there is more than a mere desire to record hastily an optical vision4 ,each colour is pondered at length in its relation to the others4 ,it is changed a score of times1 modified and adjusted2 and when it is finally posed it is artistically right4 ,in other words1 it fills harmoniously an important part in a picture where understanding and taste are the creators4 ,in the work of ,matisse sensibilite plays the all-important role1 and while his results are satisfying as far as they go1 there are times when we could wish for a greater rhythmic sense1 a more conscious knowledge of the profundities of composition1 and a less dominating desire to free each form and line from classic dictates4 ,with his colour we can find no such fault4 ,though here his knowledge1 like that of all other artists before him1 is limited1 the perfect harmony between tints1 which in him reaches a more advanced stage than in any preceding artist1 is the result of a highly sensitive eye and an impeccable taste4 ,the beauty of his colour alone makes him of paramount importance4 ,every one of his canvases is a complete colour gamut created by taste and authenticated by science not only as to pure colour but also as to greys and tone4 ,in his still-lives he chooses objects alone for their colour and form1 and his sense of proportion is so developed and his reduction of line is carried to so final an economy that1 as flat as these objects are1 they seem to have a rich consistency and to extend themselves into visual depth4 ,as in the case of all men who deviate from the narrow and well-worn path of monotonous tonality1 ,matisse is accused of dealing in raucous and blatant colours which set the head aching and the eyes smarting4 ,but the accusation is true only of his followers who display little sensitivity and even less artistry1 and who1 in imitating the superficial aspects of his work1 see only grotesque distortions and pure colour4 ,matisse once had a school where he endeavoured to develop the native talents of the ,americans1 ,poles1 ,russians and ,germans2 but when a ,bohemian woman1 in reply to his question as to what she wished to do1 answered1 ,je veux faire le 'neuf'1 he abandoned the enterprise and retired to ,clamart4 ,she unwittingly summed up the desire of those meagre painters who1 on seeing something novel1 immediately throw themselves into imitating it4 ,matisse's followers approach his colour gamut1 but they never bridge that lacuna which separates a precise art from one which is a peu pres4 ,it is the last delicate refinement of perfect harmony which ,matisse possesses and which his imitators can not attain to1 which places him in the rank of greatness4 ,matisse is called the ,chef des ,fauves1 and his art has been catalogued and labeled1 turned into a school and has come to be known in many quarters as ,post-,impressionism1 although that title1 as well as the one of ,fauvism1 was originally intended to designate all the art movements after ,impressionism and ,neo-,impressionism and included such widely dissimilar men as ,cezanne1 ,van ,gogh1 ,picasso1 ,kandinsky1 ,matisse and ,friesz4 ,it stood for the new vitality in art1 for the contemporary animating spirit1 and implied an epoch rather than a movement4 ,it was not sufficiently specific1 however2 and while modern art in the main is a homogeneous development of new means1 its forces are too diverse and its evolution too complex to permit of its being described by a blanket term4 ,it was therefore natural that in an endeavour to understand the underlying forces of modern painting a process of critical differentiation should have been instituted4 ,but labels are offensive and impertinent when attached to serious aesthetic endeavours1 and are apt to lead to misunderstanding and errors of judgment4 ,the canvases themselves must be the final test of a movement's enduring vitality4 ,matisse is himself the whole impetus of the movement he represents4 ,with the one exception of ,cezanne1 he is more remote from his followers than any other modern leader4 ,he repeats himself so little that his disciples cannot make a fetich of his canons4 ,indeed1 he does not work by rote or law1 except in so far as there is a law governing his personal impressions and predilections4 ,illustration3 ,,portrait ,,de ,,famille by ,,henri-,,matisse ,although ,matisse's greatest impetus to modern art1 after his carrying form nearer to an abstract conception1 is the harmonising of colour1 his finest canvases are those in which the form predominates1 as for instance the ,jeu de ,balles1 ,la ,musique--,esquisse1 ,la ,musique 7panneau decoratif7 and ,baigneuses4 ,in these pictures1 however1 there is an entire absence of rhythm in the ,renoir sense1 but they possess a perfect disposition of forms to fill a given space1 a harmony of subject with its frame1 a dazzling succession of uncommon and beautifully proportioned spaces and an amazing feeling for two-dimensioned form4 ,where with ,matisse the distinct parti pris of reverting to a primitive inspiration was excusable1 such an attitude was worse than folly for those who came after him4 ,with him it was a manifestation of the disgust of an impatient and experimental mind for stereotyped expression3 with his followers it was only an imitation of his motives1 and hence it was decadent4 ,if ,matisse partially understood ,giotto and ,michelangelo1 the understanding contributed little to his art4 ,his greatest claim to consideration is that he gave painting its final impulse toward abstraction4 ,but his canvases1 while being aesthetically just1 are not aesthetically satisfying1 because in composition he never penetrated further than the surface4 ,and even on the surface he did not attain to a greater fluency than that permitted by parallelisms and simple oppositions1 although there has never been an artist who more perfectly adapted his expression to the shape and size of his canvas4 ,that all great artists worked like him from the standpoint of creating recognisable form by abstract thought1 does not detract from his fine destiny4 ,where other artists failed to drag art from the quicksands of literary instantaneity1 ,matisse succeeded4 ,his evolution was direct and logical1 as a close study of his work will show2 and those who see in him an arriviste may with equal justice bring the same charge against ,michelangelo4 ,his aesthetic sources and admirations1 of which so much has been written1 are important in understanding the genealogical foundations of art1 but they are of little moment in the actual enjoyment of his pictures4 ,looking impartially at his classic influences on the one hand and his ,persian and negro influences on the other1 it is difficult to see just where the benefits of the latter lie4 ,matisse merely shifted his inspiration from the greatest masters of form to the slighter masters--from a well-known and great antiquity to a little-known and less significant one4 ,however1 if negro sculpture can help produce a man like ,picasso1 and the ,persian stuffs and enamels one like ,matisse1 they serve after all a high purpose4 ,,xi ,,picasso ,,and ,,cubism ,cubism first and foremost is an attempt to make art more arbitrary in its selection of compositional forms4 ,in all ancient painting only the human figure was used as a basis for organisation4 ,later landscape widened the scope of the painter's material possibilities2 but even the introduction of this new element merely extended the boundary of subject-matter4 ,the essence of art remained the same4 ,landscape permitted new forms to be interwoven with the old ones1 without making the old more plastic4 ,the elasticising process was what the painter had always desiderated1 but his literalness was such that he never went beyond primary distortions of the human body--distortions so small that they were almost unnoticeable4 ,with the ,greeks and ,chinese these deformations were practised in order to beautify the body's relative proportions2 with the ,east ,indians and ,michelangelo1 to accentuate the emotion of forceful movement2 with ,renoir1 to express form fully in its relation to the generating line of each picture2 and with ,matisse the distortions were the result1 first1 of a reaction against a hackneyed classic system1 and later1 of a desire to divorce aesthetic pleasure from mental association1 in other words1 to make form abstract rather than personal4 ,in him there is no rhythmic composition1 and while1 as in the case of ,renoir1 his pictures are great as ensembles1 each part of them is a separate item which does not depend1 for appreciation1 on its rapport to the whole4 ,his is an art of colour1 of sensitive and inspiring form in two dimensions--a decorative art of a high order4 ,as such it is at once a derivation of ,impressionism and a development of ,impressionistic colour through the channels of taste4 ,cubism is a far more arbitrary art than ,matisse's4 ,in its extreme expression it depends1 not so much on the artist's adroitness at interpreting nature1 as on his ability to express pure aesthetic emotion in its relation to form--form being used here in its extended sense to connote the solidity of the entire picture and the block relation of each part to the other parts4 ,composition prior to the ,cubists had been the rhythmic organisation of a picture's integral parts by line1 volume1 chiaroscuro and colour4 ,a totally unrelated set of objective figures or forms was drawn together into an ensemble by these abstract aesthetic means4 ,cubism retained the older methods of form and conception1 and added to them the illustrative device of disorganising and rearranging objectivity so that the separated parts would intersect1 overlap and partly obscure the image4 ,thus was presented a picture replete with all aspects of the model1 that is1 a picture in which the expression presented not only the vision of reality as it discloses itself to our eyes1 but the vision which delivers itself to our intelligences1 with its actions and reactions1 its many and changing miens1 its linear and voluminous struggles1 its solidity and its transparency4 ,in ,cubism the details of this ubiquitous and omnifarious vision are subjugated to arbitrary order and expressed in tones of warm and cold4 ,at the outset ,cubism was a ,dionysian reaction against the flowing and soft decoration of the schools of ,bouguereau and the ,impressionists4 ,the precise and masculine minds of a new cycle could not rest satisfied with the single melody of their immediate predecessors4 ,courbet1 the ,cubists' prototype on the side of painting which dealt entirely with objectivity1 reacted against corresponding feminine tendencies in the schools of ,david and ,ingres2 and the decisive blow he struck in #ahej with his ,l',enterrement a ,ornans had a psychological parallel in the ,cubists' exhibit in #aiaa4 ,while ,manet seemed to continue ,courbet he in reality retrogressed to a classic prettiness4 ,his achievements may be compared to those of the ,orphists who1 while seeming to carry on the principles of ,cubism1 nullified the effect of that school by the misapplication of colour4 ,cubism itself ignored colour and curved lines4 ,it was a further step toward a more intellectual type of painting4 ,the modern artist's mind1 in becoming more self-conscious1 was consequently growing more precise in its expression4 ,and since the ,cubists were the primitives of a new era1 it was natural that this precision should express itself in straight lines and angular forms4 ,the inconsistency of these artists lay in the fact that1 while their first desire was to make their art arbitrary1 they were so preoccupied with the dynamism of objectivity that the main object of their work was deputised4 ,in the canvases of ,picasso's followers naturalism is the first consideration4 ,as a result the organisation of emotion-impelling form is obscured4 ,it was from ,cezanne that the ,cubists garnered the greater part of their theories1 and even the appearance of their work is not unlike his4 ,cezanne realised that a mere imitation of reality1 no matter how interesting1 could never set in motion the wheels of aesthetic ecstasy2 and so he translated nature into a subjective impression of reality by expressing it in a complete order which was itself dynamic4 ,the ,cubists1 profiting by his discoveries of linear and tonal modification1 essayed to found a school on certain of his better-known and more easily grasped practices4 ,the spirit of precision1 the need for a renovation1 and the example of ,picasso who at one period copied the angularities of negro sculpture--all gave momentum to the movement4 ,later were introduced the philosophical reasonings and scientific explanations of which there has recently been so much discussion4 ,the total absence of colour in the ,cubists is ascribable to the same revolt against prettiness and ambiguity that made them alter their line and form4 ,they felt the subjective solidity of ,cezanne without understanding that it was brought about by the use of colour whose emotional possibilities he had profoundly penetrated4 ,in fact his art was composed entirely of minute chromatic planes which1 by their complete adaptability to a given position in space1 produced the intensest form4 ,the ,cubists' planes are based1 not on colour1 but on objective form itself1 and are expressed by tone4 ,in this respect ,cubism is diametrically opposed to the conception of ,cezanne4 ,with him form was a result of the plastic employment of colour4 ,with the ,cubists even tone is subjugated to formal planes4 ,in them we do not experience the subjectivity of emotion which can be produced alone by colour4 ,their pictures represent a recognisable solidity which1 by an image1 expresses subjective processes4 ,cezanne's simultaneous vision of reality had to do purely with the most mobile element of art2 the ,cubists attempted to express psychological phenomena by the limited methods of the early primitives4 ,their inability to sound 7not in theory but actually7 the possibilities of colour in the creation of aesthetic form1 has caused them to diverge from the direct path in the development of means1 and has restricted permanently their initial desire for concentrated composition4 ,the ,impressionists experimented in a highly dynamic element2 but the ,cubists have only dabbled in mental processes which1 even should they become perfected1 could give us only the sequential vision of a human action4 ,the ,cubist doctrine embraces no more than a side issue in an art which primarily has to do with the organisation of form4 ,in the effort of the ,cubists to create a pure art they merely disguise objectivity by abstract thought4 ,this is by no means the same as creating abstract form--that is1 form which is not reminiscent of a particular natural object2 and by failing in this they let pass the great opportunity of taking the final step from ,matisse to purity4 ,they took only a half step1 for in their exultation they forgot the preceding advances in composition4 ,in such forgetfulness there was nothing unusual4 ,every new movement in the progress of art has about it a certain isolation of ambition4 ,the first innovators push out the boundary on one side2 their followers1 on another2 and the final exponents of a method1 having fully assimilated what has preceded them1 combine the endeavours and accomplishments of their forerunners and go forward to new achievements4 ,cezanne had recognised that he could never round out his own cycle4 ,no stricture can attach to his incompleteness3 his life was too short for realisation4 ,that the ,cubists did not altogether achieve their desire does not detract from the importance of their departure from established precedent4 ,their reaction was a salutary event in the evolution of modern painting4 ,the field of art was being overrun by the decadents of ,impressionism and ,cezanne1 by the imitators of ,toulouse-,lautrec and ,degas1 by those academicians who follow in the wake of every movement long after its methods have been accepted as vital4 ,these scholastic men were incorporating spots and bright colours into their school-room drawings when ,cubism came forward4 ,by its unequivocal expression of opinions and by its neat delimitations of planes it has revealed the futility and pettiness of academic alterations4 ,besides their purely psychological innovations the ,cubists have achieved all the ambitions of the academies in a way so net1 so sure1 so precise1 that they have reduced the school1 if not to silence1 at least to ineffectualness4 ,no longer can the admirers of scholastic art stand before a canvas exclaiming on the feeling1 the atmosphere or the spirituality of the work4 ,one must now use concrete terms and speak of those qualities which have to do with profound order2 for although the theories of ,cubism state one thing1 the application of them has taken another and definite aesthetic form4 ,in the ,cubists' work lies their greatest importance4 ,we may without loss lay aside their explanations1 their manifestos and the reports of their lectures4 ,the idea of synthesis in painting had been so thoroughly assimilated through familiarity with successive movements that1 with the advent of ,cubism1 it was an accepted and unquestioned law of painting4 ,synthesis had in fact become an almost unconscious knowledge4 ,ingres1 ,daumier1 ,manet1 ,seurat and ,matisse had1 in quick succession1 proclaimed its value in eliminating the unimportant and unessential from models4 ,with ,cubism1 as with ,matisse and ,gauguin1 synthesis was the supreme ambition--synthesis which had for its goal the artistic consistency of all the picture's qualities4 ,subject-matter1 colour and the method of expression were all harmonised in ,gauguin3 with him the synthesis was illustrative4 ,in ,matisse it manifested itself in the reduction of form and colour to their simplest and most personal expression1 and was therefore a step toward a pure art4 ,with ,picasso synthesis went still further4 ,it became almost basic4 ,we know that the curved line stands for life1 colour and movement2 that the straight line represents the dead1 the sombre and the static4 ,a solid dark is conducive to peace1 while quickly succeeding light and dark promote liveliness4 ,bearing these fundamental postulates in mind we can easily analyse ,picasso's quality of synthesis4 ,the straight line which predominates in ,cubism repudiates colour3--the ,cubists were not colourists4 ,the curved line1 when profoundly comprehended1 expresses movement and fluidity2 when used haphazardly mere prettiness results4 ,there are seldom any curves in ,cubism1 and then only for relieving the monotony1 for the sake of ornament4 ,in the ,cubists' scintillating succession of darks and lights1 like a photographic negative of a ,cezanne or an early ,renoir1 there is an unescapable feminine prettiness in which the twinkling of tone serves the same purpose as pretty colour4 ,by their straight lines1 subfuse tones and rigid forms1 on the one hand1 they achieve immobility4 ,by their lights and darks1 their curves and their dependence on nature1 on the other hand1 they reveal their emotional kinship to the illustrative schools of ,whistler1 ,fragonard and ,tiepolo4 ,now when we combine properly these two widely separated aspects of art--the one almost ,egyptian and the other almost ,english--we obtain a combination of temperamental characteristics capable of the greatest achievements1 for we have brought about the coalition of the purely masculine and the purely feminine4 ,in ,cubism1 however1 these two aspects are mingled disproportionately4 ,the static predominates4 ,the pretty is merely superimposed because of temperamental dictation3 instead of functioning1 it only attracts4 ,but though in ,cubism we do not find the perfect fusion of these creative sex impulses1 the simultaneous presence of the two elements produces nevertheless a fundamental synthesis4 ,in order to bring about the greatest art1 the form and order 7which constitute the masculine side7 must be all-pervading4 ,objective ornament and external beauty 7which constitute the feminine side7 must be only the inspiration to creation4 ,this is an important principle1 for all art1 like all life1 falls into either the masculine or the feminine category4 ,all personal preferences for certain forms of art are imputable to the predomination of the male or the female in the individual4 ,necessarily all creation is to a certain extent masculine--in it there has to be order2 and by the predomination of the male or female is meant simply the accentuation of one of these qualities in their relative combination in each of the sexes4 ,for instance1 should the feminine predominate in a man1 the fact would merely indicate that the percentage of femininity in his bisexuality had over-balanced the normal ratio4 ,decoration1 which is an ornamental art1 is feminine1 and it will appeal to men who have a subnormal amount of the creator in them4 ,the colossally ordered art of a ,rubens will be understood and enjoyed only by one highly capable of creation1 for in the contemplation and comprehension of a profound work of art the spectator reconstructs the artist's mind after his own formula1 and thus recreates the work for himself4 ,that side of art which is the recording of some emotion the artist has experienced so intensely that it demands concrete expression1 is feminine4 ,it is merely an overflow of receptivity into objectivity4 ,to the contrary1 when great art is produced it is not dependent on a specific exterior impulse4 ,it grows abstractly out of a collection of assimilated impressions4 ,when the will dominates the expression1 these impressions must take plastic form4 ,the desire to create is in itself feminine4 ,the constructive ability is masculine4 ,the first desire always is to decorate and beautify1 but the masculine will dictates and rules the expression4 ,in feminine art the will to co-ordinate is absent4 ,consequently the expression is only the direct result of the reception4 ,the ,cubists realise that the will must play a large part in painting1 but they exert their will on the analysis of thought rather than on their actual productions4 ,the result is that1 while their expression is highly restrained and reasoned1 the will is exercised only on the emotion of the received impression1 and is not manifested on their canvases' surface4 ,in all their work they are decorators first and significant artists afterward4 ,they belong distinctly to the lighter side of artistic tradition4 ,they are the lyric poets of the plastic4 ,this is markedly true of ,picasso who instigated the movement4 ,when he first came to ,paris he threw himself into a style of painting which recalled ,steinlen at his best4 ,from ,steinlen he went to ,toulouse-,lautrec and ,impressionistic colour4 ,next he did carefully drawn portraits which proclaimed him a greater ,gauguin4 ,later he become infatuated with the rhythm and skeleton-like creations of ,el ,greco4 ,it was at this period that he began to do his significant work4 ,his pictures for the most part were painted in blue4 ,they were sensitive to a high degree1 and were1 in the sculptural sense1 sometimes ordered into a solid block form4 ,then1 adopting a reddish colour gamut1 he began to create full figures of nudes1 portraits and animal studies4 ,at this time he commenced his research in precise form4 ,he organised copies of negro sculpture of which he had heard much from ,matisse1 and it was a result of his studying these rigid figures that angularities began to creep into his art4 ,other artists set to work along the same lines1 and from the friction of ideas which followed the theory of ,cubism was evolved4 ,picasso's still-lives then became more precise1 more hard-cut1 more personal1 more completely ordered4 ,it is from this period we receive some of his greatest work4 ,illustration3 ,,femme ,a ,,la ,,mandoline by ,,picasso ,shortly after came the ,cubist theory of simultaneity4 ,the authorship of this theory is in doubt4 ,there has been much controversy as to whether it originated with ,picasso or with one of his followers4 ,but it was straightway adopted by the entire group and made one of the dominating principles of the movement4 ,simultaneity to these painters meant the combined presentation of a number of aspects of the same object from many different angles4 ,in the visualisation of an object in nature during the absence of that object1 we conceive it1 not only as a silhouette or as a form with three dimensions1 but as a congeries of silhouettes which1 when imagined simultaneously1 constitute the appearance of the object from every known angle4 ,in short1 our minds envelop it and all its attributes at the same instant4 ,such a vision is the result of collected and concentrated memory4 ,in a desire to disarm criticism the ,cubists offered as a theory the picturisation of this multilateral vision2 but in reality it was little more than an excuse to make the utilisation of natural forms more arbitrary than in the case of ,matisse1 ,cezanne and ,gauguin and also to rid themselves entirely of the illustrative obstacle4 ,their ingrained weakness lay in that they did not possess sufficient genius to alienate themselves entirely from document and to create new abstract compositions4 ,nor did their instinct permit them to throw document aside when they sensed their inability to replace it with something more vital4 ,their spirit of revolution worked on the form which illustration would take1 rather than on the discontinuance of illustration4 ,but even in this attitude they marked a decided progress1 for while in the paintings of their predecessors the disposition of line and form had made a unity of many separated figures1 these figures1 even to a mind unusually free from the taint of anecdote and objectivity in art1 presented themselves separately as integers of a whole4 ,the ,cubists1 by breaking up a model into parts which separately bore little resemblance to nature1 proved that they not only recognised the demands of pure organisation but that they knew those demands could never be met so long as there were recognisable objects in a painting4 ,the presentation of a nude or a landscape from many different viewpoints was in itself no more important than the methods of the ,impressionists4 ,indeed the pleasure derived from so constructing a picture is similar to the pleasure derived from copying light4 ,it represents the nearest approach of the enthusiastic painter of form to the enthusiastic painter of light4 ,they are both interested in recording a rather puzzling and interesting phenomenon3 the one is after that which creates the impressions of form2 the other1 that which creates the impressions of colour4 ,both1 in the broad sense1 derive the same enjoyment in deciphering the work after it is finished4 ,the one records only broad waves of scintillating colours with no demarcation of silhouettes2 and these colours gradually resolve themselves into a sunny and ambiguous landscape4 ,the other makes a number of broad planes of brown and white which1 when diligently studied in their parts1 become the angular representation of water1 ships1 sky-lines which run into and through houses1 trees which obscure near-by objects1 and houses which melt into distant skies4 ,both schools of painting are impressionistic2 each treats of exactly what the other neglects4 ,no artist as yet has seen the distinct advantage of uniting the two methods4 ,cezanne might be suggested as having approached this alliance1 but his means were too profound for him to be led into portraying by concrete symbols his impressions of a model4 ,in painting the enveloping mental vision of a model1 however1 the ,cubists actually failed in the synchronism for which they strove4 ,in reality they extended the effect of their pictures into time more than ever before4 ,to grasp their illustrative import1 long and arduous search must be made4 ,while their canvases present a simultaneous vision1 each picture as a whole is incapable of creating a unified impression4 ,a ,cubist painting is1 let us say1 like the momentary blare of a hundred musical instruments all of which play consecutive bars4 ,by approaching each performer in order and studying his particular notes1 until every musical detail is learned1 we might intellectually construct from our memory an impression of a related musical composition4 ,but should the blare be repeated1 even after our research1 the music's meaning would be no clearer than before4 ,on the other hand1 if1 having first heard the composition in its natural development1 we had studied its parts and motifs and then heard it repeated sequentially1 a greater enjoyment and comprehension would result4 ,in breaking up nature1 either for the sake of extending the aesthetic appreciation into time like music1 or for simultaneity of presentation1 all the parts must answer to an organisation2--in the first case1 so that1 after the spectator's first fleeting vision of the whole1 his eye will be carried from one part to another by the rhythmic balance of volume1 linear opposition and harmony of colour2 and in the second case1 so that the canvas will be an interdependent block-manifestation4 ,in constructing formal planes with definite tones whose values are mechanical and absolute1 the ,cubists have missed that possible subjectivity of movement which1 in its highest degree1 colour alone can give4 ,they have constructed only primitively ordered bas-reliefs each plane and line of which has a distinct direction4 ,and this direction1 no matter what is added to or subtracted from the work1 will remain the same4 ,the planes are consequently static and absolute4 ,in the great art of ,cezanne there is only a relative absolutism4 ,by any alteration in one of his pictures1 the entirety is shattered3 the direction of each plane and line is changed to concur with the needs of a different order4 ,this is because ,cezanne's work possesses the poise which is demanded in the highest art4 ,and this poise is what ,cubism1 with its rigid lines and planes1 has entirely missed4 ,illustratively the ,cubists' conception was new1 compositionally it was old2 and an art cannot be significantly renovated save from the bottom upward4 ,the foundation of all art is composition1 and the only means which can be accepted as vital are those which increase the artist's power to express that which is more inherent in painting than in any of the other arts1 namely3 rhythmic form in three dimensions4 ,that the ,cubists failed to develop such means may be perceived by comparing the compositions of ,picasso's red period1 which were but slightly cubic and which contain a certain amount of arbitrary form1 with his late and wholly cubic black-and-white drawings and paintings such as are seen at ,kahnweiler's back of the ,madeleine4 ,the latter are almost wholly flat4 ,his ,femme a la ,mandoline marks the transition from the early period to the late one4 ,in all his pictures one finds a charming rhythm of lights and darks and a slight comprehension of surface form4 ,but he never goes very deep4 ,even in his sculptured heads1 while there is order1 there is no form in the compositional sense4 ,to ascribe ,picasso's ,cubism to so childish an impulse as a desire to square an academic drawing is both untrue and unjust4 ,some have pointed to ,duerer as his artistic forbear merely because ,duerer once described a number of curves which he said could be made into a human body and drew a block-diagram of box-like forms which he said was the basis for the body's construction4 ,but no relationship exists between these two artists4 ,cubism's first consideration was to cover the surfaces of its canvases with form1 thus doing away with the empty spaces so prevalent in all art works1 spaces which ,cezanne left blank4 ,to accomplish this logically it was necessary either to introduce superfluous figures1 or to stretch the ones already present into impossible distortions4 ,since the elimination of all unessentials was the keynote of the day1 ,picasso decided to make multiplex his essentials4 ,herewith was born the ,cubist conception of breaking up the model for the attainment of a more complete work and one in which there would be no dead planes4 ,at first an extensive linear direction1 which started at the lower frame1 was carried up into the background by the demarcation of a shadow or an object1 for the purpose of holding tightly together two or more forms4 ,later1 in order to facilitate this procedure of multiplying their models1 the ,cubists began to walk round them4 ,this process unchained them from the slavery to a single model and from the given contour of an absolute subject4 ,at the same time it permitted them a fantastically arbitrary composition1 and made their expression more dependent on the personality of the artist1 and less contingent on preconceived ideas1 than ever before4 ,cubism expressed a laudable tendency toward an aristocratic vision as opposed to the popular vision of reality4 ,its pictures therefore became doubly complex1 for in the contemplation of the picturisation of our mental process1 another process is started which is far more complicated than the first4 ,herein we have an explanation for the fact that ,cubism is incomprehensible to the untutored person who regards art as an imitation of nature4 ,the very word form is aesthetically meaningless to the average spectator4 ,in order to experience its meaning1 aside from organisation1 one's attention has to be given over to the object's weight1 its force1 its circumferential volume4 ,a form in a picture cannot be considered merely as to its employment and its utilitarian destiny1 or from the standpoint of one's experience with it4 ,to the great artist an object exists as a volume with which to fill a given space4 ,he completely forgets its raison d'etre in life1 and views it only as a means for tightening a picture's order4 ,to this extreme of pure artistic conception the ,cubists never attained4 ,and while ,cezanne advanced from ,courbet's surface realism to the realism of causes1 the ,cubists were unable to progress along similar lines4 ,they simply translated abstraction into terms of concrete expression4 ,the profound reasons for dynamism in art were left untouched by them4 ,they endeavoured to portray objectively an abstract process1 expecting its mere portrayal to be dynamic4 ,the dynamic1 however1 cannot be rendered by imitation4 ,it is as impossible of attainment by this method as in the dancing-girl canvases of ,degas4 ,behind the emotional power of nature there is a great abstract force2 and the effect of dynamism can be got only when this force is expressed4 ,then the result is a natural outgrowth of a cause4 ,otherwise we have only a detached effect which does not lead us back into the undercurrents of causation4 ,when a ,cubist picture is interesting it will at most make us puzzle over the application of its theories2 it can never move us aesthetically by the sheer power of its methods4 ,the one dynamic element which the ,cubists have in common with ,cezanne--namely3 the modification of lines and forms through contact with other lines and forms--they have nullified by constructing with rigid tones the planes which the lines delimit1 thereby making their planes frozen and immovable4 ,because ignorant of the functionality of colour the ,cubists were unable to present1 at one and the same time1 perfect mobility1 planar solidity and indefinite depth4 ,as a result of too much study of ,cezanne's and ,el ,greco's composition and too little study of ,michelangelo and ,rubens1 they failed to achieve1 even with the great arbitrariness and convenience of their means1 a profound composition which is a rhythmic order of volume1 as distinguished from a simple organisation of parts4 ,their accomplishments do not realise the promises of their programme because their theories were too inflexible4 ,cubism was too tightly bound by rigid systems and methods to produce plastically significant results4 ,the ,cubists' greatest apport to art 7not in theory but in achievement7 is their almost total abolition of the painter's slavery to nature4 ,it was but a step from ,matisse to the complete elimination of recognisable objects1 and though ,cubism did not cover the entire distance1 it nevertheless made an advance toward that pure expression which ,cezanne saw was inevitable4 ,even today the followers of this school are beginning to realise their early mistakes and to throw off their self-imposed restrictions4 ,they are launching forth into colour and are seeking expression in purely arbitrary form4 ,but these new developments have not yet been productive of a new artistic worth4 ,indeed1 it is doubtful if they will lead to important results so long as the geometrical phase of ,cubism is adhered to1 and so long as the ,cubists ignore the dynamic possibilities of colour4 ,in its present status ,cubism can only continue striving toward a style that goes deeper than tonal prettiness and lyric immobility4 ,already ,picasso has passed out of painting altogether4 ,an artist with his extraordinary gift to do anything superficially well could not remain anchored to an idea after the novelty of its method had worn off4 ,he is not a man who is the slave of thought1 but rather an obstinate artist with a spark of genius who has passed through many different stages with a rapidity born of astounding dexterity and cleverness4 ,many of his early female heads rival in sheer classic beauty the best of the ,renaissance painters4 ,some of his pen-and-ink drawings are the most sensitive of modern times4 ,there are caricatures done by him which closely approach the fantasy of a ,goya4 ,indeed it may be justly said that he is as great an illustrator as ,raphael4 ,and in this analogy lie both his glory and his limitation4 ,like ,raphael he lacks that profound penetration of exteriors which would permit him a comprehension of his greater influences--of ,el ,greco1 for instance4 ,but1 with a glance1 he can sound the depths of a ,toulouse-,lautrec1 a ,steinlen or a piece of negro sculpture4 ,picasso's inability to conceive two elements at once and to construct a complicated development of composition1 is exemplified in his earlier work1 first1 by his adherence to certain single colours at different stages of his career1 secondly1 by the extreme simplicity of his circus folk1 and thirdly1 by his figure compositions which1 though they are never tedious or dull and possess an almost nervous sensibilite1 are limited to one or two human forms4 ,again ,picasso's limitation of compositional conception is attested to by his stubborn use of brown and white in his latest ,cubist pictures1 by his employment of line alone in the drawings of his architectural-plan stage1 and by his application of objects at hand to the clay blocks which mark his latest metamorphosis4 ,but no matter what his medium or style1 he remains essentially unchanged4 ,in all his work is felt the superficial lightness of one who conceives order only as an ornament to decoration and who is interested in three-dimensional form merely as an after-thought4 ,his sculpture is but his painting in a solider medium4 ,it is broken up into planes and organised as to each contour in exactly the same manner as is his work in oils4 ,the difference between ,picasso1 the sculptor1 and ,matisse1 the sculptor1 is the difference between a man who has a slight genius for rhythm and a block order1 and one who has a slight genius for characterisation and a perfect ensemble4 ,the art of ,picasso1 having to do with form as decoration1 is admirably adapted to sculpture4 ,the art of ,matisse1 being flat and dealing with colour as decoration1 is inexpressible in clay4 ,illustration3 ,,fumeur ,,et ,,paysage by ,,leger ,fernand ,leger1 with the exception of ,picasso1 is the most genuinely talented artist of the ,cubist movement4 ,his work at first was much less radical than that of his confreres and gave greater evidence of depth because it had never completely shaken off perspective4 ,his canvases1 ,les ,toits and ,maisons et ,fumees1 represent little more than a highly artistic angularisation of a subject which1 being angular in itself1 lends itself admirably to ,cubistic treatment4 ,leger's method is to place in the foreground large planes which serve as a frame for the actual picture which is seen between them as through a tunnel4 ,by this device he creates a diversity of form and with it a recognisable depth4 ,his paint at first was light in tone1 but is now taking on colour4 ,since his first ,cubist exhibits he has made a logical progress in rhythmic conception1 and if his past development can be assumed as a criterion of the future it is safe to prophesy that eventually he will be the most significant man of the original group4 ,albert ,gleizes1 ,jean ,metzinger1 ,marcel ,duchamp1 ,georges ,braque and ,francis ,picabia are all prominent figures in the ,cubist movement4 ,gleizes manifested his first ,cubist tendencies by giving form a solid angularity1 thereby making it precise4 ,his canvases are devoid of interest because so slightly creative4 ,his well-known ,l',homme au ,balcon appears to us today almost ,futuristic in conception4 ,in fact1 it was exposed at the ,salon d',automne in #aiab one year after the ,futurist show2 and when we compare it with his early and less significant ,les ,baigneuses1 with which it was hung1 it gives the impression of having been the result of a sudden and enthusiastic inspiration from the newer men4 ,later his work grew broader and simpler1 but in it there is little or no composition4 ,even the order is that of the straight line4 ,metzinger is a better artist4 ,in him is a greater order1 although1 as in ,gleizes1 it is produced by the straight line4 ,during his artistic beginnings he was under the sway of negro sculpture and painted in small planes of light and dark4 ,later1 turning from the influence of negro antiquity1 he directed his talent on nature and began to interpret form into angularities4 ,his ,la ,femme au ,cheval1 done in #aiab1 was a distinct step1 both as to form and composition1 in advance of the naturalistic vision2 and his ,le ,port is one of the finest examples of the ,cubist theory of synchronous picturisation and interpenetrating lines and masses4 ,duchamp1 a slighter talent than either ,leger or ,gleizes1 is the ,whistler of the movement4 ,in his pictures are less form1 less composition and less comprehension of volume than in any other ,cubist work except that of ,juan ,gris whose lethargic canvases have not even the interest of an ,aime ,morot4 ,braque has added nothing to ,cubism4 ,he followed ,picasso closely1 and his whole creative impetus seems derived from the latter's canvases4 ,picabia1 despite his popularity1 is but a second-rate ,cubist4 ,he was quick to grasp the fact that the ,cubists were working away from illustration1 and attempted to step beyond them4 ,where they had endeavoured to bring about the precise stylisation of form1 he merely dealt in ribbon-like patches of colour which were without contour1 shape1 proportion or volume4 ,his canvases wherein many of these strange amorphous hachures are grouped1 have a highly bizarre appearance but are only remotely intelligible4 ,he used almost monochromatic schemes1 as did his master ,picasso1 and continued this style of work until his fellow ,cubists1 by diligent research and serious study1 had approached the abstract appearance of his surfaces4 ,picabia then found a new impetus in the works of the ,futurists--an impetus toward movement expressed1 not by bodies1 but by line4 ,this ,futurist influence resulted in his making flat pictures of many sharply defined silhouettes tinted red1 green1 blue and grey4 ,his lines serve only to accentuate the chaos of his ensemble1 for in his work there is no definite conception of the whole4 ,cubism's possibilities as a dynamic illustrative art have never been adequately exhausted1 and1 since the angular mode is rapidly disappearing as a result of newer and more vital visions1 they probably never will4 ,picasso was its high priest up to two years ago1 at which time colour1 coming back on the wave of a counter-revolution1 threw most of the ,cubists into its application4 ,robert ,delaunay was responsible for this reaction4 ,early in #aiab he came forward with a very large canvas entitled ,ville de ,paris1 whose surface was broken up into many angular planes after the ,cubist fashion4 ,but instead of depicting forms and formal relations1 the picture was painted in greys and high colours solely as a means of surface filling4 ,its contours recalled ,el ,greco despite their being disguised by triangular dislocations4 ,the picture represented three mammoth ,graces standing before a distant ,paris landscape1 and so transparent and ethereal was it that it seemed as though a breath could have dispersed it into mist4 ,it possessed the delicate loveliness of a butterfly1 and the eye1 in running over its glittering and pretty array of colours1 was fascinated as in the contemplation of a kaleidoscope4 ,but the canvas1 while provoking a distinct visual pleasure1 failed to arouse any aesthetic enjoyment4 ,delaunay's ,l',equipe de ,cardiff the following year was equally unemotional4 ,fundamentally this picture was the same as his ,ville de ,paris1 though treated differently as to surface4 ,the same up-shooting type of svelte beauty as formerly bodied forth in his three ,graces was here repeated in the bodies of the athletes1 but there was in addition a very slight surface rhythm2 and the colour1 because its application was broader1 had a greater fascination4 ,in his ,ville de ,paris1 not daring to paint a naturally drawn nude with the colours his sense of prettiness and ornament dictated1 he fragmentised the surface by luxating the lines4 ,thus1 while the sensitive contour was retained1 the picture appeared as if viewed through a polygonal prism4 ,in the second canvas this artifice for the sake of charm was discarded4 ,the players were dressed in solid colours of bright pigment2 the sky was blue-violet2 the ,eiffel tower1 eminently appreciable1 stood to the right2 down the centre of the canvas was a large affiche in yellow2 and overhead soared an aeroplane4 ,the transition from a hackneyed theme to a modern one was the result of the artist's desire to pass beyond the methods of the day to more vigorous ones4 ,before ,delaunay's decisive work was done he had been influenced by the ,neo-,impressionists1 ,cezanne1 the ,cubists and1 in his two mentioned early works1 by the ,impressionists4 ,indeed these pictures are the expression of ,impressionist methods broadened and extended to suit the dimensions of his canvases4 ,his cityscapes with the ,eiffel tower as the principal object are interesting though not profound1 and such canvases as the ,route de ,laon and ,les ,tours are so dainty they seem breathed onto the canvas4 ,he is essentially a decorator in that he works always in two dimensions4 ,this surface quality enters into all art1 but in itself it is never significant4 ,only when it is a result of ordered plasticity does it have power to move us4 ,in ,delaunay1 however1 there exists no fundamental order4 ,consequently his power is strictly limited4 ,his desire is to make decoration which will be profound1 instead of profound composition which will result in decoration4 ,by thus reversing the natural order1 effects are considered before causes2 and only by the dynamism of causes can we be made to feel beauty4 ,beauty such as his is merely prettiness3 it is only the objective mask of beauty1 and is of no more aesthetic importance than a view of nature4 ,the true beauty of a work of art is subjective2 it is the effect of one's having sensed the accumulated and sequential aspects of co-ordinated expression4 ,herein lies the difference between aesthetic emotion and the pleasure aroused by a sunset1 a stage setting or a dramatic story4 ,when one is able to penetrate finally into art1 neither dolour nor depression results1 but always a feeling of exultation and joy1 for by one's intellectual comprehension one has been physically aroused by a dynamic force1 not merely moved by a scene or story which sets in motion the associative processes4 ,to the inadequate comprehension of this psychological truth is attributable the failure of the ,cubists and of ,delaunay4 ,the latter strove to preserve the individuality of his work under the name of ,orphism1 and later under the designation of ,simultaneism4 ,but his temperamental kinship to ,picasso and the ,cubists is too obvious to be denied by nomenclature4 ,even his latest work1 while more abstract and more luminous1 is at most secessionistic4 ,his canvas hung in the ,salon des ,independants in #aiad was ,cubism translated into light colours and twisted into curves and circles4 ,delaunay's wife1 ,madame ,delaunay-,terk1 follows him closely in inspiration and application1 but her pictures are less ordered than his4 ,the ,american1 ,bruce1 once an imitator of ,matisse and later of ,cezanne1 has joined the ,simultaneist ranks2 and ,frost1 another ,american1 is an ardent disciple of ,delaunay4 ,the orthodox ,cubists had passed colour by1 but its reappearance in the ,orphists-,simultaneists was a significant augury4 ,though it was not understood by them as an element capable of organic functioning1 its mere presence was an inspiration and a call to all genuine artists to penetrate its meaning in relation to the intensification of form4 ,,xii ,,futurism ,the dramatic enhancement of painting by line so well understood by the ancients1 and the literary intensification of subject-matter by colour foreshadowed by the primitives and made more conscious by ,delacroix1 reached their highest development in the theories of ,kandinsky and the ,futurists4 ,with ,delacroix's comments concerning the harmonising of line and colour with subject and ,seurat's and ,signac's subsequent addenda to these comments1 began scientific observation in painting4 ,so long as these theories remained secondary to the great truths of composition they were admissible1 because they had to do only with the unimportant ornamentation of an aesthetic organisation4 ,but when1 as in ,kandinsky and the ,futurists1 they became the all in all of the artist's ambitions1 they ceased to produce painting1 and gave birth only to bad music1 as in the ,russian1 and to bad poetry1 as in the ,italians4 ,but while the ,futurists' work had little to commend it to the discriminating spectator1 their ideas were interesting and inspiring1 and it is from their manifestos that has come what little influence they have exerted4 ,their pictures are neither pretty nor agreeable1 while ,kandinsky's1 to the contrary1 possess dainty and pleasing traits4 ,in both cases the pictures are puzzles to be deciphered at length3 they are expressions of moods brought about by half veiling reality and by making symbolically concrete an abstract force or cause4 ,in music where the form is an abstract result of concrete causes and in literature where the form is wholly abstract and represented by symbols1 moods can be easily expressed1 for they are the natural outgrowth of the media of these two arts4 ,but in painting and sculpture1 which are the visual arts wherein the form itself is concrete1 emotion can be provoked only by a plastic poise of subjective weights4 ,the balance and opposition of such weights or volumes when rhythmically organised give rise to complete aesthetic satisfaction and engender a feeling of finality which encompasses both line and colour4 ,the ,futurists1 as did ,delacroix and ,seurat1 count on force-lines to express an emotion1 thereby branding themselves two-dimensional artists4 ,and their desire to represent an emotion of objectivity on canvas places them at once in the ranks of illustrators4 ,the highest art has nothing to do with objective reality whether as a spectacle or as a means to sensation4 ,it is true that painting1 in becoming pure1 will eventually incorporate the associative emotions1 but these emotions will be the psychological results of abstract form1 not memorial experiences produced by cognitive objects4 ,and the line1 of which we have heard so much1 will then become a direction and equality of pure form2 it will no longer be simply an indication on a flat surface by means of a mark4 ,the ,futurists did not strive for purity4 ,rather did they emphasise an irrelevant side of painting4 ,they declared themselves the renovators of subject-matter4 ,their whole ambition worked toward that end2 and it is from that standpoint they must be judged4 ,in arriving at their conclusions many necessities of aesthetic emotion were sensed4 ,their most important statement1 and one which1 because of the dearth of significant art criticism1 had not previously been set down1 is that the person who contemplates a picture should not feel himself a mere observer of the events taking place in the painted work1 but one of the principal actors in the canvas4 ,in illustration such empathy is impossible unless the work is wholly and ultimately synthesised as to volume1 colour1 line1 direction1 size and subject4 ,no such work has ever been produced because all the dramatic uses of these elements have never been understood by one man4 ,that there are hundreds of canvases which entrain us into their ramifications is indisputable1 but the aesthetic emotion we feel in them has to do with formal line alone1 not with the perfect concord of line1 form and subject4 ,marinetti and his group have striven earnestly to accomplish this difficult feat1 but in every instance have failed4 ,the explanation of their theories has far more to do with the emotion their pictures arouse in us1 than has the actual application of these theories to canvas4 ,they state that perpendicular1 undulating and worn-out lines attached to hollow bodies express languor and discouragement2 that confused1 somersaulting lines1 straight or curved1 confounded into suggested gestures of appeal or haste1 express the chaotic agitation of sentiments2 that horizontal1 jerky lines which brutally cut into semi-obscured faces1 and bits of broken1 irregular landscape give us the sensation of one departing on a journey4 ,but while all this may be true1 it has nothing to do with the aesthetic emotion which in painting grows entirely out of the dynamic use of the elements inherent in that art4 ,the desire of many modern painters and theorists to introduce into their own art emotions derived from the other arts results1 first1 from the modern ambition to intensify each of the arts1 and secondly1 from certain observations in aesthetic fundamentals1 which have led artists little by little toward a vague realisation that the basis of all the arts is identical4 ,but in this synthesis of the arts there is nothing new4 ,the ,futurists1 in attempting to fuse poetry and painting1 are many decades too late to lay claim to originality4 ,numerous attempts--all of them failures--have been made along similar lines4 ,wagner's was the most conspicuous4 ,then there were ,sadikichi ,hartmann1 ,madame ,mary ,hallock1 ,rene de ,ghil1 ,arthur ,rimbaud and recently ,alexander ,scriabine1 all of whom commingled the different arts in an attempt to produce intensity4 ,commendable as these efforts for a hybrid expression may be1 they are a futile expenditure of energy until the arts have been more precisely understood2 and it is worth noting that those who have tried to coalesce them have been1 in nearly every instance1 the ones who understand none of them profoundly4 ,the ,futurists prove no exception4 ,their misapprehension of painting is analogous to that of ,degas who1 in picturing the dance1 imagined that the spectator1 by contemplating its static representations1 would experience its rhythm4 ,the emotion of movement which the ,futurists wish to call up can never be produced by disordered and tumbling lines4 ,the effect is chaos4 ,movement grows out of the placement and displacement of volumes4 ,it is a result of rhythmic organisation4 ,we are conscious of movement in a human body when a position or pose is shifted1 and we are conscious of it only during the process of shifting4 ,should we look at a body in one position1 close our eyes during its change of attitude1 and then behold it completely altered1 we should not experience a sensation of action at all4 ,but if the static points of movement present themselves to us with sufficient rapidity they produce the effect of continuous movement1 as in the simulacra of the kinematograph4 ,otherwise we record merely the result of the change of position--not the act of changing itself4 ,in a ,michelangelo statue we see at first glance only a solid rigid mass2 but the moment we begin mentally to reconstruct the form1 we sense the opposition of volume-direction and the delicate poise of weights which overhang hollows and which are proportionally exaggerated in order to give a greater emotion of struggling forces4 ,then1 our will guiding our eye1 the mind translates to us physically the statue's expansion and contraction1 the withheld completion of absolute balance1 the approximation to equilibrium3 and it is only after we have passed through discords and struggles and complicated developments--in other words1 after we have striven for physical completion--that the finality comes as a satisfying consummation1 like the knowledge of a tremendous task1 long laboured over1 brought to perfect and final accomplishment4 ,is not the desire for an emotion1 so completely reflective of the very undercurrents of life's forces1 worthier of an artist's aim than the desire for the momentary sensation that someone is going away or that one is looking on at a dance8 ,the emotional depictions of such episodes are at best but remote reflexes of reality4 ,our participation in a dance1 for instance1 is infinitely more intense than the ,futurists' kinematic representation of it4 ,in the actual experience one not only sees chaos but can touch the swirling forms1 blink at the lights1 smell the perfumes and hear the noise and music4 ,in other words1 one is moved to sensation or feeling by the physical forces themselves4 ,to the true artist these physical forces are only his weapons1 never his ends4 ,and it is only through their intelligent use in the production of form that aesthetic emotion results4 ,the superficial portrayal of effects1 whether mental or physical1 can never lead us inward to their causes4 ,any result is simply the dead end of a force1 like the sea-weed a submarine volcano has thrown to the surface of the ocean4 ,art1 being the causative force itself1 should bring about the upheaval whose final manifestation is complete and satisfying4 ,in great painting the spectator is led through every step of kinetic energy from chaos to order4 ,when he emerges he has undergone a colossal dynamic experience4 ,after all1 energy is the ultimate physical reality4 ,illustration3 ,,dynamism ,d',,une ,,auto by ,,russolo ,the ,futurists1 it is true1 strove sedulously for dynamism4 ,several of the titles of their later canvases contain the word4 ,but their consistent misinterpretation of ,leibniz's doctrine led them into the most superficial statements of the laws of force4 ,by confusing action with movement and tempo with rhythm1 and by constantly juggling causes and effects1 they never arrived at a basic exposition of energy4 ,in contemplating their pictures we experience only visual confusion4 ,there is no movement because there is no static foil1 no consummation4 ,there is no dynamism because there is no suggestion of the inherent force which all substance involves4 ,let us assume the hypothesis that it is possible to photograph a kinematic force in movement4 ,the ,futurists' pictures wherein the representation of dynamism is attempted1 as in ,dynamisme d'une ,auto1 there is a series of these hypothetical photographs each of which has caught a segment of immobility1 as any snap-shot catches some static pose of a moving object4 ,by super-imposing each of these images successively on the other the ,futurists imagine that a state of action is created4 ,but even were this the case the picture would be innocent of dynamism4 ,again1 ,futurism claims not to paint maladies but their symptoms and results4 ,admittedly therefore it works against its own gropings for dynamism1 for symptoms and results are the outgrowth of causes1 and as such can have only an objective interest4 ,would the ,futurists maintain1 for instance1 that1 by portraying a head from many viewpoints on the same canvas1 they can give us the emotion of a head turning8 ,even were it possible thus to extend the contemplation of pictures into time1 the effect of a series of dissimilar profiles would be no more convincing than that obtained by a slowly moving cinematograph film4 ,should we grant that by such a device the effect of movement resulted1 it would depend entirely upon which end of the movement the eye alighted first whether the head moved one way or the other4 ,and if the picture was a perfect organisation the change of direction would throw every part of the canvas out of gear4 ,considering ,futurism purely from the standpoint of illustration we still are unable to justify its aims4 ,in painting a picture of a person setting forth upon a journey from a railway station1 the ,futurist represents the departure by means of horizontal1 fleeting and jerky lines1 half-hidden profiles1 the station's interior1 the engine1 etc4 ,then by introducing into the canvas bits of landscape and other incidentals which depict the thoughts of the person about to depart1 the artist endeavours to call up the same mental state in the spectator of the canvas4 ,the associative process of the human mind1 however1 makes such a proceeding unnecessary1 because in beholding a simple1 even an academically pictured1 scene of someone entering a train amid the confusion and haste of passengers and guards1 the spectator involuntarily calls up the landscape running past1 the telegraph poles jerking by1 the clanging of the bell1 the shouts of attendants1 the shuffling of many feet and the hiss of steam4 ,in setting these things down the ,futurists succeed only in limiting a highly imaginative person's thoughts by restricted visions of objectivity1 just as in the theatre a producer1 by placing many papier mache trees and rocks and fibre grass about the stage1 circumscribes the onlooker's imagination4 ,the ,greeks1 whose theatrical presentations were sufficiently intense to evoke an imaginative milieu1 did not need factitious properties3 but the theatrical ,belascos must necessarily make their settings absolute and meticulously realistic4 ,a ,tintoretto needs no such tricks to strengthen its emotive power2 but the ,futurists1 unable to move us by dynamic canvases1 need recourse to dramatic tricks4 ,at most their pictures could be significant only as auxiliaries to literary texts4 ,the ,futurists' contention that all modern art should have as a point of departure an entirely modern sensation is wholly tenable1 but they mistake the fact that a modern sensation is merely the sensation which pertains specially to the contemporary man4 ,it has nothing to do innately with the delineation of an automobile or an aeroplane4 ,the modern aesthetic spirit goes deeper4 ,it implies the expression of an emotion by use of the latest refinements and researches in the medium of an art4 ,in painting it is not limited to the illustrative portrayal of a novelty4 ,were this the case any painter who confined himself to the picturisation of the latest dreadnaughts and the highest skyscrapers would be the pioneer of a new expression4 ,in order to express himself in a modern manner1 an artist needs only to have divested himself of all predilections for antiquity1 to have subdued all conscious desire to will himself into the bodies of an ancient people1 and to have seen the error of the childish maxim that there is nothing new under the sun4 ,any painter free from tradition1 with a comprehension of aesthetic movement and an ability to apply it1 will produce canvases which1 though they have no radical theory behind them1 will be as distinctly modern as those of the ,futurists4 ,modernity has to do with methods and mental attitude4 ,it is in no wise related to subject-matter4 ,consider1 for instance1 the famous ,futurist statement that a running horse has not four legs1 but twenty4 ,then contemplate ,balla's picture1 ,dog and ,person in ,movement1 to which this theory is applied4 ,neither the dog nor the person seems to move at all4 ,they are static figures with blurred triangles resembling lace where their legs should be4 ,such a juvenile artifice to give the effect of movement is certainly not modern or even novel4 ,long prior to the ,futurists1 caricaturists and comic journalistic draughtsmen sought to express action by placing circular lines round the wagging tails of dogs or by drawing long sweeping lines behind a swiftly moving figure to indicate from what direction it had come and the rapidity of locomotion4 ,such inventions are outside the field of aesthetics4 ,they have to do only with slow optical action4 ,but the modification of objects in contact with others1 of which ,cezanne wrote1 is a profound postulate of organisation4 ,it creates a poise of volume which causes us to experience an emotion of movement4 ,the ,futurists' contrivance of endowing a horse with twenty legs precludes any possibility of their calling up forcibly a running horse1 for only the legs seem to move1 as of a horse in a treadmill4 ,save for the pictorial side of a picture so presented there is nothing in it of interest to us3 and our memory of an actual horse clashes with the vision of a multipedalian one4 ,the ,futurists' statement1 however1 that a picture's lines should subjectively drag the spectator into the centre of the canvas1 where he will personally experience the rhythmic interplay of forms1 is not only pertinent but expresses an absolute aesthetic necessity4 ,pictures which do not so affect the beholder have failed as great art4 ,but though the ,futurists were the first to give succinct utterance to this shibboleth1 the practice of constituting a work of art so that the spectator was transposed into its stress and strain1 had been going on ever since great composition came into painting4 ,one cannot study a ,michelangelo or a ,rubens without feeling1 even to the point of physical fatigue1 the struggle of their finally harmonised volumes4 ,this does not hold true of the ,futurists' work4 ,in studying their pictures our eyes alone become tired2 and1 though we succeed in unravelling the involutions of their pictures1 there is for us no recompense of emotional satisfaction4 ,action in itself has little charm for us1 and action is what the paintings of ,futurism1 in their ultimate expression1 are founded on4 ,but while action may attract us when expressed by an interesting and sympathetic personality1 as in the paintings of ,henri and in the sculpture of ,rude1 there is in ,futurism no actional sensation or explicit element of deep enjoyment that we cannot obtain in greater intensity by gazing upon a busy thoroughfare1 or by watching the landscape from a swiftly moving train1 or by attending a dance4 ,even the chaos of a ,futurist painting does not present the interest of the ,flight ,turning a ,corner from ,keion's panoramic roll of the ,hogen ,heiji war1 or the prints of ,moronobu1 or even ,the ,heavenly ,host by the primitive ,guariento4 ,all these works1 while they represent action1 are also ordered4 ,and order1 which the ,futurists lack1 is more than an arbitrary ingredient in art4 ,just as the eternal desire in life is for something positive and absolute1 so the attempt at order in painting is an outgrowth of the desire to make a picture complete and satisfying4 ,there is no doubt that the ,futurists exerted much good in imbuing the artists of the day with a greater consciosity and in showing them1 by an elaborate critical prospectus1 the error of their ways4 ,futurism quieted the animadversions the modernist painters were hurling at ,monet and his school1 by pointing out that1 to react against ,impressionism by adopting pictorial laws which antedated it1 was futile1 and that the only way to combat it seriously was to surpass it4 ,the ,futurists1 however1 were unable to fulfil their proposition4 ,they were1 in fact1 the abstract perpetuators of ,impressionism through the ,cubists who represented its formal side4 ,the man who surpassed ,impressionism was ,cezanne4 ,furthermore1 the ,futurists chided the ,cubists for painting from models1 whether in squares1 cubes or circles2 and thus turned the light of analysis on the actual achievements1 and away from the theories1 of ,picasso and his followers4 ,the consequence was that for a short time the ,cubists became somewhat ,futuristic4 ,then1 the strong impetus slowly ebbing out1 the two schools gradually approached each other4 ,futurism has taken on a somewhat ,cubistic mien2 and the ,cubists1 having profited by the ,futurists' teachings and having partially divorced themselves from the model1 have begun to seek expression in ,orphism and ,synchromism4 ,the work of ,boccioni and ,carra has assumed a wholly abstract appearance1 and is much more interesting than formerly4 ,illustration3 ,,hieroglyphe ,,dynamique ,,du ,,bal ,,tabarin by ,,severini ,the methods of ,futurism have their provenience in many preceding art movements4 ,one finds in this school's canvases cubes1 spots1 divisionistic technique and wholly academic drawing2 some of the pictures are monotonously brown and grey1 while others possess the acid colouring of ,neo-,impressionism4 ,but aside from their work the ,futurists proved a salutary event in modern art4 ,the painting of the day needed just such a cataclysm to turn its eyes from the contemplation of partial traits to a more encompassing vision4 ,their motto might be the saying of ,mallarme3 ,to name is to destroy1 but to suggest is to create4 ,their art is largely one of suggestion4 ,their initial mistake was in supposing that the depiction of mental states would recall the causes of those states4 ,life would indeed be monotonous if in it there was no struggle4 ,we could never appreciate its consummations were we ignorant of the travail which brought them about4 ,the ,futurists present1 as it were1 the conclusion of an oration in which has been developed a colossal thought1 and ask us to applaud4 ,this we cannot do1 for not having followed the struggle of the new idea against opposing forces1 we are unable to appreciate the import of the results4 ,notwithstanding their many failures the ,futurists have greatly widened the field of illustration2 by a word they have given birth to a school1 ,simultaneism2 and they have forever turned ,cubism from its narrow formalism4 ,but in themselves they were not significant4 ,they were too stringently literary1 and in attempting to advance their own theories at the expense of profounder doctrines1 they have succeeded only in assisting other painters toward a greater purity of expression1 despite the fact that they advocated a retrogressive objectivity4 ,marinetti1 a poet1 is the spiritual 7and monetary7 father of ,futurism2 and the names signed to the original manifesto were ,umberto ,boccioni1 a sculptor as well as a painter2 ,carlo ,d4 ,carra1 the most genuine artist of the group2 ,luigi ,russolo1 its most orthodox exponent2 ,gino ,severini1 its illustrator par excellence2 and ,giacomo ,balla1 its high priest of prettiness4 ,in an attempt to preclude all censure1 they closed their manifest with these words3 ,there will be those who will accuse our art of being cerebrally distorted and decadent4 ,but we will answer simply that we are1 to the contrary1 the primitives of a new and centuple sensitivity1 and that our art is drunk with spontaneity and power4 ,with the slight change of theory for art we would heartily agree with them4 ,,xiii ,,synchromism ,in order to understand the last step in the evolution of present-day art methods1 it is necessary to be thoroughly cognizant not only of what has taken place before but of the chronological development of all the qualities of modern painting1 for ,synchromism embraces every aesthetic aspiration from ,delacroix and ,turner to ,cezanne and the ,cubists4 ,at the same time it reverts to the compositions of ,rubens1 complicating them further to satisfy the needs of the modern mind4 ,delacroix took the first decided step toward making colour an organic factor in art--a factor which would help present a more homogeneous emotion of the picture as a whole1 and which would be intimately connected with the picture's vital expression4 ,he was a decided advance on those painters to whom colour was as arbitrary a means of adorning a good work as the gilt frame they placed about it4 ,colour with them was dictated by the demands of an age of voluptuousness and unrestrained living4 ,the great art nations of ,spain1 ,italy and ,flanders were then passing through a sensuous epoch1 and the painters reflected in their work the tone of the national temperament4 ,the primitives of these countries and of ,germany had used colour because the religious qualities in their pictures became more realistic when nature's general tints were employed4 ,by making their work more dramatic they were able to set forth more forcibly the lesson they strove to teach4 ,the art of the primitives was primarily dogmatic4 ,in it was none of those subtleties of composition which come only with the conscious artist's delight in bringing order out of chaos3 it contained only that simple and instinctive order which is the avoidance of chaos4 ,that which the primitives had to say was so rudimentary and well-learned that it took a definite visional form in their minds4 ,when dogmatism began to lose its charm for the painter his forms gradually became more suave1 and his colour likewise grew gracious and ornamental4 ,the lessons were forgotten1 and composition as an element of first importance1 dressed in a robe of rich and varied hue1 supplanted them4 ,such was the employment of colour at the advent of ,delacroix whose probing mind sensed not only its importance as drama1 but also its potentialities for brilliance4 ,with him1 however1 it remained an adjunct to drawing--something to be applied when the rest of the picture had been laid in1 an element with which to intensify the importance of subject4 ,he gave a great and necessary impetus to its study1 but he outlined no directions for its significant application3 indeed1 by following out his original concepts one is led into the impasse of ,neo-,impressionism4 ,but at so early a stage the impetus is the important thing1 and to ,delacroix belongs the credit for having set in motion the wheels of colour inquisition4 ,it was ,daumier1 however1 who1 apparently ignoring it1 brought its exclusive use appreciably nearer4 ,by conceiving contour and form as one1 he disposed1 as it were1 of these two elements which1 in the scale of pictorial importance1 had always been placed before colour4 ,had each successive painter profited by all the apports and qualities of his direct predecessor's art1 the progress of painting might have been more rapid1 but it would never have been so perfect4 ,each painter would have inherited both the shortcomings and the merits of his forerunner4 ,thus one side of his art would have developed out of all proportion to the other4 ,daumier1 going back to tone1 discovered a wholly natural method for the achievement of intense form4 ,his pictures present themselves as great bulks of flesh and matter1 crude but vital1 which have about them a force of actual weight4 ,in nowise was he a colourist4 ,he lived in a time when prettiness was the keynote of the day1 and his whole life was a revolt against it4 ,his reaction was so extreme that he disregarded the capabilities of colour4 ,the ,impressionists1 on the other hand1 over-emphasised its objective uses4 ,they held that the colour seen in nature is all-important for picture making1 and proceeded to copy it4 ,as a result their work is highly emotional1 but only in the same way that a sunny landscape is emotional4 ,these artists were the slaves of nature1 doing its bidding2 ,gauguin bent everything into the mould of his own personality3 and it is only when these two types of creative impulse combine and modify each other that great naturalistic art is possible4 ,the ,impressionists1 being receptive1 believed all that nature openly proclaimed4 ,they unearthed none of its formal secrets2 they probed none of its causes4 ,theirs was only the joy of the discoverer4 ,but their insistence upon the discovery was important1 because it helped give birth to ,cezanne4 ,he was a direct outgrowth of ,impressionism1 but he was also an outgrowth of art's entire history4 ,superficially he may seem more closely akin to ,pissarro's school than to the older painters1 since it was from ,pissarro he learned his first colour lessons2 but in reality he was more intimately related to a ,giotto or a ,rembrandt1 because his knowledge of colour was used only to heighten the emotion of volume2 and this volume1 which ,monet or ,sisley would not have understood1 was the chief concern of the old masters4 ,with the ,impressionists colour was an end in itself4 ,they looked upon it not merely as expressive of light1 but as synonymous with light1 whereas ,cezanne1 ignoring colour's dramatic possibilities1 used it to express and intensify the fundamentals of organisation1 just as ,giotto1 disregarding the dramatic possibilities of line1 employed line as a means to ordinate volume4 ,cezanne is related to ,daumier and ,rembrandt in that while these men created their art 7which was primarily one of tone7 by building up volume simultaneously with contour1 he created his art 7which was primarily one of colour7 by presenting his visions as nature presents itself to our eyes and intelligences1 that is1 as forms in which tone1 contour and colour are inseparable4 ,that he has been little understood is due to the fact that his profoundly logical methods took birth in an age of inspirational painting4 ,matisse who came later made of ,cezanne's still-lives a highly enjoyable decoration whose destiny can rise no higher than that of tasteful and complete ornament4 ,cezanne's art is dynamic1 while ,matisse's is exaltedly excitatory4 ,the former bears the same relation to the latter that a ,beethoven symphonic movement bears to a ballet by ,delibes4 ,one inspires thought3 the other incites to action1 to spontaneous admiration and joy4 ,matisse loves and knows colour in its harmonic relations4 ,he and ,gauguin1 by the broad beauty of their work1 have given an impetus toward large planes of pure pigment4 ,in brief the evolution of colour is as follows3 it was used first for verity2 secondly1 for ornament2 thirdly1 for drama2 fourthly1 for its inherent beauty as light2 and last1 for intensifying natural form4 ,all this has to do only with the concrete side of art's progress4 ,there is also a progress of the mental attitude which is inseparable from art's concrete development and without which its material evolution could not have gone forward significantly4 ,this mental progress resulted in the emancipation of the artist from the intellectual limitations of his public4 ,up to ,gericault and ,delacroix painting had idealised contemporary life1 had held itself to the interpretation of biblical history1 or had spoken in legend and allegory4 ,it had expressed itself in the ,italian mode of drawing2 it had followed set rules of balance and chiaroscuro2 and above all it had possessed a very definite finish4 ,naturally the art historians expected this style of painting to continue indefinitely4 ,but with ,delacroix it began to change4 ,the hard contours grew freer4 ,the depiction of the human form halted at approximation4 ,drawing became more arbitrary4 ,then came ,courbet who insisted that there was beauty in everything if one knew how to bring it forth4 ,he turned to the commonplace life about him for inspiration1 repudiated the suavities of ,david1 the romance of ,delacroix1 the elegance of ,velazquez and the colour of ,veronese2 and began to order realistic nature4 ,about his name there grew up a tempest of adverse criticism2 but no man so sure of his own genius as was ,courbet could be weakened by public condemnation2 and he made no compromise4 ,manet continued ,courbet's freedom of selection and painted n'importe quoi4 ,the ,impressionists also carried forward this modern attitude4 ,they sought for that which generally was considered ugly1 and made it artistically enjoyable by drenching it with light and colour4 ,then came ,cezanne1 ,matisse1 the ,cubists and the ,futurists1 with each of whom subject-matter became more and more emancipated4 ,natural objects gradually lost their importance and grew more abstract4 ,form was considered for its own sake1 and models were not copied merely because they filled certain utilitarian destinies in the spectator's mind4 ,objects were used by ,cezanne to create abstract ensembles4 ,in ,matisse the form itself became more purely aesthetic1 though with him there was a residue of objectivity for the sake of illustrative consistency4 ,with the ,cubists natural form was an echo1 a memory of life1 retained because they were not sure of how to turn their minds away from it4 ,futurism attempted a rehabilitation of illustration1 but lately it has been converted into a purer vision by the ,cubists4 ,to sum up3 colour reached its highest development in ,cezanne2 composition attained its highest intensity in ,rubens2 and the greatest freedom in material form was represented by the ,cubists4 ,thus the art of painting stood in #aiab4 ,but at that time the development of modern means had not reached its highest point4 ,the purification of painting had not been attained4 ,the tendencies of the past century fell short of realisation4 ,as yet there had been no abstract coalition of colour1 form and composition4 ,colour had not been carried to its ultimate purity as a functioning element4 ,form had become almost unrecognisable but had just missed abstraction1 its inevitable goal4 ,and composition1 the basis of all great art1 had been temporarily abjured in the feverish search for new methods4 ,the step from the condition of art in #aiab to its final purity1 in which would be embodied all the qualities necessary to the greatest compositional painting1 was not a long one1 but until it was taken the cycle must remain incomplete4 ,the last advance in modern methods was made by the ,synchromists at ,der ,neue ,kunstsalon of ,munich in ,june1 #aiac4 ,this movement was fathered by ,morgan ,russell and ,s4 ,macdonald-,wright1 both of whom1 though native ,americans1 were partially ,european in parentage and education4 ,russell is more than half ,french1 and ,macdonald-,wright1 whose family name is ,van ,vranken1 is directly descended from the ,dutch4 ,russell first studied in ,new ,york under ,robert ,henri1 one of the most sincere and intelligent products of ,american art4 ,there he acquired a sound and capable foundation for his later work both in clay and paint4 ,he then went to ,paris1 still feeling nature through the inspiration of ,manet1 and like ,manet fell under the sway of ,monet4 ,from the ,impressionists he was attracted to ,matisse with whom he was personally acquainted4 ,he did many canvases attractive in colour and competent as to form1 as well as a number of synthetic and obviously disproportioned statues which recall the modern ,fauve to a marked degree4 ,later he began to take an interest in ,cezanne1 and to his study of this master and of ,michelangelo is attributable his later development in colour and composition4 ,these men constituted his main influences2 but in the course of his development he had cast a glance at ,picasso and even at the ,futurists2 and it is a significant commentary on their methods that they are more susceptible of understanding than either ,renoir or ,matisse4 ,leo ,stein1 an astute and discerning connoisseur of the more modern art movements and a man who can see with occasional flashes of genius through the aspects of a canvas to its basic cause1 no doubt had much to do with ,russell's rapid intellectual progress through the discipleship of the student to the creation of individual endeavours4 ,macdonald-,wright1 to the contrary1 had little art training in the accepted sense of the word4 ,primarily interested in the purely technical side of painting1 as were ,renoir1 ,cezanne and ,courbet1 he had been influenced first by ,hals1 ,rembrandt and ,velazquez and later by their successors1 ,manet and the ,barbizon school4 ,hoping to find help in the schools he studied at many academies1 but after a brief period retired to the seclusion of his studio4 ,about this time he began1 with the aid of ,chevreul1 ,helmholtz and ,rood1 to make experiments in colour in its relation to luminosity4 ,quite naturally the influence of ,monet followed1 and it was not until a year later that his enthusiasm for the ,impressionists disappeared4 ,he then began the construction of form by large and crude planes1 building his figures with light and dark chromatic blocks4 ,it was this broader application1 coupled with his love of pure colour1 that led him to an eager admiration for ,gauguin4 ,at this period of his development he met ,russell1 his senior by three years1 to whom he has always admitted his debt for his early appreciation of ,michelangelo as well as of the modern masters4 ,from then on1 through many struggles with light1 he made rapid progress4 ,when ,futurism blinded the eyes of the younger men he went straight ahead in the path he had chosen4 ,shortly after their meeting1 ,russell and ,macdonald-,wright reached the end of their appreciative and formative period of imitation4 ,they were both too intensely desirous of self-expression in its broadest and most precise sense to vary an already well-learned precept or theory4 ,they were colourists1 and had been even when passing through their most sombre stage4 ,now both turned to colour as to a longed-for goal4 ,the art world at that time was being flooded with the mournful browns and whites of ,cubism2 and ,matisse was too slight an inspiration to attract them1 for they had consistently conceived form in three dimensions4 ,their desire was to create canvases of richly harmonious colour2 but the difficulty lay in finding a new method of application4 ,neither of them was content merely to place suites of pure hues on the canvas1 as an end in themselves4 ,this would be to sacrifice organised volume for an ephemeral pleasure4 ,colour must have a formal and compositional significance1 otherwise it would be but shallow decoration4 ,the fact that1 like all painters of the day1 they were still bound to the depiction of natural objects1 added difficulty to the solution of their problem4 ,their individual interpretation of ,cezanne1 however1 little by little showed them the method by which they might eventually open the door on their desires4 ,russell approached form through light1 combining both qualities in a simultaneous vision4 ,macdonald-,wright approached light through form1 regarding them as an inseparable and inevitable unity4 ,both painters expressed their vision in the purest gamut of colour which painting up to that time had seen4 ,colour with them became the totality of art1 the one element by which every quality of a canvas was to be expressed4 ,even their lines were obtained by the differentiation of colours in the same way that tempo delimits sound4 ,russell began his ,synchromism by extending and completing the methods of the ,impressionists who had observed that one always has an illusion of violet in shadows when the sunlight is yellow1 and who in their painting represented the full force of light as yellow1 and its opposite extreme of shadow as violet4 ,russell1 in observing that the strong force of light gives us a sensation of yellow and that shadow produces its complementary of violet1 went further and discovered that quarter and half tones also possess colours by which they can be interpreted4 ,he thus arrived at a complete colour interpretation of the degrees of light forces or tones4 ,this method he aptly called the orchestration of tones from black to white4 ,for it he made no hard and set rules4 ,from the first it was a highly plastic and arbitrary manner of depicting objectivity4 ,by modulating from light to dark 7from yellow to violet7 not only was light conceived forcibly1 but form resulted naturally and inevitably4 ,this was the principle by which ,cezanne1 although he did not completely grasp its import1 achieved his eternal light which brought form into being4 ,but the principle with him was subjugated to the influence of local colours1 varying milieu1 reflections1 etc4 ,russell stated the principle frankly and applied it purely4 ,since his form at that period resulted from a sensitive depiction of light values expressed by colour1 his canvases had much the same beauty of strongly lighted natural objects seen through the three-sided prism by which the transition from tone to colour is automatically brought about4 ,macdonald-,wright approached his conception of ,synchromism from the opposite direction4 ,he had always been dissatisfied with the endless alternation of small shadows and lights which the ,impressionists had introduced into painting1 and with the tiny planes and spots which artists used for verisimilitude4 ,he desired a method whereby the elements of shadow and light could be differentiated and drawn together in simple masses4 ,he had studied pure colour more from the standpoint of form than from that of light1 and during #aiab began to take note of the fluctuations of colours1 their mobility when juxtaposed with other colours1 their densities and transparencies4 ,in fine1 he recorded their inherent tendency to express degrees of material consistency4 ,thus with him a yellow1 instead of meaning an intense light1 represented an advancing plane1 and a blue1 while having all the sensation of shadow about it1 receded to an infinity of subjective depth4 ,the relative spacial extension of all the other colours was then determined1 and a series of colour scales was drawn up which gave not only the sensation of light and dark but also the sensation of perspective4 ,thus it was possible to obtain any degree of depth by the use of colour alone1 for all the intermediate steps from extreme projection to extreme recession were expressible by means of certain tones and pure hues4 ,the first ,synchromist canvas was exposed by ,russell in the ,salon des ,independants early in the spring of #aiac4 ,it was called ,synchromie en ,vert and recorded a large interior in which all the light forces were treated in their purely emotional phases4 ,the canvas lacked the complete visualisation and the solid space-construction which characterise his later work1 and furthermore it revealed many traces of the academic composition4 ,however1 had there been critics possessed of artistic prescience they straightway would have sensed in it a new force in painting4 ,but the picture's defects obscured their recognition of its potential vitality4 ,this was due in part to the fact that the work lost much of its effect by piece-painting1 that is1 by the minute treatment of details each of which constituted an end in itself regardless of the total4 ,russell counted on the line of the different bodies holding it together2 but he reckoned falsely1 for if1 in a work where colour is so important a part of line1 the colour and line are not in complete harmony1 the line alone is inadequate to effect the liaison of forms4 ,in this same ,salon ,macdonald-,wright1 not yet having arrived at a defined conception1 exposed two canvases in which his later developments were but vaguely foreshadowed4 ,both pictures were formal compositions of nude figures painted in three or four flat planes of pure colour1 and recalled ,matisse and ,cezanne more strongly than they presented a new vision4 ,from the standpoint of efficient visualisation all three ,synchromist works were failures1 or at least they were indications of incomplete progress4 ,in ,russell's canvas the diminutive breaking up of colour negatived what otherwise would have been the picture's brilliant effect2 and ,macdonald-,wright's large application of colour served only to place him under the banner of an established school4 ,but both men realised that this was only a start1 and set diligently to work on the canvases for their first exhibition which was booked in ,munich for ,june of that year4 ,between their first pictures and those of a few months later there was to be noted an advance both in conception and in application4 ,russell's small colour planes1 applied wholly from the standpoint of light1 expanded and took on a new effectiveness4 ,his form became more abstract1 and his colour more harmonious4 ,also his compositions were more compact1 though they were ordered rather than rhythmically organised4 ,macdonald-,wright's progress was similar4 ,in an interpretation of one of ,michelangelo's ,slaves1 used as the dominant form in an arrangement of three figures1 all the academism which had marked his earlier expression had disappeared4 ,his method had been liberated from the exactitudes of static principles1 and had become consistent1 not with the new colour knowledge1 but within itself4 ,the theory of defined colour gamuts1 which from the first had been applied by these two men1 had now become a scientific principle4 ,though the truth of it had always been vaguely sensed by them1 it had not become a definitely comprehended formula until they had worked out the naturalistic laws governing colour4 ,the ,synchromist pictures in which these laws were boldly applied were first brought together at #ac1 ,prannerstrasse1 ,munich1 in ,june1 #aiac4 ,in ,november of the same year their work was again exposed1 this time at the ,bernheim-,jeune galleries in ,paris4 ,the show in ,munich1 widely advertised by coloured posters1 had attracted considerable interest1 but in ,paris the exhibition created a two-weeks' sensation4 ,though the more discriminating critics saw its importance1 there was considerable adverse comment due largely to the ,synchromists' spectacular and over-enthusiastic methods of putting forward their views and discoveries4 ,in their two specifically worded prospectuses they devoted much space to the shortcomings of ,orphism1 then in vogue2 and although their criticisms of that school1 coupled with the statement of their own tangible and logical aims1 had much to do with ,orphism's demise1 the impropriety of the attack created a feeling antagonistic to the new men4 ,the appearance of their pictures was entirely different from any paintings hitherto exposed2 and their conception1 while being a normal and direct outgrowth of ,cezanne1 marked a revolution in formal construction4 ,the inspiration of both these new artists was classic in that they recognised the absolute need of organisation which1 if it was not melodiously and sequentially composed1 should at least be rhythmic4 ,both were striving to create a pure art--one which would express itself with the means alone inherent in that art1 as music expresses itself by means of circumscribed sound4 ,there was no precedent for purely abstract form--that is1 form which has no antitype in nature--any more than there was a precedent for the construction of painting solely by means of colour and line4 ,this was not due to an absence of desire in the artist for an abstract language of form1 but to a natural diffidence on his part to break once and for all with centuries of tradition1 and with one imperious gesture to cast aside the accepted raison d'etre of the visual arts4 ,we have seen how form from the first had been an imitation of natural objects1 how it de-developed into synthesis1 then into pure composition1 how it reached a high degree of arbitrariness in ,matisse1 how it disintegrated in ,cubism1 and how in ,futurism and ,orphism there was a valiant attempt to convert it once more into pictorialism1 to check its elan toward perfect freedom of creation4 ,it is not therefore strange that the ,synchromist exhibition should have comprised1 with the exception of one canvas1 figure pieces1 studies of landscape and still-lives 7some almost archaic in their direct and simple statement71 and not canvases which abandoned all semblance to natural form4 ,russell and ,macdonald-,wright were still occupied tentatively in expressing the forms they knew best1 each by his own individual method4 ,but despite this compromise with tradition their exhibition presented a highly novel impression4 ,there were human figures distorted almost out of recognition for the compositional needs of the canvas and painted in bars of pure colour2 still-lives which seemed to be afire with chromatic brilliance2 fantastic fruits2 life-sized male figures in pure yellow-orange2 and mountains of intense reds and purples1 warm greens and violets4 ,all the pictures1 however1 displayed decided organisational ability1 and they possessed a more complete harmony of colour and line than had been achieved by any of the other younger painters4 ,but that quality of ,synchromism which struck the discerning spectator more than any other was the force of volume resulting from the relationship of colours4 ,for years painters had realised that certain colours when applied to certain forms rebelled at the combination1 that they refused to remain passively on the planes assigned them4 ,but this phenomenon had never been given any penetrating study4 ,the more sensitive painters had merely changed their colours to more tractable ones1 and had thus avoided the inevitable conflict that followed the fallacious commingling of two highly affirmative elements4 ,such chromatic inconsistencies should have taught artists the necessity of harmony for the sake of perfect order2 but the matter was left to personal instinct4 ,the clash between colour and form1 however1 was not due to any error or idiosyncrasy of taste1 but to the absolute character of each separate hue which demanded1 for its formal affinity1 a fixed and unalterable spacial extension4 ,at an early date artists had recognised that blue and violet were cool and mournful colours1 and that yellow and orange were warm and joyful ones4 ,they applied this primitive discovery with the feeble results to be found in ,neo-,impressionism4 ,that these colours had any further character they never suspected4 ,their insight extended only to the emotional and associative characteristics of the colours2 the physical side was overlooked4 ,had the painters been more scientifically minded they would have known that these characteristics1 which were the feminine traits1 could not have existed in isolation2 and they would have searched for the colours' dominating and directing properties which represented the masculine traits4 ,such a search would have led them to the meaning of colours in relation to volumes1 that is1 to colours' formal vibrations which alone are capable of expressing plastic fullness4 ,this vibratory quality ,macdonald-,wright found and applied4 ,by it he achieved light and shadow which resulted naturally by the juxtaposition of warm and cold colours4 ,russell1 working altogether from the standpoint of light as revealed by form1 attained practically the same results so long as his light came from the direction of the spectator1 for in such a case the highest illumination was the most intense salient and1 as with ,macdonald-,wright1 had therefore to be painted with a warm and highly opaque colour4 ,but where the light came from a source at right angles to the line of vision1 the expression reverted to an intensification of the ,impressionistic method4 ,later this accident of light disappeared from ,russell's work1 and consequently his treatment became less restricted4 ,this setting aside of light as the motif was a necessary departure1 for when ,russell carried his work into the higher elements of pure form1 a realistic source of illumination would have made his suites of abstract volumes appear1 not poised and relatively solid1 but as paterae attached to an impenetrable substance4 ,under such conditions painting would merely be another and perhaps more beautiful way of making effective the ordonnances of surface form4 ,but it would have no more power to create in us an aesthetic emotion than an exquisitely composed bas-relief4 ,the ambitions of the ,synchromists went deeper4 ,they desired to express1 by means of colour1 form which would be as complete and as simple as a ,michelangelo drawing1 and which would give subjectively the same emotion of form that the ,renaissance master gives objectively4 ,they wished to create images of such logical structure that the imagination would experience their unrecognisable reality in the same way our eyes experience the recognisable realities of life4 ,they strove to bring about a new and hitherto unperceived reality which would be as definite and moving as the commonplace realities of every day1 in short1 to find an abstract statement for life itself by the use of forms which had no definable aspects4 ,the ,synchromists' chief technical method of obtaining this abstract equivalent for materiality was to make use of the inherent and absolute movement of colours toward and away from the spectator1 by placing colours on forms in exact accord with the propensities of those colours to approach or recede from the eye4 ,the ,futurists had spoken of drawing the spectator into the centre of the picture1 there to struggle with the principals of the work4 ,they failed in this ambition because their canvases lacked the intense tactility of volume4 ,the ,synchromists1 by making the enjoyment of form purely subjective1 and by expressing form both by objectivity of line and the subjectivity of colour1 achieved the ambition of both the ,futurists and ,cezanne4 ,the latter's desire was ever toward a pure and subjective art4 ,although his colour viewed objectively is much like the ,impressionists'1 the pleasure of the ,impressionistic vision disappears when the eye is satisfied1 whereas our emotions begin to work on a ,cezanne only after the visual enjoyment has run its course4 ,illustration3 ,,synchromie ,,cosmique by ,,morgan ,,russell ,where ,cezanne obtained a block solidity by the intelligent addition of local colour to light and by the subtraction of light from local colour1 the ,synchromists reject all local colour and paint only with hues which express the desired form4 ,the position of a given volume in space dictates to them the colour with which it is to be painted4 ,consequently a receding volume whose position is behind the other volumes is never painted a pure yellow1 for that colour advances toward the spectator's eye2 and a solid volume which projects further than the others is never painted violet1 for violet expresses not solidity but a quality of space1 something intangible and translucent4 ,all colours and tones and admixtures are answerable to the law of natural placement4 ,this law is not absolute2 it does not anchor each colour at a specific and unchangeable distance from the eye1 but it determines the relative position of colours in space according to the influence of environmental colours1 thereby making their position both dependent and directing but none the less inevitable4 ,the perfecting of this principle by the ,synchromists introduced an added element of poise and a new emotion in painting--poise1 because1 by changing a line or a colour1 the formal solid constructed by interdependent hues would shift and adopt another position answering to the needs of the new order3--a new emotion1 because colour in all painting before ,cezanne had been used for ornament or for the dramatic reinforcement of the drawing or subject1 and in ,cezanne colour had been employed to express subjectively the emotions of volumes found in nature4 ,in ,synchromism1 which was first inspired by natural forms1 all considerations other than light forces 7as with ,russell7 and form 7as with ,macdonald-,wright7 and composition 7as used by both7 were abolished4 ,colour was made a functioning element out of which grew all the qualities of the pictures4 ,at first1 adverse criticisms were aimed at the ,synchromists' polychromatic nudes1 still-lives and landscapes4 ,the press remarked that the nudes appeared as if adorned in ,harlequin suits2 the landscapes1 as if they were intended for theatre drops2 and the still-lives1 as if painted through a prism4 ,the ,synchromists answered that1 in order to achieve a strong emotion of force and weight1 they would willingly sacrifice the lovely tints of the flesh and the joy of searching for coloured pots in the shops of the second-hand merchants4 ,but1 despite all they could say1 there was justice in the public's criticism4 ,so long as there was a natural form in a picture1 the spectator would unconsciously judge it from a naturalistic standpoint4 ,to be sure1 there were canvases in the ,munich exhibition which were almost unrecognisable as nature2 but1 before the aims of this new movement could be fully attained1 a style of arbitrary and pure form was necessary4 ,in the ,bernheim-,jeune show ,russell exposed one wholly abstract canvas4 ,as an indication of a deflection toward pure composition1 it was important1 but the picture itself was as manifestly an artistic failure as had been his first large ,synchromie en ,vert hung in the ,salon des ,independants of that year4 ,it was not the only failure exposed1 however4 ,from the point of view of complete and organised conception all the early ,synchromist pictures were to a certain extent fragmentary and tentative4 ,the large canvas by ,macdonald-,wright1 ,synchromie en ,bleu1 was a flagrant example of a totally new vision unsuccessfully struggling with the objectively classic inspiration of a defunct antiquity4 ,the group of three males in its foreground1 while competently and intelligently built1 had the appearance of allegorical figures struggling against a toppling world4 ,although their position and organisation were dictated by the needs of an almost ,el ,greco-like composition1 one was too conscious of natural objects to accept1 with a clear aesthetic conscience1 the seeming chaos of the elements4 ,in bringing together in a unified emotion all the impressions of form1 the ,synchromists at first overlooked the fact that purity of expression1 in order to be highly potent1 must embody a pure conception4 ,their early canvases demonstrated many new formal possibilities1 but1 while they were composed more compactly than those of the other moderns1 the forms themselves were obviously naturalistic4 ,herein the ,synchromists at their debut failed to take the step from ,cezanne to abstraction4 ,cezanne conceived all nature's qualities--form1 colour and tone--simultaneously4 ,he was the first great realist1 because nature dictated to him the colour he was to use4 ,the ,synchromists1 on the other hand1 used natural objects to create organisations of pure colour1 thus making formal expression a wholly subjective performance4 ,this method contained greater emotional potentialities than ,cezanne's1 because where the latter's palette was necessarily much subdued in order to approximate to the attenuated gamut found in nature1 the ,synchromists' palette was keyed to its highest pitch of saturation4 ,cezanne's choice of colour was never absolute in the harmonic sense1 because he depended for accuracy entirely on taste and sensitivity4 ,with ,macdonald-,wright and ,russell the palette was completely and scientifically rationalised so that one could strike a chord upon it as surely and as swiftly as on the keyboard of a piano3 the element of hazard in harmony was eliminated4 ,this knowledge of colour gamuts was not employed for ornamental niceties1 but was converted into a method of creating an aesthetic finality other than that of form and line4 ,if1 in a complete balance of line and volume1 the colour overweighs at any point into warm or cold1 the poise of the whole is jeopardised and the finality obscured4 ,the perfect poise of all the elements of a painting1 expressed by the single element of colour1 is the final technical aim of ,synchromism4 ,in the first arbitrary formal composition by ,russell the desire was to carry out the continuations of form from one chosen generating colour and at the same time to create linear development as well4 ,his compositional theory was that1 through the inevitable evolution of line from an arbitrarily chosen centre1 the artist would naturally and consciously create form which would definitely approximate to the human body4 ,in his ,synchromie en ,bleu ,violace the composition was very similar to that of the famous ,michelangelo ,slave whose left arm is raised above the head and whose right hand rests on the breast4 ,the picture contained the same movement as the statue1 and had a simpler ordonnance of linear directions2 but1 save in a general way1 it bore no resemblance to the human form4 ,the sketch for this canvas was a greater success than the final presentation1 for its realisation was more complete1 its order more contracted and intense4 ,in both there was but one very simple rhythm with two movements2 and the size of the large picture1 which was twelve feet high1 was incommensurate with the slightness of the expression4 ,his second large ,synchromie1 exposed in the ,salon des ,independants in ,march #aiad1 was more complicated and more sensitively organised1 both as to movement and to colour1 than his first4 ,by his colour rhythms he strove to incorporate into his painting the quality of duration3 that is1 he sought to have his picture develop into time like music4 ,the ambition was commendable although he wrongly asserted that older painting extends itself strictly into space4 ,a ,rubens1 while presenting itself to the spectator at one glance1 is nevertheless more than a block-manifestation of forms1 for it never reveals itself fully until after many periods of study4 ,in the old painters there is a definite formal foundation on which the canvas is rhythmically built1 and as a rule this formal figure is repeated in miniature many times throughout the canvas4 ,these form-echoes are defined and complete linear orders1 and into them rhythm is introduced4 ,in ,russell the process is reversed3 with him the rhythm brings about the order4 ,in ,rubens there is a distinct and conscious development of line1 but no development of form4 ,russell1 in his later canvases1 sets down a central form which dictates both the continuity of the picture and its formal complications4 ,his generating centre is not like a motif whose character imprints itself on all its developments1 but rather like a seed out of which the different forms grow--a directing centre which inspires and orders its environment4 ,in fine1 the surrounding forms are not a development of the central one1 but a result of it4 ,this type of composition corresponds to the melodic composition in music4 ,in the later works of ,macdonald-,wright the motif form of composition is achieved4 ,in ,cezanne there are forms whose parallels are repeated in varied development throughout the work and are rhythmically ordered into blocks4 ,but while these forms resemble motif repetition1 they are not generated by rhythm but united by it4 ,in ,macdonald-,wright's canvases the rhythmic continuation of a central form constitute the movement of the picture as well as the final character of it4 ,in his ,arm ,organisation in ,blue-,green one can discern near the centre a small and arbitrary interpretation of the constructional form of the human arm4 ,the movement of these forms throws off other lines and forms which1 through many variations and counter-statements1 reconstruct the arm in a larger way4 ,again these lines of the larger arm1 in conjunction with the lines of the smaller one1 evoke a further set of forms which break into parts each of which is a continuation or a restatement of the original arm motif1 varied and developed4 ,macdonald-,wright holds that the forms which we have experienced in our contact with nature are more expressive and diverse than those which are born of the inventive intelligence4 ,but1 while it is true that every realisation of aesthetic movement or of the rhythm of form is based on the movement of the human body1 it is not true that the human body is a necessary foundation for form alone4 ,however1 ,macdonald-,wright1 in interpreting the human form1 makes use merely of the direction and counterpoise of volume2 he does not indulge in the depiction of limbs and torso3 the body is only his inspiration to abstraction4 ,he changes and shifts its forms out of any superficial resemblance to nature4 ,in his desire to cling to a solid and immutable foundation we recognise an artist who realises how meagre is the incentive to create abstract compositions4 ,with centuries of tradition urging him to a realistic rendering of the life about him1 he finds it difficult to break entirely with realism and to create without referring to materiality4 ,perhaps some day he will even forgo the inspiration found in the combined forms in nature4 ,his work is tending toward that ultimate freedom1 as also is ,russell's4 ,such a development1 however1 cannot be definitely predicted1 but one can say1 without dogmatism1 that in the future their work will become surer1 their compositions of a higher and more complete order4 ,with their knowledge of the fundamentals of rhythmic organisation1 which is well in advance of that of the other painters of today1 their progress seems assured4 ,their postulates are too definite to permit of the introduction of literary or musical transcendentalism2 and their apports are too significant to permit of any retrogression toward metaphysics or drama4 ,their palette has become co-ordinated and rationalised4 ,their composition is founded on the human body in movement4 ,and their colour1 in its plastic sense1 takes into consideration space1 light and form4 ,these factors represent their technical assets4 ,with these painters comes into being an art divorced from all the entanglements of photography1 of piecemeal creation1 of inharmonic gropings1 of literature and of data hunting4 ,but they must not be regarded merely as inventors of new pictorial methods1 for their discoveries have already taken significant aesthetic form4 ,as ,renoir completed the first cycle of modern art which was ushered in by ,turner and ,delacroix1 so have the ,synchromists completed the cycle of which ,cezanne is the archaic father4 ,they have discovered the concrete means wherewith to bring about his desires4 ,it remains now for the painters of today and of the future to realise more fully the dreams of a higher art history4 ,with the ,synchromists there is no system or method other than a purely personal one4 ,the word ,synchromism1 adopted by them to avoid obnoxious classification under a foreign banner1 means simply with colour4 ,it does not explain a mannerism or indicate a special trait1 as do ,cubism1 ,futurism and ,neo-,impressionism4 ,it is as open as the term musician4 ,as a school it can never exist4 ,indeed it is the first graphic art the application of whose principles cannot be learned by a course of instruction4 ,artists employing its means must depend entirely on their own ability to create4 ,in ,synchromist pictures the good or bad results cannot be obscured by the introduction of foreign elements1 as in the case of pictures wherein nature is copied4 ,russell and ,macdonald-,wright have already repudiated the appellation of ,synchromist and call themselves merely painters1 for1 since ,cezanne1 painting means1 not the art of tinting drawing or of correctly imitating natural objects1 but the art which expresses itself only with the medium inherent in it--colour4 ,all significant painting to come must necessarily make use of ,synchromist means1 although form and composition--that is1 the creative expression--may be as arbitrary or personal as the artist desires4 ,in the ,synchromists' latest prospectus are to be found the following comments3 ,in our painting colour becomes the generating function4 ,painting being the art of colour1 any quality of a picture not expressed by colour is not painting4 ,an art whose ambition it is to be pure should express itself only with means inherent in that art4 ,the relation of spacial emotions and of the emotions of density and transparency which we wish to express1 dictates to us the colours most capable of transmitting these sensations to the spectator4 ,in thus creating the subjective emotion of depth and rhythm we achieve the dreams of painters who talk of drawing the spectator into the centre of the picture2 but instead of his being drawn there merely by intellectual processes he is enveloped in the picture by tactile sensation4 ,we limit ourselves to the expression of plastic emotions4 ,we can no longer conceive of the stupid juxtapositions of colours devoid of any rhythmic interlinking as art organisations4 ,the ,synchromists do not pretend to have invented new qualities for art but to have brought to painting a new vision which permits them to express the old qualities with a greater potency than formerly4 ,,xiv ,,the ,,lesser ,,moderns ,decadence is simply the inability to create new tissue4 ,in painting it manifests itself in two ways3 either in the endeavour of an artist to turn the attention from new and precise procedures to antiquated and irrelevant ones2 or in the artist's desire to base his inspiration on the great work of an immediate forerunner rather than on the foundation of all vitality1 nature4 ,in neither case is new material being added to the sum of art4 ,decadence usually takes the form of a facile imitation of the surface aspect of a master1 not infrequently making that master's results prettier1 more fluent and more attractive4 ,this is a natural and inevitable consequence of copying the objective side of a great work which originally was the outgrowth of a profound aesthetic philosophy4 ,decadents1 as a general rule1 are sufficiently analytic to sense their own paucity of constructive genius4 ,in recognising that nature can never inspire them to significant co-ordinations1 they are content to accept1 with slight modifications1 the artistic standards of their predecessors4 ,they vary the art that has gone before to meet the needs of their own temperaments4 ,in many cases highly meritorious work results4 ,the word decadent is not wholly deprecatory4 ,often the decadent is a competent composer in the abstract4 ,by presenting in an attractive way his own personal tastes1 he sometimes makes his art both interesting and beautiful4 ,his decadence lies in his retrogression from the point to which the art of his day has arrived and in his inability to introduce a new element to compensate for this retrogression4 ,no amount of individuality can bridge this gap4 ,many painters1 like ,gauguin1 have reacted against achievement but have possessed a tangential vitality which in itself has been a new contribution to aesthetic endeavour4 ,other painters1 like ,renoir1 while introducing no innovations1 have1 by talented and comprehensive efforts1 duplicated and improved upon the art of the latest creative masters and thereby pushed forward the highest standards4 ,they are not decadents1 for their work exhibits no deterioration4 ,even decadents may be excellent artists4 ,gaspar de ,crayer was undoubtedly a great artist though an offshoot of ,rubens2 and ,giampietrino and ,cesare da ,sesto were both solid and intelligent painters1 though they did not rival their master1 ,leonardo da ,vinci4 ,there has undoubtedly been great sculpture since the ,renaissance2 but ,michelangelo closed up for all time the plastic possibilities of clay and marble1 and consequently1 there being no new functioning element to be introduced into it1 all sculpture since his day has been in the broad sense decadent4 ,modern painting has had its decadents also--men who have attempted to revert to a sterile past or who have followed in the paths blazed by others without approaching the achievements of the painters imitated4 ,this latter class has its usages1 for it tends to lend impetus to the movement it follows4 ,the men composing it are popularly called exponents1 and the appellation is just4 ,there are painters in all countries today who adhere to ,impressionist methods1 and thereby keep ever before us one of the great steps in the development of modern painting4 ,cezanne has undoubtedly been given greater consideration because of the many artists who follow his precepts4 ,and the numerous imitators of ,cubism have done much to focus on that movement the consideration it deserves4 ,in a general way all the lesser modern painters1 by their feverish activities1 expositions and pamphleteering1 have1 despite their inherent lack of genuine importance1 kept the world conscious of the fact that it is in the midst of a great aesthetic upheaval1 that new forces are at work1 that the older order is being supplanted4 ,today nearly every country has a group of men striving toward the new vision4 ,they cannot all be innovators of new methods4 ,they cannot all carry forward the evolution of modern painting4 ,but they can at least give momentum to the current ideals and turn out work which bears so much personal merit that it becomes deserving of more or less serious consideration4 ,degas and his circle are of this class1 as are the ,futurists who1 though at bottom decadent1 inasmuch as they turn their art back to illustration1 are a force which cannot be ignored4 ,in ,dresden1 ,munich and ,berlin are groups of modern men who have repudiated the academies and struck out into new fields4 ,russia has contributed many young artists to the present ideal4 ,england has not been altogether impervious to the modern doctrines4 ,america is represented by fully a score of artists animated by the new vitality4 ,and in ,france there are a hundred painters at work tearing down the older idols4 ,while few of these men can lay claim to introducing any intrinsically new and significant methods or forms into modern painting1 their work in many instances1 while being decadent in the strict sense1 is nevertheless commendable4 ,they are not great artists even in the sense that ,monet1 ,manet1 ,gauguin1 ,matisse and ,picasso are great2 but many of them are at least genuine artists4 ,one of the most conspicuous figures among the decadents is ,wassily ,kandinsky4 ,in an age when all art was being arraigned before the tribunal of biology1 physiology1 and psychology1 he came forward and attempted to drag it back into the murky medium of metaphysics4 ,the generating forces of modern painting1 however1 rest on no metaphysical hypothesis4 ,to attempt to define form by transcendental terms1 or even to credit form with esoteric significance1 reveals an ignorance of the principles of aesthetic emotion4 ,form in the art sense is a demonstrable proposition2 it is answerable to physical laws4 ,michelangelo1 ,el ,greco1 ,giotto1 ,rubens1 ,cezanne and ,renoir based composition on natural causes1 and as each successive artist has approached intensity in organisation1 he has come nearer and nearer to the rhythm which animates and controls corporeal existence4 ,a,esthetic form1 in order to become emotion-producing1 must reflect the form which is most intimately associated with our sensitivities4 ,it must primarily be physical4 ,there is nothing mysterious about aesthetic rhythm1 and any attempt to spiritualise the harmonies of art carries art so much further from the truth4 ,the modern tendency to make objects abstract and to divest subject-matter of all its mimetic qualities1 has led some critics and painters to the false conclusion that form itself is unrelated to recognisable phenomena4 ,but even in the most abstract of the great painters1 the form is concrete4 ,in a broad sense it is susceptible of geometrical demonstration2 and its intensity is in direct ratio to its proximation to human organisms4 ,in fact1 there are no moving forms in an aesthetic organisation which do not have their prototypes in the human body in action4 ,were this not true empathy would be impossible1 and without empathy an artistic emotion is purely intellectual and associative4 ,the greatest painters1 past and present1 have recognised this principle2 and art which does not adhere to it is decadent both in the aesthetic and the intellectual sense4 ,kandinsky exemplifies this kind of decadence4 ,while the innovators up to ,matisse had tried to discover in nature secrets which would aid them in plastic expression1 ,kandinsky has tried1 by numerous articles and at least one complete book1 to turn back the minds of painters to the supposedly mystical elements of form and colour4 ,but although this artist is to be commended on his effort to make colour significant in a day when angular forms of brown and black were the keynote1 his study of colour should have begun where ,cezanne left off and not with the writings of ,maeterlinck and the symbolist poets4 ,kandinsky recognises that colour has possibilities1 but he ignores the fact that colour is one of the physical sciences1 as definite as those of the quadrivium1 that its inductive qualities have become classified and that its functioning is precise and answerable to natural laws4 ,consequently he cannot co-ordinate its governing principles1 and1 in an attempt to rationalise it he has sought refuge in music1 an art which presents to him the same mystical difficulties4 ,so long as he was under the healthy influence of ,matisse his symbology was less evident2 but when he adopted a metaphysical programme it all came to the surface4 ,kandinsky's early impressions are heavy and insensitive ,fauve pictures4 ,his compositions for the most part are general statements of some rural scene in ,matisse's manner2 and his improvisations represent semi-abstract lines delimiting scientifically meaningless colours4 ,in his book1 ,the ,art of ,spiritual ,harmony1 he presents an elaborate explanation of the metaphysical basis for colour1 but he fails to contribute any ideas not to be found in ,delacroix and ,seurat4 ,and the pictures with which he complements the text have been surpassed1 in their own manner1 by the ,chinese4 ,there are isolated comments on colour theories which are separately sound1 and there are explanatory generalisations2 but a diligent search fails to reveal any statement which is precise and at the same time new4 ,the book refers constantly to music1 and there are undeniable evidences of literary thought2 but nowhere is there an explanation of the plastic significance of colour4 ,kandinsky is a painter of moods1 and as such encroaches upon the domain of music4 ,he is a painter of the vision of an action without its objective integument1 and as such he enters the realm of poetry4 ,he is essentially pretty1 and despite his idealistic nomenclature1 he is at bottom illustrative and decorative4 ,what he designates the soul is only associative memory1 and his conception of composition is the breaking up of a flat surface into irregular compartments by lines and more or less pure colour4 ,like ,scriabine he has overlooked the formal possibilities of colour and consequently has failed in any aesthetically emotional expression4 ,illustration3 ,,composition ,,no4 #b by ,,kandinsky ,kandinsky's attempts to create moods are largely failures because of the inherent limitations of his art medium4 ,the arts may be synthesised when a profounder understanding of them has come about1 but their functionality can never be interchanged4 ,the art of literature will always be able to tell a story better than the greatest sculpture2 and even a primitive song is more capable of producing a mood than the most highly organised painting4 ,kandinsky1 for instance1 fails to achieve what the ,marseillaise achieves in music1 namely3 the dramatic presentation of an exhortation to action4 ,separate1 for instance1 the phrases of the original version4 ,the first verse opens with a rousing appeal which culminates on patrie1 a word always welcome to the ear and heart of a ,frenchman4 ,then the song acclaims the glory of the occasion and repeats dramatically the cause of the struggle--,contre nous de la tyrannie l'etendard sanglant est leve4 ,then it recounts the tragedies which are befalling relatives and friends at the hands of the growling soldiers of the enemy2 and suddenly1 in an unexpected voice it calls1 ,aux armes1 citoyens6 ending in a patriotic and decisive flourish4 ,the music throughout is subtly harmonised with the words3 lively during the opening call2 abated during the first statement of the cause2 animated with its repetition2 minor when the tragic words occur2 vibrant and imitative of bugles during the call to arms2 and highest in pitch at the end4 ,this is the expression of the mood intensified4 ,could painting extend itself into time and present singly and in sequence the visions of objective nature1 dramatically synthesised with colour and line1 it could perhaps influence people to emotion in the way music does4 ,but the musical quality of time-extension is impossible in painting4 ,and since a picture presents a simultaneous vision1 which cannot be otherwise except through a subjective process1 it is incapable of working from a prelude to a finale like music4 ,music is abstract1 though firmly based on the rhythmic movement of all nature1 yet it can produce moods by far more distant and far less tangible associations than can painting4 ,but mood in music is no higher a quality than illustration in painting1 and the highly creative artists ignore them both4 ,the great composer is the one who1 seeing beyond the associative theory in music1 feels the deeper plasticity of movement and form3 and his plasticity is this only preoccupation1 just as the plastic element of colour is the great modern painter's chief concern4 ,kandinsky has only tried to introduce an unimportant element of one art into another art4 ,while the procedure has a superficial taste of novelty it is no more creditable than if he had declared himself frankly for illustration and joined the ranks of ,degas and his school4 ,he has not probed into the pregnant recesses of painting and attempted to discover the meaning of form4 ,he has contented himself with obscuring the delineations of natural objects in such a manner that the beholder feels led to decipher his cryptic realities4 ,the suggestion of actuality is there1 but there being no other strong attraction in the picture1 aesthetic or otherwise1 the spectator sets to work to penetrate its objective meaning4 ,in the majority of cases he succeeds1 and gains thereby a satisfaction similar to that of having solved a simple problem in fractions4 ,in painting moods1 which he refers to as spiritual impressions1 internal harmonies1 psychic effects and soul vibrations1 ,kandinsky does not attempt to depict the dynamic forces which produce moods1 but strives to interpret his own emotional impressions by means of semi-symbolic and semi-naturalistic visions and by inspirational methods4 ,unable to ally the elements of colour and line to a given theme1 he contents himself with giving us a chaotic impression by such means as he personally associates with his mood3 and since this kind of association is largely individual1 his depiction of the mood is incomprehensible to anyone not temperamentally and mentally at one with him4 ,did he understand the inherent psychological dramatic significance of colours and lines he could represent a universally moving vision1 and thereby attain in a small degree the end for which he aims4 ,but his feeling for colour especially is so vague and unscientific that it is1 after all1 a personal thing1 and his graphic representation of a mood is little more than an individual and purely otiose expression4 ,even ,carra1 in his colourless ,funeral of the ,anarchist ,galli1 approaches nearer the creation of a mood than does ,kandinsky in his best canvases1 for in ,carra there is exhibited a certain knowledge of the dramatic use of line which1 when combined with recognisable subject-matter1 augments the thematic drama4 ,despite his complete preoccupation with colour ,kandinsky is decadent more than ,van ,gogh to whom artistically he is closely related1 because the progress of modern painting is toward purity1 toward creation by means of a unique element1 toward an art which expresses only the qualities of which that art is the most highly capable4 ,when other considerations enter into it1 it is at once drawn back toward illustration1 and its final defecation is postponed4 ,happily ,kandinsky1 an explorer of the limitless realms of metaphysics1 has given us no more specific a postulate than that colour has meaning4 ,though he formulates many vaguely associative theories 7such as keen yellow looks sour because it recalls the taste of a lemon1 a shade of red will cause pain or disgust through association with running blood1 and in the hierarchy of colours green is the bourgeoisie--self-satisfied1 immovable1 narrow72 he nevertheless relies largely on instinct for their application4 ,while attempting to turn painters' minds from the precise discoveries of colourists to a pseudo-philosophical consideration of colour1 he is too general and ambiguous to inspire extensive imitation4 ,already painters since him have gone forward in the great work of research begun by the ,impressionists4 ,if ,kandinsky1 as a theorist1 is cabalistic and illusory1 he achieves a certain decorative prettiness in his work4 ,though his ideas are old1 the appearance of his canvases is new3 and it is merely this novelty of conception1 coupled with his tendency toward abstraction1 which makes him of interest1 and then only as a theoretical deviation from the work of ,gauguin1 ,matisse and the ,orientals4 ,his colour is not without visual charm1 and his composition often has the fascination of the delicate patterns found in the ,chinese4 ,in fact1 ,kandinsky's compositional debt to the ,chinese is large4 ,his ,improvisation ,no4 #bi is almost identical with a painting by ,rin ,teikei1 and many of his pictures appear like curved-line generalisations of ,chinese groupings1 or the forms in ,chinese backgrounds4 ,like the ,cubists ,kandinsky is a step toward arbitrariness in formal composition1 but his advance is less significant than theirs4 ,in his desire to illustrate a mood and produce a corresponding psychic emotion in the spectator he is a transcendentalised ,futurist4 ,his ontological terminology has given an impetus to his popularity1 but it has tended unfortunately to obscure his worth as a maker of arabesques4 ,of a different decadent type are ,bonnard1 ,vuillard and ,k4-,x4 ,roussel who call themselves the ,intimists4 ,these artists descend in large measure from ,matisse1 and though other and sometimes stronger influences enter their work1 they are in a general way more closely akin to him than any other modern painter4 ,their appearance is more academic and1 in the decorative sense1 prettier than that of ,matisse4 ,also1 there is in their pictures a greater perpendicularity than in the work of their master4 ,the angular and the perpendicular always represent the second compositional step from symmetricality to order3 they are indicative of the earliest stage of aesthetic consciousness4 ,they are found in the ,egyptians1 ,phoenicians1 ,assyrians1 ,chaldeans1 and in all the primitive ,christians1 and in ,gauguin and ,puvis de ,chavannes4 ,the artists who use them have awakened to the fact that chaos is not conducive to emotional satisfaction4 ,in perpendicular lines there is a primitive sense of fitness1 for one feels they are both well-planted and immovable4 ,not infrequently they are employed by the decadents of a movement or an epoch because they harmonise so neatly and unostentatiously with pretty colours and delicate themes4 ,the ,futurists found in them a ready means to a decorative order4 ,bonnard1 the most genuine artist of the group1 uses perpendicularity of arrangement more consciously than does either of the others4 ,he studied in the same class with ,maurice ,denis at the ,academie ,julien1 and his association with this painter no doubt explains his compositional predilection4 ,he is strongly influenced by ,renoir1 although he has never penetrated beyond ,renoir's surface4 ,his greys are always rich and sombre1 and even his simplest works are as artistically opulent and lovely as the finest tapestry4 ,indeed his large paintings are more appropriately wall coverings than panels1 ornaments rather than decorations4 ,in them are hot sunlight and cold shadow in scintillating succession2 and every object is put to genuine ornamental use4 ,they seem to exhibit an unconscious fluency in the employment of bafflingly diverse greys which are saturated with colour and applied so as to reveal highly their attentuated purity4 ,there are also in his work harmoniously horizontal lines and pleasing sequences of curves4 ,in ,le ,jardin a line starts with the head of a man on the left1 continues along his arm and leg and the sofa back1 and reaches an apex in the child's head to the right of the centre1 sinks by way of the head of the woman on the right to the man's arm1 is then caught up again by the contour of his legs1 is paralleled by the outline of the nearest standing child's dress and face and the face of the kneeling girl1 is continued in the bottom of the skirt of the child seated on the sofa1 and then becomes horizontal in a perfect continuation of the table's surface4 ,the line is beautiful and studiously made1 and is pointed out here for the purpose of showing the simple ordonnance often found in the lesser artists4 ,nor is it the only line in the canvas4 ,there are others as harmonious and as beautiful2 but what keeps the picture from being a great composition1 although its forms are solid and well adapted to their spaces1 is its lack of opposition or solution of warring elements4 ,if we do not try to class ,bonnard with the greatest artists1 we are forced to praise him4 ,he is unpretentious1 highly gifted1 has a well-developed sense of the beautiful1 and is possessed of a most sensitive eye4 ,he is neither an illustrator of nature nor of moods1 but an artist who paints to obtain aesthetic expression1 without the arriere pensee of a theoretical method4 ,he is one of the most purely pleasing painters of modern times4 ,vuillard1 a painter of interiors1 owes his inspiration as much to ,toulouse-,lautrec as to ,gauguin4 ,like ,bonnard he uses greys of dry and mat colour1 but his harmonies are slighter and of lighter tonality than those of ,bonnard4 ,profiting by the ,impressionists' light discoveries he has done some very admirable interiors2 some of his works are more modern and artistic ,whistlers4 ,his art is one in which the spotting of masses for the sake of balance supplants any attempt to produce generating lines4 ,as with ,bonnard and ,roussel there is in him a striving after beautiful surfaces1 matieres which in themselves will tempt the amateur4 ,in this common pursuit the ,intimists show themselves to be the successors of ,degas2 but they are successors who1 having taken to heart the teachings of more significant forerunners1 represent a sturdier decadence than that of ,degas4 ,k4-,x4 ,roussel is a feminised ,poussin4 ,he searches solely for effect1 and his canvases have the singular charm of enamel4 ,were they smaller they would make admirable brooches and vases4 ,he too has made tapestries1 but in spirit they are less modern than the corresponding efforts of his contemporaries4 ,his compositions embody reddish satyrs and nymphs1 intense blue sky1 yellow-green foliage and yellow ground4 ,his drawing never has more than the rudimentary charm of school-room talent1 while that of ,vuillard is subjugated to his colour application1 and that of ,bonnard is instinctively deformed to the needs of line and decorative necessity4 ,illustration3 ,,le ,,jardin by ,,bonnard ,maurice ,denis is more directly an outcome of the school of ,pont-,aven than are the three preceding men4 ,his synthetic figures were first seen in ,courbet1 then in ,puvis de ,chavannes1 then in ,besnard and ,gauguin4 ,in ,denis they have lost much of their significance and have once more become primarily academic4 ,there was a time about #ahij when ,denis's colour was not aggressively disagreeable4 ,it was subjugated to a certain greyness which was applied in little spots resembling the black-and-white stippling of some of ,seurat's drawings4 ,now his colour has grown acid and unpleasant4 ,his line is stiff and vitiated and lacks even the quality of a pleasing silhouette4 ,he has written a book of theories1 but it has helped him little in his artistic achievements4 ,he is the antithesis of ,bonnard1 and his colours possess almost no harmonious interrelation4 ,in him there are a few perpendicular lines1 but one may seek in vain for evidences of co-ordination4 ,many of his figures are appropriated from the works of the old masters1 but because he fails to adapt them sensitively to his needs1 they lose1 rather than gain1 in beauty by the transfer4 ,he is at times symbolic and allegoric1 and while one might overlook this literary phase of his art1 provided there were other qualities to compensate for it1 he fails to exhibit a complete appreciation of the aesthetic possibilities of his models1 and consequently becomes merely an exponent of adopted mannerisms4 ,his popularity has entirely to do with qualities unrelated to painting4 ,judged by a purely aesthetic standard he is inferior to an ,augustus ,john1 a ,desvallieres1 a ,bourdelle or a ,wyndham ,lewis4 ,the highly talented ,andre ,derain is another synthetic painter4 ,he is sincerely moved by multiramose tree forms and the sunlight effects of ,provence1 and his admiration for ,cezanne led him into certain mannerisms which have for their object a facilitation of the ,aix master's methods4 ,in his use of soft yellows1 hot earth tones1 deep warm greens and light blues1 he reveals his debt to the modern tendency toward colour4 ,by outlining his objects with heavy contours1 he has acquired erroneously a reputation for virility1 and though he aspires to composition1 he only achieves pattern4 ,he is much like the ,scandinavian1 ,othon ,friesz1 who1 having absorbed the exteriors of ,matisse and ,cezanne1 and having read ,cezanne's letter recommending ,poussin remade on nature1 has turned his attention to this old ,titian offshoot and endeavours to give us a reversion to style4 ,at one time he used colour freely1 but he now paints with ochres1 blues1 blacks1 greens and an occasional red--a gamut like ,derain's1 only yellower4 ,he too has a heavy technique and a reputation for virility4 ,maurice de ,vlaminck is another painter of similar inspiration and palette4 ,he is much prettier and has a finer sense of soft harmonies than either of the other two4 ,he reveals a genuine feeling for his subjects1 and always tries to introduce into his works a simple oppositional line4 ,he comes direct from ,cezanne1 and it is from paintings such as his that ,cezanne has acquired a reputation as a maker of arabesques4 ,de ,vlaminck has a rich and impelling matiere and an art sense which is almost coquettish4 ,kees van ,dongen has studied the sensual drawings of ,toulouse-,lautrec and the broad exteriors of ,matisse1 and in combining his two admirations has made eminently effective posters of nearly harmonious colours in very broad planes4 ,de ,segonzac also uses attenuated colours in a broad manner after ,matisse4 ,manguin1 another ,matisse imitator1 is too academic to appeal strongly to those who have acquired the modern vision1 despite the primitive order his canvases at times possess4 ,flandrin is more decorative4 ,his works reveal a classic perpendicularity of composition1 and though they are without a sense of form1 we feel in them a certain charm of space and air4 ,he brushes in his landscapes broadly by planes of light and dark1 somewhat in the very early manner of ,matisse4 ,pierre ,laprade has arrived at a style of surface which may best be characterised as bad tapestry4 ,jean ,puy applies his pictures in a broad1 somewhat bold1 manner1 and his light tonality and angularities point to his having lingered over the work of ,cezanne4 ,lebasque is the feminine prototype of ,puy4 ,his colour is faded and unemotional1 and his exteriors are as flat as the simplest decorations4 ,madame ,marval differs from ,lebasque only in theme4 ,modern decadence in ,zak1 ,rousseau1 ,vallotton1 ,prendergast and ,simon ,bussy manifests itself in a retrogression to primitive ideals4 ,though using the modern methods of simplification1 these men revert to a static and dead past4 ,their aim is to revive the most ancient manner of painting4 ,of all the modern decadents they are perhaps the most devitalising for they tacitly repudiate the discoveries of the new men1 and strive to turn the minds of the public and of painters alike to the sterilities of antiquity4 ,they even ignore the aesthetic principles of the ,renaissance1 and by pushing creative expression to its furthest limits of artlessness1 turn to naught the entire achievements of the great plastic composers4 ,at best these men are dealers in decorative material4 ,simple arrangement is absent from their works1 and colour1 which for nearly a century has fought for its true place in painting1 is once more used as an instinctive means for filling in drawings4 ,vallotton1 though a modern primitive1 is not allied to any recent school4 ,in appearance his work is unlike that of the other moderns4 ,he disdains all save the simplest means and the most restricted colours4 ,in him there are no delicate plays of light1 but broad and heavy shadings which are not without subtlety4 ,he is a ,teutonic ,ingres--a ,flandrin made serious as to precision and reduced colour4 ,at a distance his nude studies are interesting1 for there one loses the dryness and hardness of their technical manner--a heritage of ,vallotton's days of wood engravings4 ,other modern painters who elude classification1 but who are intimately related in a general way to the new movements are ,charles ,guerin1 ,piot1 ,spiro1 ,alcide ,le ,beau1 ,gustave ,jaulmes and d',espagnat4 ,though they differ markedly from ,vallotton they are all preoccupied with self-expression by means of colour4 ,by making it a dominant element in their work1 they have admitted their susceptibility to the modern ideal and thereby have given an impetus to the spirit which tends toward purification4 ,guerin is a professor of the ,academie ,moderne2 and though clinging close to conventional drawing1 he attains a slightly novel aspect in all his tapestry-like canvases4 ,he is eminently of the ,beaux-,arts tradition1 is artificial and monotonous1 and paints very large pictures with both idealistic and realistic themes4 ,of the modern men who have found in ,cubism their strongest aesthetic fascination de la ,fresnay is a noteworthy example4 ,so well does he understand the demands of the ,picasso tradition that he has come to be looked upon as one of the members of the ,cubist group4 ,his arrangements are soft and pretty and his colour is harmonious4 ,he has in fact surpassed in merit several of the original ,cubists4 ,frederick ,etchells and ,w4 ,roberts are ,english exponents of ,cubism1 and the latter has done some work which rivals that of ,picabia4 ,wyndham ,lewis1 another ,englishman1 strives for an individual expression1 but his angularities reveal his debt to ,picasso1 although the general impression of his pictures is ,futuristic4 ,the hand of the ,cubists can be found in many of the canvases of the modern ,americans4 ,arthur ,b4 ,davies1 the most popular of the new men in the ,united ,states1 is at bottom a superficial academician1 but he superimposes shallow ,cubist traits on his two-dimensional drawings1 giving them a spuriously modern appearance4 ,maurice ,stern treats ,gauguin themes with a pale reflection of the early geometrical ,picasso2 and similar means are employed by ,c4 ,r4 ,sheeler1 ,jr41 though both ,matisse and ,delaunay have contributed to his art4 ,to name all the modern painters who are conscientiously battling against formalism and the dry-rot of the academies would be impossible4 ,the field is too broad3 the activities are too numerous4 ,few civilised countries have escaped the insistence of the new impetus4 ,by some painters the new methods are adopted tentatively and by degrees4 ,others fly to the latest phases of art and move forward with the epoch4 ,today there are numerous representatives of all the movements from ,impressionism to ,synchromism4 ,kroll and ,childe ,hassam1 both ,americans1 are emulators of ,monet1 though ,hassam1 who appears less modern than ,kroll1 is by far the more sensitive painter4 ,marquet has done more than imitate ,impressionism4 ,he has synthesised ,monet into a more masculine expression4 ,his planes are broad and luminous1 and he achieves a distinct feeling for air and distance by simpler and more direct means than did the ,impressionists4 ,w4 ,s4 ,glackens combines a ,renoir technique with a modern purity of colour4 ,j4 ,d4 ,ferguson1 the ,scotchman1 also reverts to the ,impressionists but has learned much from ,matisse4 ,duncan ,grant1 an ,englishman1 is much more modern than ,ferguson and more competently expressive of the new4 ,roger ,fry has contributed much to the modern impetus4 ,his writings reveal a wide comprehension of present-day paintings and his insight into aesthetics is at times profound4 ,every year adds to the ranks4 ,besides the modern artists already named may be mentioned ,bechteiev1 ,bolz1 ,lhote1 ,chagall1 ,chamaillard1 ,zawadowsky1 ,hayden1 ,ottmann1 ,lotiron1 ,utrillo1 ,hartley1 ,peckstein1 ,valensi1 ,jawlensky1 ,knauerhase1 ,muenter1 ,tobeen1 ,bloch1 ,dove1 de ,chirico1 ,walkowitz1 ,boussingault1 ,kanoldt and ,granzow4 ,one of the healthiest movements of the day1 though without novelty1 is ,vorticism whose headquarters are ,london4 ,the ,vorticists are unrestricted as to theories1 and have for their aim the final purification of painting as well as of the other arts4 ,their creed is an intelligent one1 and is in direct line with the current tendencies4 ,as yet they have produced no pictures which might be called reflective of their principles1 but they have kept before ,english artists the necessity of eliminating the unessentials4 ,their main doctrines1 so far as painting is concerned1 were set forth by the ,synchromists long before the ,vorticists came into public being2 but by their insistence on the basic needs of purification1 they have done valuable service4 ,the ,synchromists in their manifesto wrote3 ,an art whose ambition it is to be pure should express itself only in the means inherent in that art4444 ,painting being the art of colour1 any quality of a picture not expressed by colour is not painting4 ,a year later in ,blast1 the ,vorticists' publication1 we read3 ,the ,vorticist relies on this alone2 on the primary pigment of his art1 and nothing else4444 ,every concept1 every emotion presents itself to the vivid consciousness in some primary form4 ,it belongs to the art of this form4 ,if sound1 to music1 if formed words1 to literature2 colour in position1 to painting4444 ,all these painters are the leaders of the secondary inspirations in modern art1 and out of them grow other painters in ,europe and ,america4 ,they do not as a rule go by the name of any school1 but they can be classed together because in them all is the same desire to create the novel1 to present a strikingly different aspect from the academies1 and to differentiate themselves individually from their fellows4 ,they all feel their incompetency to create new forms1 the necessity to follow1 the timidity which only permits them to modify the surfaces of other greater men4 ,they are the creative exponents and the decadents of vital movements1 and they in turn have their own imitators and decadents4 ,they have felt the need for change1 but lack the genius for new organisations4 ,that many of them are sound artists it would be folly to deny4 ,but they are in no sense of the word innovators4 ,some of them in fact are failures1 but theirs is the consolation of having failed in attempting something vital and representative of the age in which they live4 ,,xv ,,conclusion ,in conclusion there are several points which require accentuation if the significance of modern painting is to be fully grasped4 ,there have been three epochs in the visual arts4 ,the first was the longest1 and extended through more than two centuries4 ,the last two epochs have required less than a hundred years for their fulfilment4 ,each epoch dealt with a specific phase of painting and developed that phase until its possibilities were exhausted4 ,the ultimate aim of all great painting was purification1 but before that could come about many theories had to be tested2 many consummations had to take place2 many problems had to be solved4 ,the laws of formal organisation were first discovered and applied with the limited means at hand4 ,then came experimentation and research in the mechanics of expression--the search for new and vital methods wherewith these principles of composition might be bodied forth more intensely4 ,later the functioning properties of colour were unearthed and employed4 ,in the course of this evolution many irrelevant factors found their way into painting4 ,the men of the first epoch used primitive and obvious materials to express their forms4 ,when the new means--means inherent in painting--were ascertained1 it was necessary to eliminate the former media4 ,the subject-matter of painting--that is1 the recognisable object1 the human obstacle--had to be forced out to permit of the introduction of colour which had become an inseparable adjunct of form4 ,to effect the coalition of pure composition and the newer methods was a difficult feat1 for so long had the world been accustomed to the pictorial aspect of painting1 that it had come to look upon subject-matter as a cardinal requisite to plastic creation4 ,the first epoch began with the advent of oil painting about #adjj1 and went forward1 building and developing1 until it reached realisation early in the seventeenth century4 ,knowing that organised form is the basis of all aesthetic emotion1 the old masters strove to find the psychological principles for co-ordinating volume4 ,their means were naturally superficial1 for their initial concern was to determine what they should do1 not how they should do it4 ,in expressing the form they deemed necessary to great art they used the material already at their disposal1 namely3 objective nature4 ,they organised and made rhythmic the objects about them1 more especially the human body which permitted of many variations and groupings and which was in itself a complete ensemble4 ,and furthermore they had discovered that movement--an indispensable attribute of the most highly emotional composition--was best expressed by the poise of the human figure4 ,colour to these early men was only an addendum to drawing4 ,they conceived form in black and white1 and sought to reinforce their work by the realistic use of pigments4 ,that colour was an infixed element of organisation they never suspected4 ,their preoccupation was along different lines4 ,the greatest exponents of intense composition during this first epoch were ,tintoretto1 ,giorgione1 ,masaccio1 ,giotto1 ,veronese1 ,el ,greco and ,rubens4 ,these men were primarily interested in discovering absolute laws for formal rhythm4 ,the mimetic quality of their work was a secondary consideration4 ,in ,rubens were consummated the aims of the older painters2 that is1 he attained to the highest degree of compositional plasticity which was possible with the fixed means of his period4 ,in him the first cycle terminated4 ,there was no longer any advance to be made in the art of painting until a new method of expression should be unearthed4 ,however1 the principles of form laid down by these old masters were fundamental and unalterable4 ,upon them all great painting must ever be based4 ,they are intimately connected with the very organisms of human existence1 and can never be changed until the nature of mankind shall change4 ,after ,rubens a short period of decadence and deterioration set in4 ,the older methods no longer afforded inspiration4 ,about the beginning of the nineteenth century the second cycle of painting was ushered in by ,turner1 ,constable and ,delacroix4 ,these men1 realising that until new means were discovered art could be only a variation of what had come before1 turned their attention to finding a procedure by which the ambition of the artist could be more profoundly realised4 ,this second cycle was one of research and analysis1 of scientific experimentation and data gathering4 ,to surpass ,rubens in his own medium was impossible3 he had reached the ultimate outpost of aesthetic possibilities with what materials he possessed4 ,the new men first made inquiry into colour from the standpoint of its dramatic potentialities4 ,naturalism was born4 ,while ,delacroix was busy applying the rudiments of colour science to thematic romanticism1 ,courbet was busy tearing down the tenets of conventionalism in subject-matter1 and ,daumier was experimenting in the simultaneity of form and drawing4 ,manet liberated the painter from set themes1 and thereby broadened the material field of composition4 ,the ,impressionists followed1 and by labourious investigations into nature's methods1 probed the secrets of colour in relation to light4 ,the ,neo-,impressionists went further afield with scientific observations2 and finally ,renoir1 assimilating all the new discoveries1 rejected the fallacies and co-ordinated the valuable conclusions4 ,in him was brought to a close the naturalistic conception of painting4 ,he was the consummation of the second cycle4 ,during this period the older laws of composition were for the most part forgotten4 ,the painters were too absorbed in their search for new means4 ,they forgot the foundations of art in their enthusiasm for a fuller and less restricted expression4 ,the essential character of colour and light and the new freedom in subject selection so intoxicated them that they lost sight of all that had preceded them4 ,but their gifts to painting cannot be overestimated4 ,by finding new weapons with which future artists might achieve the highest formal intensity1 they opened up illimitable fields of aesthetic endeavour3 they made possible the third and last cycle which resulted in the final purification of painting4 ,of this cycle ,cezanne was the primitive4 ,profiting by the ,impressionist teachings1 he turned his attention once more to the needs of composition4 ,he realised the limitations of the naturalistic conception1 and created light which1 though it was as logical as nature's1 was not restricted to the realistic vision4 ,colour with him became for the first time a functional element capable of producing form4 ,the absolute freedom of subject selection--a heritage from the second cycle--permitted him extreme distortions1 and with these distortions was opened up the road to abstraction4 ,matisse made form even more arbitrary1 and ,picasso approached still nearer to the final elimination of natural objectivity1 though both men ignored colour as a generator of form4 ,they carried forward the work of ,cezanne only on its material side4 ,then ,synchromism1 combining the progress of both ,cezanne and the ,cubists1 took the final step in the elimination of the illustrative object1 and at the same time put aside the local hues on which the art of ,cezanne was dependent4 ,since the art of painting is the art of colour1 the ,synchromists depended entirely on primary pigment for the complete expression of formal composition4 ,thus was brought about the final purification of painting4 ,form was entirely divorced from any realistic consideration3 and colour became an organic function4 ,the methods of painting1 being rationalised1 reached their highest degree of purity and creative capability4 ,the evolution of painting from tinted illustration to an abstract art expressed wholly by the one element inherent in it--colour1 was a natural and inevitable progress4 ,music passed through the same development from the imitation of natural sounds to harmonic abstraction4 ,we no longer consider such compositions as ,the ,battle of ,prague or ,monastery ,bells aesthetically comparable to ,korngold's ,symphonietta or ,schoenberg's ,opus ,,ii4 ,and yet in painting the great majority confines its judgment to that phase of a picture which is irrelevant to its aesthetic importance4 ,so long have form and composition expressed themselves through recognisable phenomena that the cognitive object has come to be looked upon as an end1 whereas it is only a means to a subjective emotion4 ,the world still demands that a painting shall represent a natural form1 that is1 that the basis of painting shall be illustration4 ,the illustrative object was employed by the older painters only because their means were limited1 because they had no profounder method wherewith to express themselves4 ,and even with them the human body was deliberately disproportioned and altered to meet the needs of composition4 ,when the properties of colour began to be understood1 the older methods were no longer required4 ,colour itself became form4 ,but so deeply rooted was the illustrative precedent that no one painter had the courage to eliminate objectivity at one stroke4 ,cezanne took the first great step2 ,matisse1 the second2 ,cubism the next2 and ,synchromism the final one4 ,so long as painting deals with objective nature it is an impure art1 for recognisability precludes the highest aesthetic emotion4 ,all painting1 ancient and modern1 moves us aesthetically only in so far as it possesses a force over and beyond its mimetic aspect4 ,the average spectator is unable to differentiate his literary and associative emotions from his aesthetic ecstasy4 ,form and rhythm alone are the bases of aesthetic enjoyment3 all else in a picture is superfluity4 ,therefore a picture in order to represent its intensest emotive power must be an abstract presentation expressed entirely in the medium of painting3 and that medium is colour4 ,there are no longer any experiments to be made in methods4 ,form and colour--the two permanent and inalienable qualities of painting--have become synonymous4 ,ancient painting sounded the depths of composition4 ,modern painting has sounded the depths of colour4 ,research is at an end4 ,it now remains only for artists to create4 ,the means have been perfected3 the laws of organisation have been laid down4 ,no more innovatory movements are possible4 ,any school of the future must necessarily be compositional4 ,it can be only a variation or a modification of the past4 ,the methods of painting may be complicated4 ,new forms may be found4 ,but it is no longer possible to add anything to the means at hand4 ,the era of pure creation begins with the present day4 ,those who go to painting for anecdote1 drama1 archaeology1 illustration or any other quality which is not strictly aesthetic1 would do well to confine their attention and their comments to the academicians of whom there is and always has been an abundant supply4 ,let them keep their hands off those artists who strive for higher and more eternal manifestations4 ,the greatest artists of every age have never sought to appeal to the lovers of reality and sentiment4 ,nor have they wished to be judged by standards which considered only verisimilitude and technical proficiency4 ,it is the misfortune of painting that literary impurities should have accompanied its development1 and it is the irony of serious endeavour that on account of these impurities there has been an indefinite deferment of any genuine appreciation of painting4 ,it is difficult to convince a man who has not experienced the great aesthetic emotions which art is capable of producing1 that there is an intoxication to be derived from the contemplation of art keener than that of association1 sentiment or drama4 ,not knowing that greater delights await him once he has penetrated beneath the surface1 he has doggedly combated every effort to eliminate the irrelevant accretions4 ,but if painting was to reach its highest point of artistic creation1 its realistic aspect had to go4 ,when colour became profoundly understood1 no longer could the artist apply it according to the dictates of nature4 ,it lost its properties as decoration and as an enhancement of the naturalistic vision4 ,its demands freed the artist from the tyranny of nature4 ,in becoming pure1 painting drew further and further away from mimicry2 and the superficial lover of painting1 enslaved by the ignorant and rigid standards of the past1 protested with greater and greater vehemence4 ,the misunderstanding which has attached to modern painting has been colossal4 ,the newer men1 because they have dared search for means of expression superior to those of the past1 have met with ridicule and abuse4 ,from ,delacroix to ,synchromism the critics and public have fought every advance4 ,immured in tradition1 their minds have been unable to grasp the meaning of the new activities or to sense the artist's need for pure creation4 ,no school has escaped the obloquy of the professional critic who1 judging art from its superficial and unimportant side1 has failed to penetrate to its fundamentals4 ,delacroix was declared crazy by the leading critics4 ,the ,journal des ,artistes said of him1 ,we do not say this man is a charlatan1 but we do say this man is the equivalent of a charlatan4 ,the ,observateur des ,beaux-,arts1 commenting on this artist's failure to procure an award1 remarked1 ,delacroix1 the leader of the new school1 received no honours1 but in order to recompense him1 he was accorded a two hours' seance each day in the morgue4 ,gros1 ,delecluze and ,alfred ,nettement are conspicuous among the academicians and critics who bitterly opposed ,delacroix's innovations4 ,courbet met with a similar reception4 ,gautier1 after studying one of his pictures1 wrote1 ,one does not know whether to weep or laugh4 ,there are heads which recall the ensigns of tobacconists and of the menagerie4 ,clement de ,ris said of ,courbet's work1 ,it is the glorification of vulgar ugliness2 and de ,chennevieres called one of his finest pictures an ignoble and impious caricature4 ,even ,manet1 whose radicalism was slight1 brought down upon himself the abuse of the critics for daring to paint modern themes4 ,claretie drew the following conclusion from the ,olympia3 ,one cannot reproach ,manet for idealising vierges folles1 for he makes of them vierges sales4 ,the remark was characteristic4 ,manet revolted against classic subjects1 and for his modernity was excoriated by the moral traditionalists4 ,the early ,impressionists1 as pretty as they were1 did not escape critical abuse4 ,benjamin ,constant called them the school of snobs1 the conscious or unconscious enemies of art1 and added1 ,their days are numbered4 ,albert ,wolff was more venomous4 ,these soi-disant artists1 he wrote1 call themselves the intransigents4 ,they take canvases1 colours and brushes1 fling at hazard several tones1 and then sign the work4 ,it is thus that the wandering spirits at ,ville-,evrard pick up pebbles on the highway and think they have found diamonds4 ,hideous spectacle of human vanity straying toward dementia6 ,paul ,mantz's remarks were similar4 ,his criticism in part read3 ,before the works of certain members of the group one is tempted to ascribe to them a defect of the eyes1 singularities of vision which would be the joy of ophthalmologists1 and the terror of families4 7,how like the recent criticisms of the very modern men does all this sound--these accusations of insanity1 these hints of defective vision6 ,such comments would seem to have been lifted almost bodily by the detractors of ,cubism1 ,futurism and ,synchromism47 ,renoir shared a similar fate4 ,one leading critic said it was futile to try to explain to ,renoir that the female torso is not a mass of decomposing flesh with spots of green and violet which denote the state of complete putrefaction in a cadaver4 ,roger ,ballu explained the appearance of ,renoir's work thus3 ,at first view it seemed that his canvases1 during their trip from the studio to the exhibition1 had undergone an accident4 ,with the exception of ,manet two years prior to his death and ,renoir at the age of sixty-eight1 not one of the ,impressionists was decorated by the ,french government4 ,they were banished from official ,salons1 and compelled to expose in private galleries4 ,to quote from the critics who denounced ,cezanne would be an endless task4 ,when he exposed at the ,impressionist exhibition in the ,rue ,peletier in #ahgg he was universally regarded with disgust and horror and considered a barbarian4 ,the venom of the critics was appalling4 ,they attacked him from every standpoint1 though on one point they seemed in agreement1 namely3 that he was a communard4 ,nor did the abuse cease with his early works4 ,his greatness has consistently evaded critics and painters alike4 ,recently the ,american painter1 ,william ,m4 ,chase1 offered the suggestion that ,cezanne did not know how to paint4 ,chase's opinion is not an isolated one3 it is typical of the minor academic painters and the critics who view art through the eyes of the past4 ,henri-,matisse is another painter who has received short shrift from the reviewers4 ,one need not have a long memory to recall the adverse criticisms he provoked4 ,his distortions have served as a basis for a display of ignorance which has few parallels in art history4 ,matisse himself has fed fuel to the fire4 ,in his interview with newspaper men he indulged in much high jesting1 and the remarks attributed to him were in many instances blague4 ,others1 judging him by his words1 have pinned on him the labels of charlatan and degenerate4 ,the ,cubists1 misunderstood from the first1 have been a source of ridicule rather than of contumely4 ,systematisers have sought to trace them to ,duerer1 forgetting that ,cezanne once wrote3 ,treat nature by the cylinder1 the sphere and the cone2 the whole put in perspective1 so that each side of an object and of a plane directs itself toward a central point4 ,even today1 after the vital contributions of the ,cubists have altered the whole trend of modern art1 there are few who see in them aught but the material for laughter4 ,the critics who have accepted the ,impressionists and ,cezanne deny the merits of ,cubism1 venting their derision in a manner which recalls the detractors of the very schools which these critics now uphold4 ,synchromism has perhaps called forth the bitterest protests4 ,it was the last step in the evolution of modern means4 ,it had no affinities with the academies4 ,there was no foothold in this new school for the conservatives and reactionaries4 ,the ,munich critics were first to attack it4 ,later in ,paris ,andre ,salmon wrote1 ,the public will believe that ,synchromism is the final movement of which it has learned4 ,synchromism is the worst of backward movements1 a vulgar art1 without nobility1 unlikely to live1 as it carries the principles of death in itself4 ,les ,arts et ,les ,artistes summed up ,synchromists with3 ,the house painter at the corner can1 when he wishes1 claim that he belongs to this school4 ,la ,plume discovered the fact that ,macdonald-,wright copies with a dirty broom the ,slave of ,michelangelo4 ,charles ,h4 ,caffin declared1 ,the whole tenor of their foreword and introduction is one of egregious self-exploitation and self-advertisement4 ,this 444 raises the very obvious question3 ',are these men megalomaniacs or charlatans8' ,possibly they are neither the one nor the other4 ,i am not in a position to decide4 ,these quotations and comments are set down to reveal the opposition which the genuine modern painters have had to contend with4 ,the criticisms of each movement repeat themselves with the following one1 even to a point of verbal similarity4 ,the attacks on ,synchromism are strangely like those which companioned ,impressionism4 ,the same facetiousness1 the same irrelevant denunciation1 the same opposition to the new1 the same antipathy for progress are manifest in all the critics of the new painting from ,delacroix to date4 ,all arise out of ignorance1 out of that immobility of mind which cannot judge clearly until a thing is swathed in the perspective of the years4 ,art has grown faster than the critic's ability to comprehend4 ,its problems are a closed book to him1 for1 not being a painter himself1 he requires a longer period in which to assimilate the new ideals4 ,gradually as the new methods establish themselves1 and become accepted 7as in the case of ,impressionism71 the critic at last comes abreast of a movement2 but by that time art has gone forward and left him in the rear4 ,again he attacks the new4 ,all innovations are as poison to his system1 until he again becomes adjusted4 ,thus can we account for the animosity and ridicule with which each modern movement has been met4 ,nor are the animadversions of academic critics the only obstacles in the path of aesthetic development4 ,those who sympathise with the new without understanding it do more harm than good4 ,there are those who always accept the latest men irrespective of their individual merit4 ,but modernity in itself is not a merit1 and the modern enthusiasts1 in defending the newest painters1 very often expend their energies on the undeserving4 ,thus the mediocrities are given prominence over the truly great2 and the lesser artists are looked upon as representative of the epoch4 ,again1 those who admire without comprehending are given to emphasising the less important points of departure in the new men1 and of ignoring the deeper qualities which represent the primary importance of modern art4 ,the true meaning of the late movements is thereby obscured4 ,of this class of critic ,arthur ,jerome ,eddy may be mentioned as representative4 ,by crediting the distinctly second-rate moderns with qualities they have only absorbed from greater men1 and by misunderstanding the animating ideals of today's painting1 he presents so disproportionate and biased a history that the entire significance of modern art is lost4 ,england1 ,france and ,germany possess critics who feel the grandeur but miss the meaning of the new ideals1 and their books and articles1 while crediting the modern painters with vitality1 go little beneath the surface4 ,however1 there are a few men to whom the modernist owes much for intelligent assistance4 ,one may name ,meier-,graefe as one of these1 despite his being in reality a pioneer4 ,he has shown an eager attitude to do justice1 and has succeeded in bringing the modern men to the attention of the world4 ,guillaume ,apollinaire1 editor of ,les ,soirees de ,paris1 has done more intelligent service for the younger heretics in ,france than any other man4 ,clive ,bell and ,roger ,fry represent the ablest and most discerning defenders of the modern spirit in ,england2 although ,mr4 ,a4 ,r4 ,orage1 by opening up the columns of the ,new ,age1 has permitted a healthy discussion and exposition of the radical art theories4 ,in ,america much credit is due ,mr4 ,alfred ,stieglitz for his insistent demands that the later men be given a respectful hearing4 ,by his sympathetic attitude and his ceaseless labours he has brought before the ,american public the work of many prominent modern artists2 and his sincerity and understanding have done much toward ameliorating the conventional scoffs of ,american critics4 ,but were there no far-seeing defenders of modern painting1 the signs of the awakening are too numerous and too conspicuous to be ignored4 ,on every hand we are conscious of the struggle for new methods and forms4 ,not all the inertia of the critics and the public has succeeded in suppressing the vital spirit4 ,nor will it succeed4 ,the modern tendency in painting cannot be dismissed as charlatanism or extremism4 ,the ignorant and reactionary may laugh and hurl philippics4 ,such opposition1 if it has any effect1 will only prove a stimulus to those who have experienced the ecstasy of the new work4 ,the old dies hard4 ,even when the corpse is buried 7as it has been7 the ghost lingers4 ,but the light will soon grow too strong4 ,the ghost in time will be dissolved4 ,for centuries painting has been reared on a false foundation1 and the criteria of aesthetic appreciation have been irrelevant4 ,painting has been a bastard art--an agglomeration of literature1 religion1 photography and decoration4 ,the efforts of painters for the last century have been devoted to the elimination of all extraneous considerations1 to making painting as pure an art as music4 ,but so widespread is the general ignorance regarding art's fundamentals that the modern men have been opposed at every step4 ,public and critical illiteracy in the arts1 however1 matters little4 ,the painter's joy lies in the rapture of creation1 in the knowledge that he is carrying forward the banner of a high ideal4 ,,index ,adoration of the ,wise ,men1 #dj4 ,alexander1 ,john ,w41 #ih4 ,altichiero1 #aia4 ,ambassadors1 ,the1 #bd4 ,andreiev1 #eb4 ,angelina1 #fh4 ,angelus1 ,the1 #eg4 ,anges au ,tombeau1 ,les1 #gi4 ,annunciation1 #ha4 ,anquetin1 #aig4 ,antwerp ,museum1 #dj4 ,apollinaire1 ,guillaume1 #cda4 ,apres le ,bain1 #bab4 ,archipenko1 #afc4 ,arm 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#bbc1 #bbe1 #bcd1 #bdj1 #bda1 #bdb1 #bdd1 #bdg1 #bdi1 #bej1 #bea1 #bec1 #bed1 #bfj1 #bfb1 #bgb1 #bgd1 #bgg1 #bhj1 #bha1 #bhb1 #bhc1 #bhd1 #bhf1 #bhg1 #bhi1 #bia1 #bie1 #bif1 #bih1 #cjj1 #cjc1 #cjg1 #cjh1 #caj1 #cbj1 #cba1 #cca1 #ccb1 #ccg1 #cch4 ,chagall1 #cbd4 ,chahut1 ,le1 #ahj4 ,chamaillard1 #aig1 #cbd4 ,champfleury1 #ef4 ,chanteuse des ,rues1 ,la1 #gi4 ,chardin1 #cd1 #bbe4 ,charivari1 #dh4 ,chase1 ,william ,m41 #ccg4 ,chavannes1 ,puvis de1 #gd1 #bjb1 #caf1 #cai4 ,chef-d',o,euvre ,inconnu1 ,le1 #afb4 ,chemin de ,fer1 ,le1 #hj4 ,cheret1 #baf4 ,chesneau1 ,ernest1 #dd4 ,chevelure1 ,la1 #aad4 ,chevreul1 #ca1 #hd1 #afe1 #aff1 #afh1 #ahj1 #bhe2 ,de la ,loi du ,contraste ,simultane des ,couleurs1 #afd4 ,chien et ,lievres1 #ea4 ,chinese art1 #fd1 #abe1 #abh1 #aij1 #bae1 #cae4 ,christophe1 ,jules1 #agg4 ,chromo-luminarists1 see ,neo-,impressionism4 ,cimabue1 #bi4 ,cirque1 ,le1 #ahj4 ,claire de ,lune1 ,le1 #hj4 ,claretie1 #cce4 ,claude1 #ej4 ,coco1 heads of1 #abf4 ,coco et les ,deux ,servantes1 #abf4 ,coins de ,riviere1 #ajj4 ,combat de ,cerfs1 ,le1 #ea4 ,combat du ,kerseage et de l',alabama1 #hj4 ,concert ,champetre1 see ,rural ,concert4 ,conegliano1 #gi4 ,conrad1 ,joseph1 #eb1 #afa4 ,constable1 #ag1 #cg1 #dc1 #df1 #di1 #ej1 #ig1 #age1 #cbi4 ,constant1 ,benjamin1 #ccf4 ,cormon1 #bae4 ,corot1 #ba1 #dh1 #fh1 #hg1 #hi1 #ia1 #ajh1 #ahi4 ,correggio2 ,la ,vierge a l',ecuelle1 #fb4 ,courbet1 #ag1 #de1 #dh1 #ej-eh1 #ei1 #fc1 #ff1 #fg1 #fi1 #gj1 #ga1 #gb1 #gc1 #gd1 #ge1 #gf1 #gg1 #ha1 #hc1 #hg1 #hi1 #ig1 #ajf1 #ajg1 #ajh1 #aji1 #aaa1 #aab1 #aac1 #aae1 #abg1 #abh1 #aca1 #acd1 #aeh1 #bjg1 #bjh1 #bab1 #bci1 #bec1 #bhb1 #bhd1 #cai1 #ccj1 #cce2 ,les ,baigneuses1 #ef2 ,les ,casseurs de ,pierres1 #eg2 ,chien et ,lievres1 #ea2 ,le ,combat de ,cerfs1 #ea2 ,femme de ,munich1 #ec2 ,les ,grands ,chataigniers1 #eg2 ,la ,grotte1 #ef2 ,le ,hamac1 #gf2 ,l',enterrement a ,ornans1 #ea1 #ed1 #ee1 #fc1 #gg1 #bci2 ,les ,lutteurs1 #ei-fj2 ,le ,retour de la ,conference1 #ea2 ,la ,vague1 #aja4 ,course de ,taureaux1 #hj4 ,courtesan1 ,the1 #bag4 ,courtois1 #ajh4 ,couture1 ,thomas1 #ff1 #afa2 ,methodes et ,entretiens d',atelier1 #dd4 ,crayer1 ,gaspar de1 #cjf4 ,creation of the ,sun and ,moon1 #bd4 ,cromwell au ,chateau de ,windsor1 #dj4 ,croquet1 ,le1 #abc4 ,cross1 #agd1 #bbd4 ,cubism 7,cubists71 #ig1 #ahg1 #bbb1 #bbg1 #bcg-bfb1 #bgd1 #bge1 #bgg1 #bhb1 #bhc1 #bhe1 #bia1 #cjc1 #cjg1 #cae1 #cbc1 #cca1 #ccb1 #ccf1 #cch4 da ,bologna1 ,giovanni1 #da4 da ,bosozzo1 ,michelino1 #aia4 ,danseuse1 ,la1 #aad4 ,dante et ,virgile aux ,enfers1 #cf1 #ee4 da ,sesto1 ,cesare1 #cjf4 ,daubigny1 #fg4 ,daudet1 #baf4 ,daumier1 #ag1 #be1 #eh-fc1 #ff1 #fh1 #gb1 #ig1 #ajf1 #abf1 #acg1 #add1 #ahb1 #bjj1 #bjg1 #bjh1 #bac1 #bbj1 #bbf1 #bdc1 #bgh1 #bgi1 #bhj1 #ccj2 ,le ,bain1 #fj1 ,don ,quichotte1 #fb2 ,le ,drame1 #fc2 ,les ,emigrants1 #fb2 ,les ,lutteurs1 #ei-fj2 ,ratapoil1 #fb2 ,le ,repos des ,saltimbanques1 #fj2 ,la ,republique1 #fa2 ,silene1 #fc4 ,david1 #ag1 #cd1 #ce1 #dc1 #ef1 #bci1 #bhb4 ,davies1 ,arthur ,b41 #cbc4 da ,vinci1 ,leonardo1 #dd1 #fj1 #cjf2 ,trattato della ,pittura1 #adh4 ,dead ,christ1 ,the1 #bd4 ,debucourt1 #cd4 ,debussy1 #eb4 ,decamps2 ,sonneurs de ,cloches1 #fb4 de ,chennevieres1 #cce4 de ,chirico1 #cbe4 ,defoe1 #aia4 ,degas1 #ai1 #fb1 #fc1 #afe1 #aia1 #bjc1 #bjg-bba1 #bbb1 #bbf1 #bdb1 #bec1 #bff1 #cjg1 #cac1 #cah2 ,apres le ,bain1 #bab2 ,cafe-,concert1 #bae2 ,femme au ,tub1 #bab2 ,musiciens a l',orchestre1 #bac2 ,la ,sortie du ,bain1 #bab2 ,la ,toilette1 #bab2 ,torse de ,femme ,s',essuyant1 #bab2 ,trois ,danseuses1 #bab4 ,de ,hahn1 #aig4 dei ,barbari1 ,jacopo1 #bbc4 ,dejeuner1 ,le1 #gi4 ,dejeuner sur l',herbe1 ,le1 #fi-gj1 #gg-gh1 #gi4 ,delacroix1 #ag1 #be1 #bg1 #cj1 #cd1 #ce-df1 #dh1 #ej1 #ec1 #ef1 #eg1 #eh1 #ei1 #fb1 #fc1 #ff1 #fg1 #gb1 #ge1 #hj1 #ha1 #hg1 #hh1 #ajf1 #ajg1 #ajh1 #aaa1 #aab1 #aac1 #aad1 #abh1 #acc1 #ace1 #acg1 #afe1 #age1 #agf1 #agg1 #ahj1 #aha1 #ahb1 #bja1 #bje1 #bjg1 #bfd1 #bgg1 #bgh1 #bha1 #bhb1 #cjc1 #caj1 #cbi1 #ccj1 #ccd1 #cce1 #cci2 ,bataille de ,taillebourg1 #dj2 ,la ,captivite de ,babylone1 #db2 ,cromwell au ,chateau de ,windsor1 #dj2 ,dante et ,virgile aux ,enfers1 #cf1 #de2 ,enlevement de ,rebecca1 #dj2 ,entree des ,croises a ,jerusalem1 #dj2 ,les ,femmes d' ,alger dans ,leur ,appartement1 #ci1 #aaa1 #aab2 ,la ,grece ,expirant sur les ,ruines de ,missolonghi1 #da2 ,janissaires a l',attaque1 #dj2 ,la ,justice de ,trajan1 #dj1 #db2 ,justinien ,composant les ,institutes1 #dc2 ,la ,liberte ,guidant le ,peuple sur les ,barricades1 #ch1 #dj2 ,lion ,dechirant un ,cadavre1 #da2 ,la ,lutte de ,jacob avec l',ange1 #dj1 #de2 ,massacre de ,scio1 #cf1 #ci2 ,pieta1 #da2 ,renaude et ,angelique1 #fb2 ,repos1 #db4 de la ,fresnay1 #cbc4 ,de la ,loi du ,contraste ,simultane des ,couleurs1 #afd4 ,delaunay1 #bei-afb1 #cbc2 ,l',equipe de ,cardiff1 #bfj2 ,route de ,laon1 #bfa2 ,les ,tours1 #bfa2 ,ville de ,paris1 #bei-bfj1 #bfj4 ,delaunay-,terk1 ,madame1 #bfb4 ,delecluze1 #cce4 ,delibes1 #bha4 ,denis1 ,maurice1 #aig1 #baf1 #cai-cbj4 ,derain1 ,andre1 #afc1 #cbj4 de ,ris1 ,clement1 #cce4 ,descent from the ,cross1 #bd4 ,de ,segonzac1 #cba4 d',espagnat1 #cbb4 ,desvallieres1 #cbj4 ,dethomas1 ,maxime1 #bba4 ,d',eugene ,delacroix au ,neo-,impressionnisme1 #afi4 ,deux ,soeurs1 ,les1 #abc4 ,deux ,tahitiens1 #bbf4 ,devil's ,bridge1 ,the1 #ej4 ,diane ,chasseresse1 #aji4 ,diaz1 #fh1 #hi1 #ajh1 #ahb4 ,dimanche a la ,grande-,jatte1 ,un1 #ahj1 #bjc4 di ,nicolo1 ,pietro1 #da4 ,divisionists1 see ,neo-,impressionism4 ,dog and ,person in ,movement1 #bgb4 ,donatello1 #bjc4 ,donde ,va ,mama1 #bai4 ,don ,quichotte1 #fb4 ,dostoievsky1 #eb4 ,dove1 #hd1 #cbd4 ,drame1 ,le1 #fc4 ,dreiser1 ,theodore1 #eb4 ,dubois-,pillet1 #age4 ,duchamp1 ,marcel1 #beg1 #beh4 ,dumas1 #dc4 ,duerer1 #ahg1 #bea1 #cch2 ,four ,naked ,women1 #bd4 ,duret1 #ajb4 ,dutch landscapists1 #if4 ,dynamisme d'une ,auto1 #bfi4 ,earl and ,countess of ,arundel1 ,the1 #bd4 ,east ,indian art1 #bcg4 ,eddy1 ,arthur ,jerome1 #cdj4 ,eglise a ,varengeville1 ,l'1 #ii4 ,egyptian art1 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#aba1 #abe1 #abf1 #abg1 #ach1 #aeh1 #afc1 #afe1 #ahg1 #bjc1 #bje1 #bbj1 #bde1 #bed1 #bgc1 #bgg1 #bhc1 #cjj1 #cjf1 #cjh1 #cbi2 ,the ,adoration of the ,wise ,men of the ,east1 #dj2 ,the ,earl and ,countess of ,arundel1 #bd4 ,rude1 #bgc4 ,ruperupe1 #aie4 ,rural ,concert1 #fi4 ,ruskin1 #df1 #dg2 ,modern ,painters1 #dg4 ,russell1 ,morgan1 #bhc1 #bhc-bhd1 #bhe1 #bhf1 #bhf-bhg1 #bhh1 #bhi1 #bib1 #bic1 #bid1 #bif1 #big1 #bih1 #bii1 #cjj1 #cjb1 #cjc2 ,synchromie1 #bii2 ,synchromie en ,bleu-,violace1 #bii2 ,synchromie en ,vert1 #bhh-bhi1 #big4 ,russolo1 ,luigi1 #bgf4 ,saint ,peter ,baptising the ,pagans1 #bd4 ,salmon1 ,andre1 #cch4 ,salon d',automne1 #bbd1 #beg4 ,salon des ,artistes ,independents1 #afg1 #bbd1 #bfb1 #bhh1 #big1 #bii4 ,salon des ,refuses1 #fi4 ,salon des ,reprouves1 #fi4 ,santerre1 #aba4 ,s4 ,vitale1 mosaics in1 #aej1 #bjd4 ,sargent1 #ah1 #ih4 ,scarsellino1 #bjc4 ,schoenberg2 ,opus ,,ii1 #ccb4 ,schuffenecker1 #afe1 #aig4 ,scott1 ,walter1 #dc4 ,scriabine1 ,alexander1 #bff1 #caa4 ,seguin1 #aig4 ,serusier1 #aig4 ,setting ,sun1 #ajj4 ,seurat1 #afe1 #afe-aff1 #afg1 #agf1 #agg1 #agh1 #ahj1 #ahj-aha1 #aha1 #ahb1 #ahc1 #ahd1 #bjc1 #bbf1 #bdc1 #bfd1 #bfe1 #caj1 #cai2 ,la ,baignade1 #bjc2 ,le ,chahut1 #ahj2 ,le ,cirque1 #ahj2 ,un ,dimanche a la ,grande-,jatte1 #ahj1 #bjc4 ,severini1 #bb1 #bgf4 ,shannon1 #ih4 ,shaw1 ,george ,bernard1 #eb4 ,sheeler1 ,jr41 ,c4 ,r41 #cbc4 ,shiubun2 ,setting ,sun1 #ajj4 ,sibelius1 #eb4 ,sickert1 ,walter1 #bai4 ,signac1 #afe1 #aff1 #afg1 #afi1 #agj1 #agd1 #aha1 #ahb1 #ahd1 #bbd1 #bfd2 ,d',eugene ,delacroix au ,neo-,impressionnisme1 #afi4 ,signorelli1 ,luca1 #acg4 ,silene1 #fc4 ,silvestre1 ,theophile1 #dd4 ,simon1 #ah4 ,simultaneism1 #bfb1 #bgf4 ,sisley1 #di1 #hi1 #if1 #ii1 #ajb-ajc1 #ajd1 #bhj4 ,slaves1 #ba1 #bij1 #bii1 #cch4 ,sodoma1 #bah4 ,soirees de ,paris1 ,les1 #cda4 ,sonneurs de ,cloches1 #fb4 ,sorolla1 #ah1 #eb1 #ahg4 ,sortie du ,bain1 ,la1 #bab4 ,source1 ,la 7,ingres71 #fi4 ,source1 ,la 7,renoir71 #aad4 ,spanish art1 #fb1 #ig1 #aaa4 ,spiro1 #cbb4 ,stein1 ,leo1 #bhd4 ,steinlen1 #fb1 #bdf1 #bee4 ,stendhal1 #dc4 ,stern1 ,maurice1 #cbc4 ,stevens1 ,alfred1 #bji4 ,stieglitz1 ,alfred1 #cda4 ,stradivarius1 #aba4 ,strauss1 ,richard1 #be1 #eb4 ,stratonice1 #baj4 ,sun of ,venice ,going to ,sea1 ,the1 #di4 ,superville1 #afe4 ,swift1 #aia4 ,swinburne1 #hb4 ,sydenham ,road1 #ii4 ,symphonietta1 #ccb4 ,synchromie1 #bii4 ,synchromie en ,bleu1 #big4 ,synchromie en ,bleu-,violace1 #bii4 ,synchromie en ,vert1 #bhh-bhi1 #big ,synchromism 7,synchromists71 #cb1 #ig1 #aae1 #bge1 #bgg-cjd1 #cbd1 #cbe1 #cca1 #ccb1 #cce1 #ccf1 #cch1 #cci4 ,synthesists1 see ,pont-,aven school4 ,table au ,moulin-,rouge1 ,une1 #bae4 ,tahitiennes1 #aie4 ,taine1 #cb4 ,tanagra figurines1 #bah4 ,tete de ,jeune ,fille1 #abj4 ,thetis et ,jupiter1 #gi4 ,thiers1 #cf4 ,tiepolo1 #hg1 #bah1 #bdd4 ,tillot1 #afe4 ,tintoretto1 #ba1 #bb1 #ea1 #ff1 #acg1 #bga1 #cbi2 ,minerva ,expelling ,mars #eg2 ,the ,miracle of ,saint ,mark1 #bd4 ,titian1 #ba1 #cf1 #db1 #dd1 #ff1 #gb1 #gd1 #ge1 #ig1 #ajh1 #abg1 #ahi1 #cbj2 ,emperor ,charles ,v1 #bd2 ,venus ,reclining1 #ge4 ,toba ,sojo1 #bah4 ,tobeen1 #cbd4 ,toilette1 ,la1 #bab4 ,toilette de la ,baigneuse1 ,la1 #abe4 ,toits1 ,les1 #bef4 ,tokaido1 series of the1 #ajj4 ,torse de ,femme ,s',essuyant1 #bab4 ,toulouse-,lautrec1 #fb1 #bac1 #bad-bah1 #bbj1 #bba1 #bdb1 #bdf1 #bee1 #cah1 #cba2 ,une ,table au ,moulin-,rouge1 #bae2 ,portraits of ,loie ,fuller1 ,sarah ,bernhardt1 ,mounet-,sully1 ,yahne1 ,anna ,held1 #baf4 ,tours1 ,les1 #bfa4 ,trattato della ,pittura1 #adh4 ,trois ,danseuses1 #bab4 ,trovatore1 ,il1 #db4 ,troyon1 #fg4 ,tudor-,hart1 #afh4 ,turner1 #ag1 #dc1 #df-ej1 #eh1 #fc1 #hh1 #hi1 #ia1 #ig1 #ii1 #ajc1 #age1 #bje1 #bgg1 #cjb1 #cbi2 ,the ,devil's ,bridge1 #ej2 ,the ,fighting ,temeraire1 #dg2 ,rain1 ,steam and ,speed1 #dg1 #ej2 ,the ,sun of ,venice ,going to ,sea1 #di2 ,ulysses ,deriding ,polyphemus1 #dg4 ,ulysses ,deriding ,polyphemus1 #dg4 ,utamaro1 #ajj4 ,utrillo1 #cbd4 ,vague1 ,la1 #aja4 ,vairaoumati ,tei ,oa1 #aif4 ,valensi1 #cbd4 ,vallotton1 #cba-cbb1 #cbb4 ,van de ,velde1 #age4 ,van ,dongen1 ,kees1 #cba4 ,van ,dyke1 #ej4 ,van ,gogh1 #df1 #fb1 #aej1 #ahb-ahf1 #ahg1 #aib1 #aic1 #aif1 #aii1 #bae1 #bcd1 #cad2 ,portrait d',homme1 #ahd-ahe4 ,van ,rysselberghe1 #agd1 #age4 ,van ,vranken1 see ,macdonald-,wright1 ,s4 ,vaudeville1 the1 #aic4 ,velazquez1 #ai1 #ea1 #ff1 #fg1 #gj1 #hb1 #hi1 #aaj1 #bab1 #bhb1 #bhd2 ,philip ,,iv1 #bd4 ,venetians1 #ci1 #dc1 #dd1 #fb1 #gj1 #ace1 #afb4 ,venice series 7,monet71 #ajb4 ,venus ,accroupie1 #bbf4 ,venus ,reclining1 #ge4 ,verdi2 ,il ,trovatore1 #db4 ,verkade1 #aig4 ,verlaine1 #aic4 ,veronese1 #cf1 #ch1 #dj1 #dd1 #acg1 #bhb1 #cbi4 ,veron1 ,eugene1 #dd4 ,vien1 #cd4 ,vierge a l',ecuelle1 ,la1 #fb4 ,views of ,fuji1 #ajj4 ,vignon1 #afe4 ,ville de ,paris1 #bei-bfj1 #bfj4 ,virgil1 #acd4 ,vlaminck1 ,maurice de1 #cbj-cba4 ,vollard1 ,ambroise1 #ade4 ,vollard collection1 #abe4 ,vorticism 7,vorticists71 #cbe4 ,vuillard1 #cae1 #cah1 #cah-cai4 ,wagner1 #db1 #ec1 #bff4 ,walkowitz1 #cbe4 ,watteau1 #bb1 #cd1 #ig1 #aab1 #aac1 #aba4 ,whistler1 #ba1 #dg1 #eb1 #fi1 #ih1 #acd1 #ahg1 #bji1 #bab1 #bdd1 #beh1 #cah4 ,william of ,orange1 #ej4 ,wolff1 ,albert1 #ccf4 ,wright1 ,s4 ,macdonald4 ,see ,macdonald-,wright1 ,s4 ,yahne1 portrait of1 #baf4 ,young1 ,thomas1 #hd4 ,zak1 #bje1 #cba-cbb4 ,zanchi1 #bc4 ,zawadowsky1 #cbd4 ,zola1 #eb1 #gc1 #aca1 #acc1 #acd2 ,l',assommoir1 #gc2 ,fecondite1 #gc2 ,l',o,euvre1 #acd4 ,zorn1 #eb4 ,zuloaga1 #ba1 #ih4 ,zurbaran1 #ej4 ,,other ,,books ,,by ,,willard ,,huntington ,,wright ,,what ,,nietzsche ,,taught ,a comprehensive exposition of ,nietzsche's philosophy1 book by book1 with1 a complete biographical sketch and a frontispiece of ,professor ,karl ,donndorf's bust of ,nietzsche4 ,the best book of its sort ,i have ever seen4--,james ,huneker4 ,we know of no other book just like ,mr4 ,wright's1 nor anyone that1 on the whole1 we can recommend more heartily4--,the ,nation4 ,as a presentation in compact form of biographical data and certain extracts from the philosopher's writings1 the book is admirable4--,review of ,reviews4 ,it offers a better and truer report of ,nietzsche's ideas than any other book either in ,english or ,german4--,h4 ,l4 ,mencken in the ,baltimore ,evening ,sun4 ,an excellent survey of the life and philosophy of ,nietzsche 444 ,the best summary of ,nietzsche that has yet appeared in ,english4--,springfield ,republican4 ,just as one should begin the study of ,nietzsche's works with ,human1 ,all-too-,human1 so could one most advantageously undertake the study of ,nietzsche with ,mr4 ,wright's volume4--,the ,dial4 ,mr ,wright's compilation may be warmly recommended4--,boston ,transcript4 ,mr4 ,wright knows thoroughly what he is talking about1 and his book is excellent4--,new ,york ,evening ,sun4 ,,the ,,principles ,,of ,,aesthetic ,,form ,,and ,,organisation 7,in ,preparation7 ,an inquiry into the laws governing aesthetic appreciation in all the arts4 ,the first basic co-ordination of the factors which make for empathy and aesthetic emotion1 and the only fundamental rationale for criticism in existence4 ,mr4 ,wright1 in this new and important work1 defines aesthetic form and rhythmic composition1 and establishes a definite foundation for artistic judgment4 ,the ,principles of ,a,esthetic ,form and ,organisation is by far the most profound and important contribution to the science of aesthetics since ,kant4 ,,the ,,man ,,of ,,promise 7,to be published ,january1 #aiaf7 ,mr4 ,wright has here written one of the most penetrating and unusual novels of this generation4 ,its conception1 its point of view1 its frankness1 its freedom from all prejudice1 and its form are in accord with the highest standards of the best ,continental fiction4 ,the central character--the man of promise1 despite his potentialities of genius1 is an intensely appealing and sympathetic figure4 ,in his nature are combined weakness and strength1 cruelty and tenderness1 virtue and viciousness4 ,in short1 he is inherently human1 capable of ascending the heights1 yet capable also of sinking to the depths of life's degradations4 ,the story1 which takes him from early boyhood to middle age1 is centred about his affairs1 psychological and sexual1 with the many women who touch his life4 ,not one of these women is able to assist him in his great work or to attain to his high and solitary ideals4 ,in not one of them can he find an inspiration4 ,they are not necessary to his intellectual development4 ,to the contrary1 each tends to drag him down to the mediocre level of the world's criterion of greatness1 to sap his vitality1 to curb his heresies1 to make of him a commonplace man4 ,the book1 in short1 is an undogmatic refutation of the theory that great men need the influence of women4 ,it shows how women1 by their conservatism and social conventionality1 interfere with true greatness and conspire instinctively and unconsciously against the higher nature of the men they love4 ,first ,mr4 ,wright shows the cramping influence of mother love1 the maternal efforts to inculcate conventional and religious ideals into the child4 ,then we are given a glimpse of the influence of the man's boyhood romance4 ,next we see his college sweetheart1 in love with life's pleasures and gaieties1 turning his mind from his work4 ,later we have the young man's mistress1 a selfish and calculating woman1 ready to sacrifice his career to her personal ends4 ,still later1 his wife1 a sweet1 loving and admirable woman1 hinders him by her conservatism and constant attentions4 ,in a final attempt to find a woman who can wholly appreciate his exalted desires and follow him to the heights he has in mind1 he deserts his wife for what he thinks is an advanced and intellectual woman4 ,but she in the end proves little different from the others4 ,she exhibits the same petty jealousies and makes the same demands on him1 and he sends her away in a last desperate attempt to consummate his aspirations4 ,but at this time his daughter1 now a young woman1 appears2 and he is forced to make the final sacrifice to her future4 ,the ,man of ,promise goes deep into the undercurrents of life1 and it is not a novel any man or woman can afford to miss reading4 ,it is a powerful story and in many ways a ruthless one2 but both in conception and execution it marks a new epoch in ,american fiction4