Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1914 (Heft 47))

WHAT 291 MEANS TO ME

The strident and persistent keynote that stands apart and above in the
results of experience is awe. Light upon the earth; the touch of a beloved
person; the seeing of colors; the contemplation of a philosophical concept;
a battle: the few activities can suggest the mighty import of contact, of
meeting—here we know something is happening! here the source of knowledge!
this the Rubicon of all new movement in the world. To be alive is to be
knowing this often. Incomprehensibility combined with reality, immediate
and mysterious, are the dominant notes in art work worthy of the name.
In my memory of “291” these thoughts are always present.
We say we love those things which contain a good we would attain;
and of all the world’s goods the spiritual tendency of humans is the single
and often mislaid dictator of our civilization. Through the years from Plato
to Kant; from before Christ down to Henri Bergson the race has discovered
within herself undreamed of containments by means of the creative works of
a small, widely separated, group of workers.
Excepting a few natural scientists, this time is distinctive for the ab-
sence of seers. Mistaking freedom for license and accepting economic utili-
zation for spiritual expression the absence of great leaders and a higher gen-
erality of humans has developed no ideals capable of approaching, much less
allaying, the unrest, the distress, and even the flippancy of most people today.
Hence, when I found “291” exhibiting the work and disseminating the
ideas of a few men who consciously or unconsciously were expressing the
chaos, or particular realities in its midst, of our own changing years—who-
ever led by the pure urge to express to transcribe their love, hatred or awe
of the world—it was instinctly obvious that here was being displayed for all
to see a good I intensely desired to attain. Here were men who realized
the human relation to the life of a flower; who saw that daylight was an en-
tity upon the earth, and that the sight of the open heavens pulsated the
human organism to endeavors far beyond the scope of their usual activities.
They were sensitive to the world and saw reflected in all it contained rela-
tions to their desires. Here were artists feeling realities; and knowing the
artifice, for them, of many long accepted viewpoints.
As the race found itself repeatedly in the creations of genius so these
men discovered for me the awe and inspired the endeavor I contain when I
see the sun. Combined, they crystallize the attitude, and their work the
expression of “291”—a living, tremulous entity, which, without words, has
helped me to live.
C. Duncan

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