Studio: international art (71.1917)

The Lay Figure

THE LAY FIGURE: ON PICTURES
SUGGESTED BY WAR.

JHAVE just been to an exhibition," said
the Man with the Red Tie, " in which
there was quite a large collection of
war pictures, and I came away much
depressed by their inefficiency. I could not
find one that seemed to me really convincing."

" In what way were they inefficient ? " asked
the Young Painter. " What sort of war picture
are you hankering after ? "

" Well, something that will make war look
like what it really is," replied the Man with the
Red Tie. " Something that one could believe
in as a representation of fact."

" War as it really is ! Good Lord ! " cried
the Young Painter. " Do you want to see that
in a picture ? Pray Heaven that no one will
ever attempt it."

" I always thought that you believed in
realism," sighed the Man with the Red Tie ;
" and now I find you objecting to a plain state-
ment of fact. You have changed, my friend."

" Not a bit," declared the Young Painter.
" I still believe in stating facts as plainly as
possible and with as much truth as possible ;
but there are some things that an artist ought
not to be expected to;state, and among them
I certainly include the facts of war."

" I cannot see why the facts of war should
not be as permissible to the artist as any other
facts," objected the Man with the Red Tie.

" Can you not ? " returned the Young Painter.
" I can, because 1 have been there and seen
them. I should be ashamed to paint war as it is."

" You mean by that, I imagine, that to paint
realistically the filth, the squalor, and the
ugliness of war would be a degradation of art,"
broke in the Art Critic.

" Yes, and the grim, naked horror of it as
well," agreed the Young Painter. " The sights
that are put before you in war are not fit for
pictorial treatment, and the man who tried to
represent them would degrade himself and the
people to whom he showed his work."

" But surely there are subjects suggested by
war which it would not be degrading to paint,"
argued the Man with the Red Tie ; " you would
not exclude the war subject entirely from the
consideration of art ? "

" Of course not," said the Critic. " Things
happen in war which are well worthy of the
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painter's attention, and there are subjects sug-
gested which afford material for the finest type
of picture. But in painting these there is no need
to obtrude realities which are better forgotten."

" Better forgotten, indeed," exclaimed the
Young Painter. "I do not want to remind
myself of them by trying to reproduce them
on canvas, and I do not want to have them
forced upon me by any one else. But I agree
with you that there are war motives which
offer material for great pictures, and that in
the sentiment of war there are many inspiring
suggestions for the painter."

" But you would not, I presume, accept the
modern battle picture as an inspired produc-
tion," laughed the Man with the Red Tie.

" Most certainly I would not," answered the
Young Painter. " The modern battle picture
is as far from reality as the sentimental subjects-
are from the true sentiment of war. The one
evades the facts which the artist knows he dare
not represent ; the others miss entirely the
tragic dignity which would be the only justifica-
tion for their existence."

" And neither, I take it, point the direction
in which we can look for the great war pictures,
of the future," commented the Critic. " If a
painting of a battle cannot be realistic, and
that admittedly is impossible, the attempt to
paint battle scenes should be given up because
what results from it is false and misleading.
If the noble sentiment of war is perverted into
washy sentimentality the artist fails in his mis-
sion and makes his achievement worse than
valueless. How then is war to be painted ? "

" The facts, I think, will have to be limited
to minor incidents, to the smaller episodes in
the military life, I mean," suggested the Young-
Painter ; " and the fancies will have to be put
in a symbolical form which will give some scope-
for imagination. The suffering, the self-sacrifice,
the horror, and the tragedy of war cannot be
made intelligible by trivial paintings of domestic
scenes or semi-religious pictures of the popular-
type. We want something greater than that."

" It seems to me that we shall want the-
artists as well as the art," said the Man with
the Red Tie.

" Well, let us hope that out of the strife of"
war will come the masters who can paint it as
it should be painted," replied the Critic. " The-
world is ready for them and their welcome is.
assured." The Lay Figure.