Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 30))

and more refreshing and more truly stimulating than the hot harmonies of Matisse. Although he
usually is accepted in this country at least as a follower of Matisse, Mr. Marin derives more logic-
ally from Cezanne. Mr. Marin gives us atmosphere, and in doing so takes his picture out of the
purely decorative class. If he would combine color with his etched line, thus sparing us the effort
of doing our part in fulfilling his barely indicated impression of a given scene, we should probably
be able to praise him without stint. It is barely possible that he is seeking for something more
difficult to win than our passing praise.
“The etchings are crisp in line and full of character, the ‘Notre Dame vue du Quai Celestin’
having in particular that movement and sparkle which seems the very life of an etching. The next
exhibition at these galleries will show us Matisse himself.”
Israel L. White in the “Newark Evening News”:
“At the Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession, John Marin is showing more of his water-colors.
A year ago a few of them were exhibited at the same time that Alfred Maurer showed the outward
and visible signs of his conversion to pure color and daring uses of it. Since, we have waited for
more—of Marin.
“We have sympathy with those who are responsible for the landscape exhibition at the National
Arts Club. To arrange a large collection of pictures of diverse character is never easy. The task
is made harder when the collection includes daring canvases, startling innovations upon the estab-
lished order of things. Whatever merit there is in the strange work of Maurer, Steichen and Pren-
dergast is hid when a few of each one’s paintings are hung together. It advertises their peculiarity
and furnishes a temptation to laugh rather than an inspiration to inquire with open minds what
these men are trying to do.
“Marin’s water-colors are not in any way commonplace, nor are they so radical that they can
be called ‘freakish’ by the most unsympathetic audience. We wrote last year that we had not seen
their superiors and the present larger exhibition only confirms this opinion. In the intervening
months few days have passed in which we have not seen many pictures; few weeks in which we
have not seen something different. We have noted the dearth of true water-colors and heard con-
fessions from men who use oils with distinction that they cannot use the other medium. Respect
for water-colors must grow in such an environment.
“It is by his handling of white—white paper, of course—that Marin first attracts attention.
The paper is not obtrusive; that would be a defect. Mention is made of it simply by way of informa-
tion. And then it is by the brilliance and harmony of color. But color alone never made a picture.
“ ‘The art of effective writing,’ said James Russell Lowell, ‘is to know how much to leave in
the inkpot.’ So, painting. Marin is a primitive for simplicity, for leaving out everything that can
be left out. But, with all his simplicity, he accomplishes substantial results. Witness his picture
of the bridge over the Seine. Notice how solid it is; how defiant of the floods. Such facts are not
always recorded in painting and especially by the water-color painters. Yet these are the essential
facts and their narration proves the artistic caliber of the painter.
“How true it is that the first requisite is the ability to see the important things and to see them
in pictures. It is easily said but seldom accomplished. Whistler had the artistic eye and Abbot
Thayer and all the others who have the real gift.
“Art is so frequently misunderstood; not painting only, but all art. Fictitious charms are
palmed off as the real thing. Mock heroics and weak sentiment—the gingerbread of ornate deco-
ration—are offered in place of more real and enduring elements of beauty. It is a pretty tune, an
effective elaboration of detail, a story that touches the heart, that takes the place of fine musical
phrasing, of simple lines in satisfying architectural proportion, of true characterization in fiction.
The superficial usurps the place of the elements.
“Need we defend the eternal truth that art in all things depends upon an imagination that can
see the whole picture and balance it ? It seems as if a child could paint one of Marin’s pictures
if he could see it. The curved line of a bridge, a few dabs of color to represent the people walking
on it, a mass of color beneath to represent the shadow under it, a strip of green water to hold it up
and make it substantial. That is all; but how much it is when it is put together 1
“These pictures have been adroitly hung. Some of them must be admired at once; others are
more subtle. They would be passed by unless they were placed side by side so that the eye wanders
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