Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1911 (Heft 33))

by his views on stage-setting, which, according to his idea, should be suggestive
rather than realistic. His series of the “Twelve Movements’’ is illustrative
of his theory that art should translate “Movement” through the medium of
immobile lines and masses.

We herewith reprint, as a matter of record, some of the press comments
on the Henri Rousseau pictures:
Mr. James Huneker, in the N. T. Sun, wrote as follows :
Occasionally bobs up that ancient conundrum ( ?): Would Raphael have been a painter if
he had lived on a desert isle ? The answer is negligible. But if he had been born armless—what
then ? As some Americans abroad buy the canvases of persons who perform with their toes—
whether from pity or love of lowly art, we can’t say—the armless hypothesis may also be dis-
missed. Let us suppose, however, that Raphael was absolutely ignorant of draughtsmanship,
color, design, would he have been then il divino Raffaelo ? This question is perfectly sane when
you consider the case of Henry (not Henri) Rousseau, several of whose productions may be seen
at the gallery of the Photo-Secession nowadays.
Henry Rousseau was for many years in the employ of the French customs. He was an
excise man (gabelou) and a man with a fanatical passion for art. He died last September. His
death was the occasion for some pleasant and unpleasant obituary notices; unpleasant in the
critical sense, for the old chap was much beloved and had few enemies. Mr. Stieglitz tells us that
he “lived a life of simplicity and purity, the spirit of which dominates his work.” Many roisterers,
gay boys and swashbucklers of pencil and brush ought to take heart at this; there is hope for
their work. It would have been far better if Henry Rousseau had spent his nights in drinking
and gaming and his days under the eye of the dreariest pedant of a drawing master (even at Julien’s
academy) than leading his simple life. As an artist he is a joke; as a joke, a mild one, to be sure,
he was regarded in Paris by people who refused to take his earnest caricatures seriously. And
while we are on the subject let us admit that too much stress is laid upon the cardinal virtues as
an aid to art by idealistic writers. Some of the biggest blackguards painted the noblest pictures.
Isn’t it dangerous to search too closely into the private lives of painters, composers, poets ? If a
painter drinks too hard his work will soon deteriorate. That is a physiological fact. Even chess
and billiard virtuosi are not benefited by alcohol. Any of the vices may lead to ruin. But to
expect that because a man doesn’t drink, chew gum or swear or indulge to excess in the seven
capital sins he will paint better, compose musical master works or indite lofty poems is, aesthetically
speaking, to return to the days of Little Rollo or to the precepts of that unhappy madman, the
late Leo Tolstoy.
How lovely it is to dream that no base imagination ever conceived a magnificent work of art.
Painters, poets, composers must work when at white heat with their respective materials and only
at the veritable top notch of their temperament and imagination if they would produce master-
pieces. In their everyday habits they may be monsters of immorality, and often they have been,
though in their art their noblest side is shown, for all great art is essentially moral; that is, not in
the pettifogging, puritanical sense, but artistically moral. Art hath her codes of purity as well as
the Lesser Catechism and other guides to spiritual health.
Now all this sounds perilously like a Sunday morning sermon, indifferently preached on an
absurd text. However, as no one that paints is alien to us, let us consider the case of Henry
Rousseau. He was 42 years old when he began his “artistic career.” He had no training. He
had a hot enthusiasm. He also painted shop signs. An Italian admirer asserted in a recent issue
of La Voce (quoted in Mercure de France) that, commercial value apart (thrift Horatio!) he would
exchange Raphael’s “Marriage of the Virgin” for a certain sign painted by Rousseau! Here is
a critical Curtius for you, leaping into the gulf of ignorance to demonstrate the sincerity of his
callow opinion. Naturally all this is profound blague. No matter how frightful or how puerile
a man’s work may be he seems able to originate a school in Paris. Paul Adam has recently
described America as a hotbed of fake religions. In Paris, that immortal home of the muses,

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