Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1911 (Heft 36))

Mr. James Huneker in the N. Y. Sun:
John Marin's color stains are still in the little Gallery of the Photo-Secession. Any one
who thinks that this characteristic collection is like a chamber of horrors will be agreeably dis-
appointed. Mr. Marin is an artist who knows how to spot paper so sincerely that the illusion of
atmosphere, the illusion of a woman sitting, the illusion of a general reality, is evoked with non-
essentials eliminated. If you can't understand his elliptical execution, take the trouble to study
it. Order will soon reign where you fancied chaos; eventually you may discover that your own
eyes were at fault, not the artist’s. Marin has a supple talent, he makes short cuts in his statements,
and while he is not as original as Max Weber, his color sense is richer, more harmonious. We
fail to understand wherein is the enigma of his impressions. The lower end of the island, the
harbor, the Singer Building, are admirably interpreted. Even Herr Baron von Stieglitz may admit
that these swift colored views are as truthful as the “ new photography," with its soft pedal vague-
ness and its mezzotint effects.
Mr. Tyrrell in the N. Y. Evening World:
Alfred Stieglitz, of the Photo-Secession shrine, No. 291 Fifth avenue, presents another
paradox of purest ray serene. This time it is a group of Cezanne's water colors—-or rather, frag-
mentary drawings washed in here and there with spots and patches of flat tint. Where does the
paradox come in ? It lies in the fact that this is the first show given to the American public of
works of an important artist whose name stands as a sort of historical landmark on the borders
of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, yet it falls flat and insignificant, and students who
know nothing of Cezanne except what they learn here, will go away knowing even less, because
they will have a one-sided and dead wrong idea of the man’s real significance.
Although Cezanne was sixty-six years old when he died in 1906, and possessed a vague
natural power which might have developed into positive genius, though it didn't, he never really
arrived. His ideals and training were conventional until middle life, when suddenly he saw the
powerful light of the luminists and Rodin, and started to grope for it. He was still groping when
the end came, although lots of people in Paris own paintings of his in which he came vastly nearer
to being an important Cezanne than he does in these few pale memoranda so piously cherished
by Alfred.
Mr. James Huneker in the N. Y. Sun:
The Cezanne water colors at the Gallery of the Photo-Secession are mere hints rather than
actual performances, yet finely illustrative of the master's tact of omission. These thin washes
tell the student secrets by reason of what is left out of the design, and some of them are bald enough,
it must be confessed. “The Boat in Front of Trees” is worth close attention. It seems a pity,
however, that we have thus far seen no representative Cezannes in New York. The late H. O.
Havemeyer has a remarkable gathering, but they will never be publicly exhibited. Whenever
the Durand-Ruels find a Cezanne in America they buy it and immediately send it to Paris, where
it will command a big price. We are, nevertheless, indebted to Alfred Stieglitz for his pioneer
work in the matter of bringing to the ken of art lovers the more recent art manifestations of
Paris, Hades and Buxtehude.
Mr. Arthur Hoeber in the N. Y. Globe:
Again Alfred Stieglitz and his little Photo-Secession Gallery come to the front, this
time with an exhibition of the work of the Frenchman, Cezanne, who, we are told, is more or
less the inspiration of the Post-Impressionists. From a cursory view of his water color drawings
we are inclined to make it “less" for there is a lot of sanity here, even if it be mingled with eccen-
tricity, and our objections take the form of a protest at the painter stopping just where the real
difficulties of art begin. Here are innumerable delightful suggestions, beginnings, indications,
or spottings-in, but stopping there when the spectator has a reasonable right to ask for a logical
conclusion. Thus we have the “Boat in Front of Trees," and the “boat" might be a log in a
stream for any indicated form of craft it has, while there are no trees or even suggestion of them,
though there is a bit of green shadow. As it stands the work is meaningless, and hundreds of

47