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

to him constitute the individuality of form, and with his peculiar fantasy he develops and transforms
them,,, and “that he has a different conception of perspective from that in use by the tradition-
alists,” then did we know there was something out of the commonplace.
Surely M. Picasso does not use the planes the eye perceives. That is, the eye of the world.
He certainly has a “particular style” and a “peculiar fantasy.” The display is the most extraor-
dinary combination of extravagance and absurdity that New York has yet been afflicted with,
and goodness knows it has had many these two seasons past. Any sane criticism is entirely out
of the question; any serious analysis would be in vain. The results suggest the most violent wards
of an asylum for maniacs, the craziest emanations of a disordered mind, the gibberings of a lunatic!
By the side of these all previous efforts seem academic, sane, conventional, well ordered and
acceptable. It is almost worth a visit to these galleries to see how far foolishness and imbecility
will go and what colossal and monumental egotism can accomplish! There are several things
here that even Mr. Stieglitz cannot comprehend, but which, he maintains, delight him, and when
he shall have discovered the artist’s intention, he is prepared to admire extravagantly. Such are
blind faith and confidence. Really and truly, there remains little to say, save that one regrets
a man otherwise so sane as is Mr. Stieglitz should thus connect the name of this enjoyable little
room with so idiotic a display. But the limit has been reached. Nothing after this can well surpass
this show, and we doubt if anything will subsequently equal it. But the poor “Independents”
must look to their laurels. Already are they back numbers and we shall look soon to see them
amalgamate with the much-abused old National Academy of Design.
Mr. Tyrrell in the JV. Y. Evening World:
Unless you are ready to receive the artistic jolt of your young life, don’t go to Mr. Stieglitz’s
Photo-Secession Gallery, No. 291 Fifth avenue, where Post-Impressionism is exposed in a collec-
tion of early and recent drawings and water colors by Pablo Picasso of Paris. And yet, on second
thought, we should not take the responsibility of advising any earnest truthseeker to stay away,
as the announcements declare that “this is the first opportunity given to the American public
to see some of Picasso’s work,” and from the fierce notices the show is getting we fear it may be
the last.
There is no catalogue—it wouldn’t help much, anyway. But there is literature by Marius
de Zayas, explaining what the Picasso kind of art is not.
“As it is not Picasso’s purpose,” says Marius, “to perpetuate on the canvas an aspect of
external nature, by which to produce an artistic impression, but to represent with the brush the
impression he has directly received from nature, synthesized by his fantasy, he does not put on
the canvas the remembrance of a past sensation, but describes a present sensation. * * *
Instead of the physical manifestation he seeks in form the psychic one, and on account of his
peculiar temperament his psychical manifestations inspire him with geometrical sensations.”
Now will you be good!
But we are not going to try to make fun of these Picasso things. That would be too easy.
The obvious, though difficult, course is to study this Parisianized Spaniard seriously, and try to
get the occult message he has to convey. For when an artist who can draw and paint with the
consummately beautiful mastery of a Millet or a Degas—and Picasso unquestionably can, as you
may see in the exquisite full-length drawing of a peasant woman hanging at the entrance to the
gallery, or the Moorish head in color within—when such an artist deliberately throws off this
traditional technique as a worn-out garment and exposes himself to the martyrdom of misunder-
standing and ridicule by perpetrating childish wooden images, Alaskan totem-poles and gargoyles
smeared with green paint, or weird geometrical jumbles which even Mr. Stieglitz confesses he
cannot make head or tail of, then there must surely be something doing of large import for the
future.
In the N. r. World:
There is a new thrill in town in the world of art, and it may be experienced at the Photo-
Secession Gallery in Fifth avenue, which is conducted by Alfred Stieglitz.
The exhibition is a collection of drawings and water colors by Pablo Picasso, a Spaniard
by birth, although he is announced as from Paris.

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