Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1912 (Heft 38))

rative pattern with a big black line as in mediaeval glass work. It may be a wrong theory,
but we wish he had made that pastel drawing of pears against a shock of green leaves. It is
a splendid bit of form and color.
Hutchins Hapgood on “Hospitality in Art” in the “N. Y. Globe”:
Three art exhibitions which are off the beaten track in one way or another, either geo-
graphically or mentally or esthetically, are that of Max Weber’s work at the Murray Hill
Gallery, 274 Madison Ave.; that of Marsden Hartley at the Photo-Secession Gallery, 291
Fifth Ave., and that of a number of painters* exhibition work, partly of East Side subjects, at
Madison House, 216 Madison Street, on the lower East Side.
My friend Arthur Hoeber, the experienced critic of The Globe, frankly admits that he
cannot understand the work of Max Weber. I imagine that Mr. Hoeber would say the same
of the Post-Impressionists in general, of the work of men like Picasso, to take the great example.
Now I know that I like much of the work of these men and that a great deal of the work of
Picasso seems to me beautiful. But I am not a painter as Mr. Hoeber is, nor an art critic, as
he is. It is for that reason, perhaps, that I plead for a larger hospitality—for greater freedom
in experiment esthetically and mentally. We have a background of support now on politics
and sociology for the insurgent and the unconventional. It is time that we should have some
respectable and official recognition of the art that is unacademic, untraditional, personal.
We need hospitable circles where such art may develop; such salons, for instance, as that of
Alfred Stieglitz, called the Photo-Secession, where for several years the voice of freedom has
been quietly shouting in the wilderness, where art could stand on its head if it wants to, pro-
vided it is animated with a sincere desire to see straight, to feel beauty and form directly,
without an undue regard for convention, tradition, and authority.
Max Weber's large exhibition at the Murray Hill Gailery is excessively interesting; that
is true, no matter what else may be true of it. The first impression, and one that remains, is
the splendor of the color as a whole. Then, as you look at the paintings in detail, you notice
that this man is a serious thinker, that he is struggling with the problems of form. It is a
strenuous thing to which you are introduced. You feel a striving for a deeper form, and, I
may say, for more form in color, than the traditions furnish. We are at the opposite pole from
the now old impressionism. Instead of concentrating on the atmosphere, there is a concentra-
tion on the form. There is an attempt to render plastic the inner constitution of objects.
Hence, cubes, crystals, etc.
Hence, also, the neglect of actuality. There is something practical about every object.
A chair is made to sit on, a woman to marry, among other functions. Post-impressionist art
tries to rid the eye and the mind of this deeper sentimentality—the habit of seeing things in
reference to their practical functions. This art seeks only the plastic, in form and color, so
that its forms often have little relation to what is actual in space. It might almost be said
to be metaphysical—the metaphysical made sensuous and visible—the deeper forms of per-
ceived life put on canvas.
This ambitious striving is felt in Weber’s work. To say that he has not succeeded is to
say something almost obvious. I do not feel that he has arrived, but I do feel that he is on a
definite track, and an important one. In his more ambitious pictures the method is crudely
apparent. By means of his cubes, crystals, etc., he does not so well succeed in securing that
intense and beautiful expressiveness attained so wonderfully at times by Picasso. The more
ambitious Weber’s work is, the more imitative it is. He brilliantly uses other men’s ideas,
and moreover, he has a personality of his own, in the expression of which, however, he is not
yet successful, though I think he is on the track of it. He is often really successful, and
charming, and beautiful in his woodland pictures and still life. This seems comparatively easy
and natural and realized. The general impression of his work results in the conclusion that
this artist deserves serious attention; that he is an unusually gifted personality.
Marsden Hartley’s work at the Photo-Secession is far less brilliant than that of Weber;
but there is something so simple and serious and sweet—in the real sense—about it, that it
appeals to me. WebePs work is intensely sophisticated; its suggestions of primitive forms
are only subtleties, refinements of a civilized art. In Hartley’s case there is more apparent

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