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

fancies and visions as he can make nature stand for. He delights to produce a figure—of a
woman, for example—which possesses a weird and unearthly sort of grace down to the waist,
but whose legs are shortened and roughened into a faun-like animalism.
The large bronze figure called “The Serf” makes no pretense of beauty anywhere: it is
a knotty figure horribly roughened by toil and bent with the weight of many more centuries
than Millet’s “Man With the Hoe” ever dreamed of. It is tremendously strong and graphic,
and a work of genius.
In the “three states of a portrait of a young girl,” the first state is evidently the only one
which bears any resemblance to nature. One of the others is manifestly a caricature; the third
is a conceit of plastic cubisme, and frightfully, masterfully ugly. “Serpentine” is a grotesque
design based upon a sinuous female figure. The drawings are extremely clever and expressive.
Mr. Harrington in the “N. Y. Herald,,:
Sculptures by Matisse, the representations in solid form of the artistic ideas of the French
post-impressionist, are now on exhibition in the “Little Gallery” of the Photo-Secession, at No.
291 Fifth Avenue, and under the chaperonage of Mr. Alfred Stieglitz.
The centre of the tiny place of display is given to the knotted and substantial figure in
bronze entitled “The Serf,” which to the uninitiated looks like a Virginia outlaw who has just
recalled a judge. The figure, however, is devoid of arms, those members having been omitted
when the foundryman inadvertently broke the model. The sculptor sawed them off square,
and the impression produced is interesting and bizarre. One of the most uncanny figures is
that of a snakelike woman entitled “Serpentine.” By studying it for a while steadily under
a top light the observer may convince himself that he is greatly stirred.
Judged by the ordinary standards of sculpture the collection is made up of monstrosities;
considered from the point of view of the ultra modern school it is relatively conservative.
Since these things were made the cubists and the futurists have arrived in the filed and have
succeeded in getting much attention. The exhibition is being viewed by many persons who
are in quest of new impressions.
Charles De Kay on “Matisse—Sculptor?—‘MazetteT’ in the “American
Art News”:
How can art-Iovers with jaded appetites be sufficiently thankful to Mr. Alfred Stieglitz
for the artistic absinthe cocktaiis which he offers us from time to time in the littie galleries of
the Photo-Secession ? Now it is a series of colored discords by a neo-impressionist, now a col-
lection of contortions of the human figure by a post-impressionist, or again the work of a deep
philosopher who expresses passion by the simplest means through the medium of squares,
triangles and profound blots—one who has studied, like the wide-eyed child he is, thatfascinat-
ing toy, the kaleidoscope, and in its ever-changing field has caught the secret how to express
the inexpressible out of his native temperamental emotion.
It is these masters of true temperament that Mr. Stieglitz shows to the elect, the cogno-
scenti, the picture-weary.
And here he comes again with a fresh aperitif in the way of sculpture by Monsieur Henri
Matisse of Paris. Oh, there’s nothing sugary or timid about this sculpture, no no! It goes the
limit—and beyond.
Perhaps you think that Auguste Rodin and Monsieur Bourdelle have said the last word
in impressionist sculpture? Why, they are little orphan children to Monsieur Matisse. They
are mere hacks, and cobs and coach horses to this mazette.
I understand that there has been some squabbling in Paris as to the right to the new
title of Futuristes among those by whom Post-impressionism and Cubism are felt to be already
behind the times. I boldly claim the name for Monsieur Matisse, and this is why:
He takes, let us say, a female figure and models it as well as he can. But it’s too common-
place; too human. So he cuts away the flesh and some of the ribs from the torso, slaps enor-
mous calvesonthelegs,draws out the neck, slams down the forehead, pulls out the ears, gives
a twist to the whole figure and calls it “ Serpentine.” But where, you ask, does the futurist
come in? Why, that’s the way the poor girl may look after she has gone the way of all flesh
or perhaps been mangled by wolves.
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