Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1913 (Heft 42-43))

“ Feelings are aroused which give me the desire to express the reaction of these ‘pull forces/
those influences which play with one another, great masses pulling smaller masses, each subject
in some degree to the other's power."
In the series are five “views" of the Woolworth building, the first of which looks like a
pianola record on end. The second is a sketch in blue and white, in which the tall structure
looks as if it were falling apart, and, for the sake of making the spectator feel he is somewhere
on solid earth, a two-funneled steamer is introduced in the background, not because it actually
could be seen, but just because the artist wanted to put it in. The fifth looks like a big oyster
shell opened over a battleship, although this is also labeled “Woolworth Building."
“ Broadway, Singer Building," shows that structure bulging out ready to fall down on the
street and on the structures across the way for several blocks. The spectator knows the street
is meant to be Broadway because there are several silk hats, not worn by any one, hovering
over the eastern sidewalk. “Trinity Church" is shown leaning joyously over to the left, just
as though it had gone on a spree, and this effect is heightened by the building on the corner of
Rector street inclining to the right in a “looking for a lamp-post" pose.
In looking at the view of St. Paul’s Chapel one naturally thinks of the wreckage after an
explosion. The only things definite in the picture look like a chauffeur and a dismembered
taxicab in the foreground.
A view of the Brooklyn Bridge shows the tower and roadway struck by a ninety-eight-mile
gale from the southwest and leaning over under the blast.
“River Movement, the Hudson," affords opportunities for a guessing contest as to how
many ships of war there are at anchor in the stream; the longer one guesses the more ships
one sees.
No one but absolute teetotalers should go to see this show.
Mr. Boswell in the “N. Y. Herald”:
Suggestion of cubism, futurism and post-impressionism, and yet different from them is,
Mr. John Marin’s exhibition of paintings in the Photo-Secession Gallery, No. 291 Fifth avenue.
There are twenty-eight examples, all extreme.
In one picture the Woolworth Building may be seen standing fairly erect, in another all
awry, with the buildings at its base badly shaken; in still another aslant, with the foreground
in the condition of scrambled eggs, and in the last as only a mass of curved lines and flourishes
They are not a series depicting an earthquake, but views of the building as seen by the artist,
different times and from different angles.
In a leaflet which accompanies the catalogue the artist says:
“In life all things come under the magnetic influence of other things; the bigger assert
themselves strongly, the smaller not so much, but still they assert themselves * * * While
these powers are at work pushing, pulling, sideways, downward, upward, I can hear the sound
of their strife and there is great music being played."
Some of Mr. Marin’s paintings of the Catskills and the Adirondacks are beautiful pieces
of color arrangement.
Royal Cortissoz in the “N. Y. Tribune”:
It is impossible to ignore the theory. In a note accompanying the catalogue of his ex-
hibition of water-colors at the Photo-Secession Gallery Mr. John Marin himself states that his
pictures of New York “may need the help of an explanation," and he goes on to state that
in the buildings of this city he sees great forces at work, “great masses pulling smaller masses,
each subject in some degree to the other’s power.” We do him no injustice in offering here no
further citations from his philosophy. The nature of that philosophy is not the point at issue.
Neither, we may add, is it necessary to discuss the question as to whether or not the views
which he sets forth have any artistic value. All that we care to ask, and this, as has been
hinted, we are driven to ask, is whether his pictures justify his theory. With the best will in
the world to meet both half way we must confess that Mr. Marin’s ideas seem to us to have
spoilt a good artist in the making. He has, we infer, an excellent sense of color, and vaguely