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

The artist, besides furnishing titles to the pictures, which is quite out of accord with the
spirit of the new way of looking at things, has written a really interesting preface which the
visitor may read for himself and carry away on a printed slip. Here are a few of his words:
“The objective representation of nature through which the painter used to express the
mysterious feelings of his ego in front of his subject ‘motive' no longer suffices for the fulness
of his new consciousness of nature. This representation bears no longer a relationship to his
new conception of life, and has become not only a limitation but a deformation. ‘The ob-
jective representation of nature is a deformation of our present conception of nature.'
******
“But expression means objectivity, otherwise contact between beings would become
impossible, language would lose all meaning. This new expression in painting is ‘the objectivity
of a subjectivity.' ”
And so forth. It is not at all easy, though Picabia has written clear French, which has
been carefully translated by Mr. Haviland. So you turn back to the pictures themselves for
further enlightenment.
Children who have seen these pictures are said to have felt intuitively something of their
meaning, or at least, they grasped some significance without explanation. Is it the old story
of the inherent understanding, by the youth of any period, of what its newest experimenters
are trying to do ?
Musical children now in their teens have taken almost as a matter of fact the elusive
harmonies and dissonances of Claude Debussy, which cost their educated elders a deal of
thinking and many hearings to be able to accept and really to enjoy. Richard Wagner was still
a thorn in the side of our parents when we of the generation now in our thirties had already
swallowed him, hook, bait and sinker. To our grandparents, in turn, Schumann presented
some tough problems, while their children were absorbing him readily enough. And so one
generation stands upon the shoulders of another.
But look again at Picabia's puzzles. Even Stieglitz, who has been a sort of high priest of
the new movements, will tell you that he “gets” this one but not that. You think of the
laborious task of constructing over again an entire language, say in terms of Chinese ideographs.
Of course, if it should really confer a set of glorious new perceptive and expressive powers upon
the race of artists and other human beings, transcending those that sufficed Rembrandt and
some others, the undertaking would be splendidly worth while.
Yet, when you contemplate the magnitude of the enterprise, and the loneliness of its
present exponents, seeking for hidden meanings, for the psychic equivalents of swastikas and
what not, you may also irreverently remember Mr. Pickwick's historic discovery, which ended
thus: “Bill Stumps His Mark.”
Forbes Watson in the “N. Y. Evening Post”:
M. Francis Picabia has at the Photo-Secession Galleries several designs ingeniously
entitled “New York,” “Study for a Study of New York,” “New York Perceived Through the
Body,” etc., etc. And the titles are almost equalled in ingenuity by the designs themselves, some
of which are mildly amusing experiments in pattern-making. It is a little surprising that the
public should find this type of work funny enough to excite hilarity, serious enough to be so
valiantly defended, or important enough to inspire hatred. Nowhere is there evidence of a
color sense or of a true feeling for design. Accompanying the catalogue is the usual solemn
literary brief which informs the visitor, among other things, that “this new expression in
painting is the objectivity of subjectivity.” The work appeals more strongly to those who
enjoy discussion than to those who enjoy works of art.
Hutchins Hapgood in an article, A Paris Painter, in the “N. Y. Globe”:
Francis Picabia is one of the so-called post-impressionist painters of Paris. He is in
New York, and four of his works of art will be shown at the coming Armory exhibition. He
is one of the most logical of this general school. He carries the fundamental ideas of the day
farther even than men like Matisse and Picasso. This does not mean that he is more of an

49