Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1913 (Special number))

AUDIATOR ET ALTERA PARS: SOME PLAIN SENSE
ON THE MODERN ART MOVEMENT

THE International Exhibition of Modern Art has become a fact in the
life of the United States. That life has already spontaneously devel-
oped a germ of art. That germ could not but be fertilized by the
progressive spirit of European culture, a culture in which the United States
is fully a generation behind. What influence is this exhibition going to have
on the development of this germ?
The Exhibition has been foreshadowed, for some years past, by various
small shows of French and native artists, at 291 Fifth Avenue, and by the
increasing attention of the artists, the press, and the public centering around
them. The idea of the show now remains with us. It is a triple one; derived,
first from the Show itself; secondly, from Picabia’s “Studies of New York”
exhibited at “291”; and thirdly from the attitude of the public. For the
visitors were equally on view; their attitude is under observation; their
sympathies are being influenced. This is important in itself.
Of the two component parts of the American public that have seen and
judged, namely the critics or general writers and the laymen, so called, the
latter have proven, on the whole, to be the more intelligent observers and
contributors to the total opinion. This is the most curious and the most
hopeful sign of art in America. The critics were outspoken, either for or
against, according to their respective positions: i.e., whether they acted as
impartial interpreters between the artists and the spectators, or whether they
spoke as agents of certain selfish and narrow interests. For we are a very
conservative people in spiritual matters.
The habits of yesterday, the interests of commerce, the vanities of “who
is who” are sacred institutions with us. In these respects our free democracy
is far more self-satisfied and unprogressive than tradition-hampered Europe.
Art with us is still a luxury, instead of a necessity of cultured life. It is not
yet the pulse-beat of a people having the money and ambition to express itself
and its aspirations, in a language of its own. Instead, art is here, on the whole,
a commodity for the vanities and speculations of the rich. For there is art
that lives, and art that has lived. The mummies of the latter serve in mu-
seums for instruction, and in ambitious mansions as the flunkies of mere
wealth. Dealers of art, so-called critics, patronizing social leaders and regular
auctions, foster and prolong a sham idea of art. Most other people feel art
is something curious and inconvenient. Into this general boarding-house
atmosphere the exhibition of the new art from Europe dropped like a bomb.
Before the people could gain their breath, some prune-fattened authorities
of the old regime at once hurled the pits and stones of their wrath and con-
tempt against the cubists. Not arguments—for intelligence always fore-
gathers at the side of progress.

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