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

And it is again a significant and hopeful matter of fact, that such inter-
pretation and estimate of the essential qualities of the new art, as were offered
to a well-minded but bewildered public, came from that class of writers, who
like Mr. Hutchins Hapgood, Mr. Chamberlin, Mr. Charles H. Caffin, Dr.
Crane, are critics as well as spokesmen for the American life. We are a
generation behind Europe in the arts (in our stupid furniture, in our
stagnant decoration, in most of our other crafts, and especially our conscious
but imbecile efforts in architecture which, aside from the number of stories
or cost of granite, are utterly unoriginal and hopelessly checked in progress
by an academical clique of Frenchifying canons which dominate all the ener-
gies involved). We may be ahead along the general lines of life, social, econ-
omic and political. In the latter respect the American people exert their
best energies and manifest that same kind of unrest and strife which,
once in Florence, worked towards progress, the freeing of humanity and—of
art. As it was then Humanism versus Scholasticism, so it is now Idealism
versus Materialism. Thus considered, the triple exhibition, far from being
one of the temporary sensations in a dull routine, is a logical event, a necessary
and momentous result. This is further evidenced by the wide variety of
writers pressed into service or volunteering their opinions.
In addition to the professionals, all kinds of readers—editors, politicians
and merchants of prominence—have bombarded the columns of newspapers
with unusual view-points. New York tested the new art as to its commercial
honesty. “ Likely fakers,” says an ex-president. Chicago demanded proof
that it was not immoral; Boston may investigate its constitutionality. But,
where is the record of a precise and complete acknowledgment of the new
idea, set down in the terms of art, not of life, as Mr. Hapgood has it perfectly;
nor of the art-literate? From the latter point of view a few periodicals have
failed; while the newspapers cannot afford to cut down sport-columns in the
interest of a detailed survey of art works. The painter Picabia’s interview
was more sensational than instructive. Yet his studies at 291 Fifth Avenue
were in some ways, the very abstract and quintessence of what was new in
the bigger show. Yet the new did not fail to be recognized, felt, discussed
and, as a lesson and stimulation, appropriated, by a surprisingly large part
of the public.
The reason for the lack of an outspoken and fixed statement of the mean-
ing and evidence of the new in modern art is, that such record must needs
come from the artists themselves. The catalogues of similar exhibitions at
Cologne and Amsterdam, last year, contained introductions by artists. A
further reason is that in America we are guided too much by “authority.”
In matters of living art, authority, academics, the interests of commercial-
ism, are all useless and often pernicious. The attitude of all those whose
ease of mind is disturbed by the prospect of a possible loss of dollars or pres-
tige through anything new is arrogant and insincere. There is also a little
fear of the new art on the part of the picture dealers, who so assiduously
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