DOI article:
Oscar Bluemner, Audiator et Altera Pars: Some Plain Sense on the Modern Art Movement
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31330#0036
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of modes of expression that make up the new movement. Another considera-
tion, already alluded to, is important. Nature bestows her gifts very unevenly
upon the individual workers in art as well as in any other field. The artistic
talent is not always allied to intellectual superiority. Again, the followers
of the genius who opens new vistas and roads are mostly recruited from the
ranks of young men, with whom naturally the ripening of personality is
accompanied by the errors or exaggerations to which youth is subject. We
have, furthermore, the individual points of view and means of expression, of
such radical thinkers as Rodin, Kandinsky, Matisse, and Picasso, who have the
strength of mind which is able to repudiate tradition and give us the benefits
of their analysis in a radical form. The resulting dissimilarities of effort seem
incompatible one with another or with a common idea of the new movement;
while, again, the whole of the latter is in absolute contrast to the traditions
and conventions with which the public is familiar.
Nor is it depreciation of the merit and importance of the new movement
in art to discern and admit certain shortcomings in the experiments of artists,
to which they are as inherently prone as any other promoters or inventors;
to find errors of calculation, that is to say, in experiments undertaken in order
to extend the possibilities of art and square it up with the scope of modern
thought. Since there is no life without constant change and no progress
without constant experiment, there can be perfection only for the mind that,
instead of grasping the vital spirit of changing conditions which art must
follow, looks back upon that which is finished, which has reached the end of
its life. For this reason art academies are impossible without professing
conservatism to the point of stagnation. All “Authority” sanctioned to
prescribe for and tutor the artist is, after all, unconstitutional; and any critic
who fails to act as interpreter between artist and public and who does not
assist evolution but defends the usurped privileges of academicism, is a leech
on the growth of art. Considering all that, the exhibition is of importance
not in what subjects the artists seem to hold up to or hide from the curiosity
of the visitors, nor in what idle comparisons and exclamations of temper the
public is excited to by the experimental character of much of the work; but
in the degrees and modes of expression by which the new art movement sep-
arates and distinguishes itself from the past and the traditional. This once
understood, the visitor may take sides on his own responsibility.
When considered in the light of evolution, of modern life, of science, and
of the arts in general, the new movement appears not at all revolutionary
or arbitrary. On the contrary, it is a natural result like all changes in art
at any period have been the logical forms into which the spirit of a time
moulded itself. The objective contents within the pictorial form, or what is
called the subjects, are more or less inconsequential; partly because art is
by its nature more dependent upon reality than music, although art is not
inseparable from reality; partly, because those contents correspond to those
material interests which are not changing. In short, it is the vision of things
32
tion, already alluded to, is important. Nature bestows her gifts very unevenly
upon the individual workers in art as well as in any other field. The artistic
talent is not always allied to intellectual superiority. Again, the followers
of the genius who opens new vistas and roads are mostly recruited from the
ranks of young men, with whom naturally the ripening of personality is
accompanied by the errors or exaggerations to which youth is subject. We
have, furthermore, the individual points of view and means of expression, of
such radical thinkers as Rodin, Kandinsky, Matisse, and Picasso, who have the
strength of mind which is able to repudiate tradition and give us the benefits
of their analysis in a radical form. The resulting dissimilarities of effort seem
incompatible one with another or with a common idea of the new movement;
while, again, the whole of the latter is in absolute contrast to the traditions
and conventions with which the public is familiar.
Nor is it depreciation of the merit and importance of the new movement
in art to discern and admit certain shortcomings in the experiments of artists,
to which they are as inherently prone as any other promoters or inventors;
to find errors of calculation, that is to say, in experiments undertaken in order
to extend the possibilities of art and square it up with the scope of modern
thought. Since there is no life without constant change and no progress
without constant experiment, there can be perfection only for the mind that,
instead of grasping the vital spirit of changing conditions which art must
follow, looks back upon that which is finished, which has reached the end of
its life. For this reason art academies are impossible without professing
conservatism to the point of stagnation. All “Authority” sanctioned to
prescribe for and tutor the artist is, after all, unconstitutional; and any critic
who fails to act as interpreter between artist and public and who does not
assist evolution but defends the usurped privileges of academicism, is a leech
on the growth of art. Considering all that, the exhibition is of importance
not in what subjects the artists seem to hold up to or hide from the curiosity
of the visitors, nor in what idle comparisons and exclamations of temper the
public is excited to by the experimental character of much of the work; but
in the degrees and modes of expression by which the new art movement sep-
arates and distinguishes itself from the past and the traditional. This once
understood, the visitor may take sides on his own responsibility.
When considered in the light of evolution, of modern life, of science, and
of the arts in general, the new movement appears not at all revolutionary
or arbitrary. On the contrary, it is a natural result like all changes in art
at any period have been the logical forms into which the spirit of a time
moulded itself. The objective contents within the pictorial form, or what is
called the subjects, are more or less inconsequential; partly because art is
by its nature more dependent upon reality than music, although art is not
inseparable from reality; partly, because those contents correspond to those
material interests which are not changing. In short, it is the vision of things
32
