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#0037
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and of their relation to one another and that of ourselves to them, in which
modern life and art differs from the past. Hence it is that the new art involves
all the subject-branches of painting alike: portrait, landscape, still-life (which
appears in a new significance), genre (which manifests a strong tendency
towards idealism), interiors, the human figure, animals, and pure imagina-
tion. On the other hand, and this is of the greatest importance, pure and
abstract painting, for the first time, seeks a place besides those various subject-
divisions. Picabia’s works, especially those at his separate show at “291,”
are the most conspicuous in this class.
The new vision involves a readjustment of our eyes, in the pictorial sense,
in which Europe must be followed by America, as a natural course, and against
which the resistance of inert traditionalism and the public indifference are
in vain.
Art is a form corresponding to an idea. The correspondence is the life
of art. But academies continue merely a form after its idea has become
extinct, while the layman by reason of a one-sided literary education and
dormant perceptive faculties for art, always concerns himself more or less
exclusively with the subject in a picture or statue.
The artistic form is a composite of units or of technical elements, which
is of necessity simpler than and dissimilar to the very complex forms and
qualities of reality. Art selects from life or nature and transforms the visible
manifestations into corresponding effects—equivalents—such as the materials
of art make possible. Further, art composes or rearranges, since it imitates
for the purpose of expression. The perfect correspondence between the idea
and the form in an artwork, is harmony. The harmony is impossible without
unity in variety of the elements which the artist organizes into a new image
—not a substitute for a real object, but a new subjective reality of beauty
and expression. That is all there is to Art and the basis upon which all critical
interpretation and the enjoyment of Art rests. Of course there has always
been, and always will be the craft of imitating for the sake of copying. Pre-
historic writing, for example, consisted of simple drawings or symbols in
imitation of objects. But art, which at first resembled this, was never
anything but feeling expressed. These different truths most people habitually
confound.
Yet we, of today, ought to have use for the true services of the artist,
since photography makes the painter superfluous as a copyist; indeed, the
competition of the camera has forced the artist to realize that his instrument
is his imagination. But these very principles of art became more and more
ignored during the last three centuries, since a materialistic spirit required
expression through a naturalistic art. From its beginning, art has allied itself
with man’s conception of an attitude toward that which lies beyond the tangi-
ble or visible and above utility. The artist has shaped the idols of cannibals,
the images of religions, the ideals of Greek culture, the aspirations of Human-
ism, the emotions of Individualism. Art ascended to the height of beauty
33
modern life and art differs from the past. Hence it is that the new art involves
all the subject-branches of painting alike: portrait, landscape, still-life (which
appears in a new significance), genre (which manifests a strong tendency
towards idealism), interiors, the human figure, animals, and pure imagina-
tion. On the other hand, and this is of the greatest importance, pure and
abstract painting, for the first time, seeks a place besides those various subject-
divisions. Picabia’s works, especially those at his separate show at “291,”
are the most conspicuous in this class.
The new vision involves a readjustment of our eyes, in the pictorial sense,
in which Europe must be followed by America, as a natural course, and against
which the resistance of inert traditionalism and the public indifference are
in vain.
Art is a form corresponding to an idea. The correspondence is the life
of art. But academies continue merely a form after its idea has become
extinct, while the layman by reason of a one-sided literary education and
dormant perceptive faculties for art, always concerns himself more or less
exclusively with the subject in a picture or statue.
The artistic form is a composite of units or of technical elements, which
is of necessity simpler than and dissimilar to the very complex forms and
qualities of reality. Art selects from life or nature and transforms the visible
manifestations into corresponding effects—equivalents—such as the materials
of art make possible. Further, art composes or rearranges, since it imitates
for the purpose of expression. The perfect correspondence between the idea
and the form in an artwork, is harmony. The harmony is impossible without
unity in variety of the elements which the artist organizes into a new image
—not a substitute for a real object, but a new subjective reality of beauty
and expression. That is all there is to Art and the basis upon which all critical
interpretation and the enjoyment of Art rests. Of course there has always
been, and always will be the craft of imitating for the sake of copying. Pre-
historic writing, for example, consisted of simple drawings or symbols in
imitation of objects. But art, which at first resembled this, was never
anything but feeling expressed. These different truths most people habitually
confound.
Yet we, of today, ought to have use for the true services of the artist,
since photography makes the painter superfluous as a copyist; indeed, the
competition of the camera has forced the artist to realize that his instrument
is his imagination. But these very principles of art became more and more
ignored during the last three centuries, since a materialistic spirit required
expression through a naturalistic art. From its beginning, art has allied itself
with man’s conception of an attitude toward that which lies beyond the tangi-
ble or visible and above utility. The artist has shaped the idols of cannibals,
the images of religions, the ideals of Greek culture, the aspirations of Human-
ism, the emotions of Individualism. Art ascended to the height of beauty
33
