Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1914 (Heft 45))

give a the de lecture some time during the run of the show. Miss Stein’s verses gain enormously
when read aloud. The reader naturally should be some one of high intelligence with a fine
natural voice. The tea could be the usual Lipton blend.
Not more than twelve should be invited to the the de lecture, owing to the smallness
of the Photo-Secession galleries. Besides there are not even twelve of us in New York who are
really en rapport. I suppose we could invite Glendenning Keble of Pittsburg if necessary to
have a crowd. But you see the different acts of the play would have to be read in different
galleries, according to the location of the pictures. The reader might stand in that little
central hall to be heard in both rooms. But no, we should have to move back and forth as the
climaxes of the play are reached and so much jostling with cups of tea in our hands would be
disastrous. “Clark which is awful, dark which is shameful,” but just the same “dark and
order” when it comes to drinking tea.
Mr. Stieglitz reported at the close of the first day of this most fascinating exhibition that
most of those who were annoyed by the pictures were annoyed by the figure 8s which appear
here and there in some of Mr. Hartley’s German experiences. Will you believe it, we had not
even noticed the figure 8s. There seemed to be so much more in the pictures than the 8s that
we had passed by them completely in the first inrush. That’s the pity of letting the things be
seen too quickly. People will force you, too, to look at the figure 8s. What is it, in heaven’s
name, we ask you, when a murder is being done, that the rescuing or fleeing—as the case may
be—policeman on the beat happens to sport the number 8? Not that murder is being done in
Mr. Hartley’s pictures—there you go again, you see. The pervading literalness is too colossal
to be combated except, as Mrs. Dodge says, by Hartley’s pictures themselves.
And also, since we find you dragging heavily on the chains, must we explain that those
are not policemen in the pictures, but Uhlan Dragoons.
We fear that Mrs. Dodge’s “One man might say: Hartley understood the mountains, he
learned their cruelty; their eternal aloofness and separateness; their immutable silence. He
learned their last secret, the secret that perhaps they are not there at all,” will unintentionally
mislead some of the pilgrims who will flock to the Photo-Secession. There are no more moun-
tains in these pictures than there are murders or policemen. Mrs. Dodge was in fact referring
to some other paintings by this artist which are not at present on view.
Now go to the show and try not to be rude to Mr. Stieglitz when he explains it to
you.
J. Edgar Chamberlain in the New York Evening Mail:
Marsden Hartley’s paintings at the Photo-Secession gallery are past the comprehension
of the ordinary mind, and must be given up as an uncrackable nut.
They are large pictures in strange kaleidoscopic patterns, of unknown significance, but
undoubtedly answering sincerely to some artistic emotion which the painter has passed
through. They have no names. No attempt is made by Mr. Hartley or any one else to
interpret them. The artist does not seem to regard it as necessary to interpret them even
to himself.
The sole suggestion of a relation in them to art or nature is found in a circum-
stance like this: One of the canvases is acknowledged to have been painted in Berlin. In
the lower corner is a small figure of a soldier on a bright red horse, but the greater part of
the canvas is occupied by squares, circles and patterns, a large figure 8, and things somewhat
like military badges, epaulettes and other martial objects. One might say that it was the
confused impression remaining on the retina after a day spent in looking at soldiers and
parades.
Another curious picture shows four interwoven circles, or bubbles, at the bottom, with a
whirl of light-jets, stars, and a general explosive appearance, filling up the rest of the canvas.
It has been unofficially suggested that the four bubbles or disks at the bottom of the picture
represent four people at a convivial banquet, while the rest of the picture shows the condition
of the inside of one’s head after drinking about a bottle and a half of champagne.

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