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

“Mile. Pogany” appears at this exhibition in beautiful marble, and also in bronze. The
beauty of the surface, of the mere workmanship, in this head is so great that it almost makes
one forget the strange character of the head itself. Everything that is shown here, indeed, is fin-
ished in the same masterly way. Brancusi is a splendid artisan, at any rate. Is he also a great
artist? It doesn’t appear so.
It is possible, now, to see Mr. Brancusi’s point of view. His intention is evidently to
simplify everything to the point where idea itself appears in visible form—the abstract made
concrete—eliminating all unessential forms, like a bullet shown in a man’s vitals by an X-ray
photograph. Let us say, for instance, that the predominating characteristic of a woman is gentle
purity. Brancusi, in making a portrait bust of this woman, will eliminate everything but the
gentle purity. The so-called head will be turned at a sweet angle; the features will be reduced
to thin slits, or mere rudimentary projections—all pointing in this way toward a slight and
delicate yet quite intense suggestion of gentle purity. No flesh, no ears, no hair, perhaps no eyes
—nothing but a line or two; and any indicated feature like a coy bend of the neck, which many
contribute to the suggestion of naivete, will be exaggerated, in order to suggest the naivete
the more strongly.
This concentration of everything in a fundamental suggestion, this raising of simplicity
to the n-th power, is visible in everything that Brancusi does—in his “Danaide” even more
than in Mile. Pogany.
The effort is interesting, and the workmanship and the material a delight. Brancusi takes
the same infinite personal pains with his bronze that he does with his marble, making the bronze
himself, and working on the cast after it is finished. But can any one say confidently that his
heads or figures are a good thing in their purpose and conception ? Is sculpture a raw thought,
an X-ray photograph of a quality, or is it something which produces a certain reaction upon our
minds by the suggestion of nature?
We have passed beyond the stage of art where sculpture must be an imitation of nature.
Rodin contents us with the suggestion only. But it really seems that there must be some sug-
gestion.
Maybe we shall evolve ourselves into the Brancusi attitude, and accept Mile. Pogany;
but the world has not yet reached that point.
There is no apparent sense or beauty in the object in wood which Brancusi calls “L’Enfant
Prodigue.” It is of the same stage of artistic cultivation as the fetich carvings of the Bantu
natives of Africa—somewhat behind the stage of the carved totem poles of the natives of British
Columbia, which are graphically symbolical.
One piece of work, in bronze, it is possible to commend heartily. It is a conceit represent-
ing the fabled guardian bird of the Roumanian folklore. This is not a “natural” bird, to be sure;
but the long neck, the curved head, the shining ovoid body and the long descending tail, suggest
strongly, weirdly and beautifully the character of the bird which is supposed to preside over
the struggle and destinies of man.
Elizabeth Luther Carey in the New York Times:
A bird that sits erect with smooth expanded breast and a small head, of which the open
beak has a curiously villainous aspect—this is one of Brancusi’s sculptures at the Photo-Seces-
sion Gallery. The bronze invites the touch, and the mass is incorruptible in its Egyptian unity.
One cannot but follow with fascination the beautiful serene line of that pompous eagle breast,
yet a subtle disproportion in the arrangement of the masses hints mysteriously at evil. It is
not a bird, nor an art, to forget, but it savors of strange gods.
Less baffling, more innocent and kind is the “Sleeping Muse,” which is shown both in
marble and in bronze. The suave, refined oval of this head has a charm that is altogether lack-
ing in the well-known portrait head of Mile. Pogany. The small, sharpened features, like those
of a death mask, hardly obtrude upon the pure, long contour of the face. That head of an un-
known lady, which has hung from the rafters of many an attic studio, has a like immobility
and withdrawal of expression.
Then we have again the Pogany head with its unpleasant, snake-like twist of hair, and a
wooden statue of a child taking its first steps, a little heathen idol of a child, balancing itself
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