Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1916 (Heft 48))

ELI NADELMAN, OF PARIS
From December eighth to January nineteenth, 1916, both galleries of
the Photo-Secession were filled with the work of the sculptor, Eli Nadelman,
of Paris. Mr. Nadelman, himself, who has been in New York since the
beginning of the war, arranged the presentation of his work, which consisted
of fifteen pieces of statuary in marble, bronze, wood and plaster, and of ten
drawings in wash and pen and ink. This was the first exhibition of Nadel-
man’s work in this country, and it included the complete development of his
evolution.
We herewith reprint the text of the leaflet which accompanied the Nadel-
man Exhibition:

We are flooded with pictures and sculpture, but are without plastic art. We seek, in
painting and sculpture, all things save those which they could and should give to us. We have
several ideals of art, but we lack the true one. At one time we imitate nature so closely that
we make nothing but sterile copies of her. At another we separate ourselves from her com-
pletely and turn toward the abstract, where we float in the void and no longer find anything.
We would like to possess a great art which, by its authority and clarity, would impose itself
upon all; and we possess but vague attempts which change daily and fail to satisfy.
For a long while the true meanings of plastic art have escaped us. We do not recognize
that essential quality which gives to this art its true value, and which permits it to develop in
all its grandeur.
Neither an exact copy of nature, nor a geometrical abstract form, nor all the productions
of painting and sculpture in our time that can be placed between these two extremes, possess
that quality.
The ultimate quality of painting and sculpture is plasticity.
Matter has an individual will which is its life. A stone will refuse all the positions we
may wish to give it if these are unsuited to it. By its own will it will fall back into the position
that its shape in conjunction with its mass demands.
Here is a wonderful force, a life that plastic art should express. Here is a life which, culti-
vated, enriched by art, will reach a dazzling power of expression that will stir us.
It is this will of matter expressed in shapes and volume that I call plasticity. This power,
this will, is not solely found imprisoned in matter itself. It is a natural force that corresponds
to our own instinct. In looking at a tower whose height is too great a feeling of disquiet comes
over us. We feel that the material labors under strain and does not find itself normally condi-
tioned. In the same way any object in which the needs of the material have been respected
transmits to us a sense of satisfaction. It is from this that contact between us and a work of
plastic art derives. It is, therefore, the plasticity of the image that awakes sensations in us;
and the most indifferent object reveals itself to us with an unfamiliar force and charm if this
object is interpreted by a purely plastic means, independently of what a work of plastic art
represents, it is solely by its plasticity that it speaks to us. Plasticity is the poetry of plastic
art. It is its essence. To seek its poetry elsewhere is to draw it toward error.
Eli Nadelman.

SIXTH MARIN EXHIBITION

From January eighteenth to February twelfth, both rooms of “291”
contained the most recent watercolors by John Marin. These latest water-
colors of Marin were exhibited at “291” while the Montross Gallery was
exhibiting Cezanne’s watercolors, more than half of which had been shown at
“291 ” six years ago.

THIRD WALKOWITZ EXHIBITION
From February fourteenth to March twelfth the most recent drawings
and watercolors by A. Walkowitz filled the rooms of the Photo-Secession.
The text of the leaflet accompanying this exhibition is herewith reprinted:

10