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

pure pigment and painted each other, the Steichen and Stieglitz families and others with vivid
illumination.
Following them now comes John Marin, another New Yorker, and another of the earnest
group of serious secessionists, with a comprehensive collection of his watercolor landscapes—
and some oils.
An admirably defiant group they make. It may not be quite fair to call them the “Reds
of Art,” though one doubts if they would object, but they are certainly revolutionaries all. But
such destruction as they may have wrought has been constructive havoc. In following the
voice within them they have opened many new and strange ways and left it to us to follow if we
will or can.
Unless one can question their sincerity—which is not often a safe or wise thing to do—
one dare not condemn out of hand. These defiers of the old canons have taught us already too
much that was worth learning not to command, at least a considered judgment.
We have learned from them, for example, that pictorial art of the past has been greatly
taken up with exposition. It has been explaining and explaining again. And its eternal
preoccupation with facts has often left it emotionless. There is no doubt of that. The new
art is frankly careless of facts. It says they do not matter and it tries to reach straight into
the heart of things — by “the heart of things” being meant their emotional content, their
power to arouse feeling of an exalted kind.
The circle of argument of course completes itself. Exalted feeling is a sense of beauty.
Beauty is a quality of things. We are back again to facts. But there are beauties of spirit
as well as beauties of material impression, about which it is possible to have feeling. Perhaps
the new artists would have us sense the beauty of the emotion engendered by the feeling he
has put into his pictures.
In any case John Marin has dealt with many engaging facts. His compromise between
material realities and the absence of them will still be puzzling to many but they will have no
difficulty in finding real boats and trees and land and water—glowing and very beautiful water,
skies that he can understand as well as feel and land solid enough for any footfall—sometimes.
He may still fail to understand, as does the present observer, why skyscrapers should bend in
the breeze like any sapling but he will not be able to resist John Marin’s color.
Studying these bright and lively impressions of the outdoor world one can see with what
artless joy the painter flowed his great brushfuls of luscious color over paper. They did express
the brilliant gladness of sunlight on land and water to him and they do to us. Their piquing
mystery is a real spur to our imagination and a pleasant one. It would never be an annoyance
to have a good Marin for steady company, though it might be unduly preoccupying. One
would be continually seeking and finding the unexpected therein.
Henry J. McBride in the “N. Y. Sun”:
The recent number of Camera Work seems to have been well timed. The enthusiasm
of the young artists and art lovers who wrote down their reasons for liking the Photo-Secession
gallery is of a sort to incline sceptics who have occasionally been shocked by exhibitions in the
little gallery to give it one more chance. Those that make the venture will now find a John
Marin show there which ought permanently to convert them.
Marin, as an artist, has so long been a private force among aspiring students that it is
amazing to realize that he is not yet a celebrity. Mr. Stieglitz, who is in charge of the Photo-
Secession, states that no public museum owns Marins as yet. This seems strange. He says,
too, that certain American connoisseurs have already seen Marins and have failed to appreciate
them. This is extraordinary. One feels quite helpless to combat so unreasonable a situation.
Not to like Marin is as inconceivable as not to like Chopin.
Not long ago at a little dinner a lady was heard to announce in a most sprightly fashion
that she did not like the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She had been bored past endurance,
she said, and at last had resolved to fling off the mask she had worn and never to hear the
orchestra again. A frightened silence fell about the table, for the lady plainly believed she
was saying something clever. Finally a gentleman turned to her and said, “What a misfor-
tune!” and then immediately all of the guests talked about something else.
In fact nothing could be done for the poor lady and nothing can be done for people who
do not like Marins. Talking to them won’t help them. Explaining won’t help them. As for
the museum directors, that’s another matter. Much more serious than the lady’s non-com-

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