International studio (49.1913)

Evolution not Revolution in Art

THE EMERALD POOL BY D. PUTNAM BRINLEY


astutely primed for what they were destined to
behold, they were much less obdurate than might
otherwise have been the case.
Modern art in its more acute phases was never-
theless an unknown quantity to the majority of
the visitors to the Armory, and current comments,
as well as not a little that was written about the
exhibition savored of unabashed naivete. The
position assumed by the promoters of the affair
was moreover not conspicuously illuminating,
and everywhere, almost, there was a manifest lack
of some solid foundation upon which might rest
the feet of those who had so blithely or so bump-
tiously ventured into this uncharted territory.
What the official mouthpieces of the undertaking
in their fervid pronouncements strove to impress
upon the masses was the fact that a species of
revolution had taken place in the field of painting
and sculpture, and that they were especially desig-
nated to display its results. An entire number of
our sprightly little protege, Arts and Decoration,
was devoted to the promulgation of this idea. It
was doubtless all done in good faith, and with an
ingenuous ardor which did not fail to carry a cer-
tain conviction, yet, now that matters have sim-

mered down a bit, it is time to sur-
vey the field in calmer temper and
from a somewhat broader standpoint.
There are, to begin with, no revo-
lutions in art. The development of
artistic effort advances normally
along definite lines. The various
movements overlap one another,
and in each will be found that vital
potency which proves the formative
spirit of the next. The esthetic unity
of man is as indisputable as is his
ethnic unity, and, given similar con-
ditions, he will not fail to produce
similar if not absolutely identical
results. The panorama of pictorial
or plastic accomplishment the world
over, like the phenomena of crystallo-
graphy, conchology, or those basic
verities that lie at the root of all
harmonic proportion reveal but scant
variation from fixed rule. Nature
at the outset managed to get such
matters reasonably well systematized
and since then has been satisfied to
let things pursue their appointed
course. While it is quite permissible
for juvenile or uncritical enthusiasts
flamboyantly to announce revolu¬
tions, at bottom it is the infinitely more deliber-
ate process of evolution to which they are paying
tribute.
Why, then, this unwonted superexcitation in
local art circles? It is merely due to a lack of
close, first-hand acquaintance with the situation.
Most of us see only effects, not the causes that
lead up to these effects. The principle upon which
this seemingly radical and ultra-modern work is
founded is one of the oldest existent esthetic prin-
ciples, one which, to the best of our knowledge, has
been practised since the palaeolithic age, some fifty
thousand years ago. It is, in sum, the principle of
simplification. Primitive craftsmen, doubtless
owing to their rudimentary command of tech-
nique, pictured things synthetically, and it is
something of this same precious synthesis of
vision and rendering which certain painters and
sculptors of to-day have deliberately set about to
recapture for themselves. The tendency of art
during the past few centuries has been away from
subjective, and frankly in the direction of objec-
tive, representation. It is the thing itself that we
have gradually been forced to accept, not that
which it may suggest to sight and sense. We have

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