International studio (49.1913)

Evolution not Revolution in Art


spurned a stilted and effete classicism and rudely
scattered the embers of a burned-out romanticism.
It was upon his expansive peasant shoulders that
Manet, the townsman, climbed to hitherto unat-
tained heights. And it is to Courbet and to
nature, which he worshipped with such passionate
integrity, that, once they have ventured far
enough into space, our tense and pallid theorists
must inevitably return.
It would be wholly superfluous to offer those
responsible for the exhibition any further
felicitations. They have won an unprecedented
measure of popular success at the Armory, which
will doubtless be duplicated when the descent is
made upon Chicago. Great things have freely
been predicted for the future of American art fol-
lowing the influx of these stimulating and progres-
sive foreigners. It is however only vaguely real-
ized in certain quarters that, in order to paint like
Gauguin it is necessary to live, think, and feel like
Gauguin, or that, in order to fill a canvas after the
fashion of Picasso, it is essential to possess the
plastic vision and profound cerebral concentration
of Picasso himself. Mere imitation, to which we
are already too prone, will never produce anything
significant or enduring, and what should be taken
to heart is not the form but—-let us once more add
—the spirit of this work. The fact that one finds
in Picabia, for example, a mingling of logic and
lyricism which derives direct from the Impression-
ists and blends into the delicate exaltation of a
new Orphism, should inspire our young men not

to paint polymorphically, but look to their own
traditions and sensibilities and see what they are
capable of bringing forth. That which we as a
nation above all else need is a more robust and de-
cisive racial consciousness in matters artistic.
And it is this lesson that the current exhibition,
despite the incidental crudity and incoherence
of its presentation, manifestly inculcates.
If, in fine, we are to accomplish something vital
in art we must strive to purge ourselves alike from
timidity and from pedantic prejudice. There is
no phase of activity or facet of nature which
should be forbidden the creative artist. The
X-ray may quite as legitimately claim his atten-
tion as the rainbow, and if he so desire he is
equally entitled to renounce the static and devote
his energies to the kinetoscopic. If the discover-
ies of Chevruel and Rood in the realm of optics
proved of substantial assistance to the Impres-
sionists, there is scant reason why those of von
Rontgen or Edison along other lines should be
ignored by Expressionist and Futurist. There is
in any event little occasion for alarm, since to no
matter what lengths our restless Nietzscheans of
brush, palette, and chisel may go, they cannot
destroy the accumulated treasury of the ages.
The point is that they will add nothing thereto,
unless they keep alive that primal wonder and
curiosity concerning the universe, both visible
and invisible, which was characteristic of the
caveman, and which has proved the mainstay of
art throughout successive centuries.

xxxv