International studio (49.1913)

Current Art, Native and Foreign

tone, and depth of feeling. During the last few
years he has also drifted into the field of pure
landscape and has here achieved fresher, more
colorful triumphs. To simple views of hillside,
valley, or the magic iridescence of Mediterranean
coast, he adds a fullness of sentiment which makes
them something more than mere transcriptions of
given scene. This art, though modern in accent,
looks backward toward the serenity of other days.
It reflects a dignity and a sustained continuity of
development which should prove of particular
advantage to a new and esthetically restless land.
It is thus to be regretted that more of our painters
and art patrons did not appreciate the generous
idealism to which we owe the appearance of
Previati in our midst.
II. Picabia at “291.” We are still enjoying
echoes of the Armory exhibition. The newspa-
pers generously open their columns to profuse dis-
cussion pro and con, and the heavy artillery of
those arch defenders of defunct academicism, Royal
Cortissoz and Kenyon Cox, has boomed ominously
in The Century and Harper’s Weekly. The after-
math has been wellnigh as diverting as the show
itself, and in this connection must be mentioned
the first annual exhibition of the Academy of Mis-
applied Art, and the appearance of recent work by
Picabia at “291.” As to the former, one thing

only need be said, and that is that certain painters
whose performances never before evinced the
remotest spirit or individuality here shone to con-
spicuous advantage. It is to their enduring credit
that they reacted with such alacrity to newer im-
pulses and influences. Done with a view of ridi-
culing others, their work served a double purpose.
Not only was it amusing in itself, but it revealed in
more than one instance a hitherto unsuspected
freedom of line, feeling for contour and mass, and
downright creative force.
The placing on exhibition at the Photo-Seces-
sion of some sixteen studies by Francis Picabia,
who was represented at the Armory by four can-
vases only, affords The International Studio
opportunity of doing tardy justice to the remark-
able experimental station at 291 Fifth Avenue,
which during the past eight years has been pre-
sided over by Alfred Stieglitz. It is the work
done in this little garret gallery, this miniature
esthetic laboratory, which paved the way for the
Armory venture and aroused current interest in
progressive art, both native and foreign. Cour-
ageous and judiciously combative, Stieglitz, from
his fighting top, has in no small degree directed
the battle against local provincialism and prejudice,
until we at last show a certain response to work
which is individual in temper and reasonably inde-
pendent of commercialism. When
the history of contemporary artistic
endeavor in America is chronicled
it will be found that it was Stieglitz
who first introduced to us Cezanne
and Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec,
Rodin as a draughtsman, Picasso,
and a score of others whose names
once roused consternation in the
breasts of the timid, yet who have
since become classic exponents of the
modern movement.
The latest personality to enjoy the
hospitality of “291” is Picabia, and
it is in the production of Picabia that
we are permitted to note the transi-
tion from Cubism to Orphism, which
is the latest phase of present-day
artistic development in France. It
is the poetic and erudite Guillaume
Apollinaire who has given the group
the characteristic name of Orphists,
their work being in essence an evoca-
tion, an appeal to intellectual and
emotional sensibility, rather than a
transcription or recollection of real-


Pennsylvania Academy, 1913
REPOSE

BY ARTHUR P. CARLES, JR.

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