DOI issue:
Nr. 196 (Juni 1913)
DOI article:Brinton, Christian: Contemporary art and the Carnegie Institute
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43452#0428
Contemporary Art and the Carnegie Institute
mission has been interpretation, not exploitation.
There are, on the whole, few points of relatively
high tension in the American section. From the
exhibitions in Washington, Philadelphia, and the
New York Academy of Design have been gathered
the notable canvases of the season, these being
supplemented by contributions from individually
invited artists. They all appear to considerably
better advantage here than elsewhere, saving
perhaps those from the Corcoran Gallery, where
the hanging and general installation were this year
particularly acceptable. They present a com-
mendable average of excellence, but they are dis-
tinctly not stimulating. The Carnegie Institute
can in no degree be described as an artistic experi-
mental station. No problems are presented for
solution upon these spacious and circumspect
walls. The roar of revolution in art is not as yet
audible in Pittsburgh. That impetuous wave of
radicalism in thought and paint which moment-
arily at least swept all before it in New York, did
not pause here on its westward rush to Chicago,
and Alfred Stieglitz, our pioneer progressive, would
doubtless stroll through these galleries with melan-
choly abstraction or eloquent, ironical protest.
Always urbane and equable in its attitude, The
International Studio would not presume to
suggest so violent an antidote as might be sup-
plied by the inclusion of Dove, Hartley, or the
transformed and clarified Maurer, though it is
certainly within the bounds of temperance and
good breeding to deplore the omission of one pos-
sessing the taste, artistic capacity, and judicious
modernity of, say, Henry Golden Dearth. Exhi-
bitions such as the present create the impression
that American art is virtually stationary. It is
impossible to repress a certain sense of ennui on
surveying so many pictures painted in a spiiit of
professional competence and discreet repetition.
You may contend that these admirably arranged
affairs are intended primarily for the edification of
Pittsburgh, not for the diversion of a slender
handful of critics more or less addicted to adven-
ture and cursed with the insatiable quest of nov-
elty, but that, after all, is not quite the gist of the
matter.
In such questions it is essential to be fair to
both sides, and verily the point as to whether
the Carnegie Institute leads or follows, whether
it sets standards or accepts the dicta of conven-
Carnegie Institute, 1913
LE MENHIR BY LUCIEN SIMON
LXXV
mission has been interpretation, not exploitation.
There are, on the whole, few points of relatively
high tension in the American section. From the
exhibitions in Washington, Philadelphia, and the
New York Academy of Design have been gathered
the notable canvases of the season, these being
supplemented by contributions from individually
invited artists. They all appear to considerably
better advantage here than elsewhere, saving
perhaps those from the Corcoran Gallery, where
the hanging and general installation were this year
particularly acceptable. They present a com-
mendable average of excellence, but they are dis-
tinctly not stimulating. The Carnegie Institute
can in no degree be described as an artistic experi-
mental station. No problems are presented for
solution upon these spacious and circumspect
walls. The roar of revolution in art is not as yet
audible in Pittsburgh. That impetuous wave of
radicalism in thought and paint which moment-
arily at least swept all before it in New York, did
not pause here on its westward rush to Chicago,
and Alfred Stieglitz, our pioneer progressive, would
doubtless stroll through these galleries with melan-
choly abstraction or eloquent, ironical protest.
Always urbane and equable in its attitude, The
International Studio would not presume to
suggest so violent an antidote as might be sup-
plied by the inclusion of Dove, Hartley, or the
transformed and clarified Maurer, though it is
certainly within the bounds of temperance and
good breeding to deplore the omission of one pos-
sessing the taste, artistic capacity, and judicious
modernity of, say, Henry Golden Dearth. Exhi-
bitions such as the present create the impression
that American art is virtually stationary. It is
impossible to repress a certain sense of ennui on
surveying so many pictures painted in a spiiit of
professional competence and discreet repetition.
You may contend that these admirably arranged
affairs are intended primarily for the edification of
Pittsburgh, not for the diversion of a slender
handful of critics more or less addicted to adven-
ture and cursed with the insatiable quest of nov-
elty, but that, after all, is not quite the gist of the
matter.
In such questions it is essential to be fair to
both sides, and verily the point as to whether
the Carnegie Institute leads or follows, whether
it sets standards or accepts the dicta of conven-
Carnegie Institute, 1913
LE MENHIR BY LUCIEN SIMON
LXXV