DOI issue:
Nr. 226 (December 1915)
DOI article:Book reviews
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43460#0215
Book Reviews
PORTRAIT DE FAMILLE
BY HENRI-MATISSE
OOK REVIEWS
Modern Painting: Its Tendency
and Meaning. By Willard Hunting-
ton Wright. (John Lane Co.) $2.50.
We are a manifestly uncritical nation. We
possess enthusiasms, passions, and prejudices,
but we are singularly deficient in the power of
sustained analysis. The body of critical liter-
ature produced in this country is pitifully slender,
and in no department is this more apparent than
in the province of aesthetic interpretation. In-
numerable industrious individuals write copi-
ously and continuously about painters; few
devote their energies to a scrutiny of those under-
lying principles that condition all artistic en-
deavour.
A welcome exception to this rule is, however,
furnished by Willard Huntington Wright in
Modern Painting, Its Tendencies and Meaning.
It was as an expositor of the volcanic and vit-
riolic Nietzsche that Mr. Wright made his initial
appearance before the public of letters. It is
in the capacity of a convinced, and convincing,
apologist of the new movement in current painting
that he now bids, with similar promise of success,
for our attention. In compact and closely knit
phrases Mr. Wright turns the white light of a
clear and lucid intellect upon the complicated
problems of current art. His book is not merely
the best extant work upon the genesis and devel-
opment of the latter-day pictorial spirit, it is a
conclusive vindication of the metaphysical method
as applied to aesthetic considerations. It satis-
fies the intellect and at the same time is not
without the requisite emotional fervour of state-
ment.
In a series of chapters which, for concise expo-
sition, are models of their kind, Mr. Wright sum-
marizes the rise and progress of those basic con-
cepts which constitute the cornerstone of the
new school. The book might well be called
Modern Painting and Paul Cezanne, for it is the
pioneer apostle of the voluminal integrity of form
and colour who unifies and dominates these
pages. Mr. Wright’s theme, which is specifically
the discussion of painting as an organized entity,
as something existing of, and for, itself alone, is
admirably sustained. And still, while the vin-
dicator of this viewpoint, he is in no sense its
victim. It is true that only those men who are
formative figures receive attention, yet one never
feels that the author’s horizon is unduly restricted.
He unfolds in succession the origin and signifi-
cance of each important tendency. He proves
their interdependence, and no one, upon following
the outline here traced, can fail to appreciate how
Henri-Matisse stemmed from Cezanne, and how
LXIII
PORTRAIT DE FAMILLE
BY HENRI-MATISSE
OOK REVIEWS
Modern Painting: Its Tendency
and Meaning. By Willard Hunting-
ton Wright. (John Lane Co.) $2.50.
We are a manifestly uncritical nation. We
possess enthusiasms, passions, and prejudices,
but we are singularly deficient in the power of
sustained analysis. The body of critical liter-
ature produced in this country is pitifully slender,
and in no department is this more apparent than
in the province of aesthetic interpretation. In-
numerable industrious individuals write copi-
ously and continuously about painters; few
devote their energies to a scrutiny of those under-
lying principles that condition all artistic en-
deavour.
A welcome exception to this rule is, however,
furnished by Willard Huntington Wright in
Modern Painting, Its Tendencies and Meaning.
It was as an expositor of the volcanic and vit-
riolic Nietzsche that Mr. Wright made his initial
appearance before the public of letters. It is
in the capacity of a convinced, and convincing,
apologist of the new movement in current painting
that he now bids, with similar promise of success,
for our attention. In compact and closely knit
phrases Mr. Wright turns the white light of a
clear and lucid intellect upon the complicated
problems of current art. His book is not merely
the best extant work upon the genesis and devel-
opment of the latter-day pictorial spirit, it is a
conclusive vindication of the metaphysical method
as applied to aesthetic considerations. It satis-
fies the intellect and at the same time is not
without the requisite emotional fervour of state-
ment.
In a series of chapters which, for concise expo-
sition, are models of their kind, Mr. Wright sum-
marizes the rise and progress of those basic con-
cepts which constitute the cornerstone of the
new school. The book might well be called
Modern Painting and Paul Cezanne, for it is the
pioneer apostle of the voluminal integrity of form
and colour who unifies and dominates these
pages. Mr. Wright’s theme, which is specifically
the discussion of painting as an organized entity,
as something existing of, and for, itself alone, is
admirably sustained. And still, while the vin-
dicator of this viewpoint, he is in no sense its
victim. It is true that only those men who are
formative figures receive attention, yet one never
feels that the author’s horizon is unduly restricted.
He unfolds in succession the origin and signifi-
cance of each important tendency. He proves
their interdependence, and no one, upon following
the outline here traced, can fail to appreciate how
Henri-Matisse stemmed from Cezanne, and how
LXIII