International studio (58.1916)

A not her New Art Aenture

how we may reconcile an indorsement of the kind
of painting presented us by the Forum Committee
with the contention widely and strongly held to
the effect that art must express the spirit of its
age if it is to be a vital, essential art. Surely this
point of view—a logical development of which
should picture Mr. George Cohan waving an
American flag—might more appropriately con-
cern itself with the muscular, shirt-sleeved vision
of a Bellows than with the super-subtle intri-
cacies on view at the Anderson Galleries. Mr.
Christian Brinton, for example, always actively
engaged upon the side of any and every insur-
gency, has for years consistently repudiated
American painting as represented by, say, a
Tryon, Crane, Murphy or Dessar. We have,
according to Mr. Brinton, sounded no new note
in art, we have failed to record on canvas a syn-
thesis of our national character, etc. Now the
paintings in the Forum Exhibition were not only
no more characteristically American than they
were characteristically Chinese; they were abso-
lutely lacking in any national characteristics
whatsoever. However excellent they may have
been, they were not, in the last analysis, perti-
nent to the live issues of to-day nor, in the slight-
est degree, representative of the genuine trend of
American sentiment. And so we are forced to
conclude (I hope not impertinently) that the ad-
vocates of this sort of thing are not absolutely
certain themselves of just what it is all about;
we are forced to conclude that art can neither
be justified nor explained away by words. And
in the meantime we have the windy spaces of the
world and growing green things and glad sunny
days to rejoice over just as though no cubism,
futurism or any other ism had even been invented.
In conluding these rather desultory and far too
cursive jottings, I again intrude my belief that
the supreme difficulty confronting the honest
worker in and recorder of artistic activities is the
difficulty of maintaining an equitable balance
between the stultifying. influences of precedent
and the fallacy of progress. One’s inclination is
almost uncontrollably in the direction of one
extreme or the other at the expense of a normal
middle ground. Art’s danger is the danger of
adhering to clique, sect, party and formula. I
have endeavoured to call attention in this article
merely to the fact that art is entirely a matter
of individualities, not of an organized system of
expression.

< NOTHER NEW ART VENTURE:
/\ THE FORUM EXHIBITION
Z—\ BY DR. JOHN WEICHSEL
There was a highly attractive dis-
play of New Art, at the large Anderson Galleries,
in New York, during the month of March. Six-
teen men’s and one woman’s paintings and draw-
ings were here shown under highly favorable
conditions. In carefully chosen, most compre-
hensive representation; well-hung, amply spaced
and lighted, and generously introduced to the
public by a committee of six authoritative, non-
mercenary sponsors of the enterprise. There was
a large attendance of manifestly sympathetic
persons. Appropriate literature was provided
within easy reach of the visitors. Competent
advisers, too, were in evidence. It was, surely,
a stimulating, life-throbbing place, this New Art
exhibition. Even the most implacable, case-
hardened adversary—were he but to venture into
the unorthodox precinct—could not help feeling
the stimulating animation of the assemblage, and
the captivating charm of the colour-and-light-per-
meated, form-teeming, vitalized canvases. In a
number of places, in the Exhibition halls, there
were prominently posted price lists, for the con-
venience of buyers. All but the price lists seemed
to have done their work extremely well in this
memorable Forum Exhibition of Modern Amer-
ican Painters.
In a foreword contained in the handsome book
that was issued by Mitchell Kennerley on the
occasion of the Forum Exhibition, Mr. W. H. de
B. Nelson—one of the committee who planned
this exhibition—thus expresses himself in refer-
ence to the present status of New Art.
“ Everyone recalls the Armory Exhibition which
was at once a success and a fiasco. It was a suc-
cess insomuch as it compelled the public to do a
little thinking and taught the same public that
much is being done with brush and chisel of a
totally different character to what the American
galleries and exhibitions have been accustoming
us for many a decade. It was a fiasco for the
reason that a plethora of material selected at hap-
hazard confused the mind and failed to set any
logical standards by which modern work could
be estimated. People laughed or tore their hair
according to temperament. The Armory exposi-
tion ended, and a flabby conventional verdict
declared the end of modern painting in New

cxv