International studio (60.1916/1917)

Modern M rt


Courtesy Montross Gallery
FRUIT AND MICHELANGELO
STATUETTE

BY PATRICK HENRY
BRUCE

tural addenda—spotty, rough, smooth, ragged
and silky planes—all done with that minute finish
of detail and that slickness of surface which have
gained for more than one artist the reputation
for having arrived at a final expression.
Burty is a disciple of the earlier Picasso tradi-
tion—a tradition which, unfortunately, Picasso
himself has abandoned in order to indulge in
vapidities of little aesthetic worth. Of the great
number of men following in Picasso’s footsteps
it is strange to note that the great majority have
their eyes focussed on his material success rather
than on his failure to reach an exalted goal. They
seem unable to view him as he is, insecure and
uncertain, defeated by a versatility and talent
which carried him forward, technically, so fast
that his actual artistic ability was unable to keep
pace. This cleverness—equalled only by a few
men in history—developed unheedful of the weak-
ness of the underbuilding. But the newer ultra-
Cubists, for whose work, I regret to say, the
Modern Gallery seems to have constituted itself

ODERN ART: FOUR EXHIBI-
TIONS OF THE NEW STYLE
OF PAINTING
BY WILLARD HUNTINGTON
WRIGHT
Last month was exceptionally interesting to
the followers of the new painting. It marked the
appearance of a new man of talent; it revealed a
decided improvement in another painter of abil-
ity; and it gave us an exhibition of two modern
Europeans of considerable reputation—Derain
and Vlaminck.
Burty, a newcomer, whose work was exposed
at the Modern Gallery with that of Derain and
Vlaminck, possessed, in his No. 24, the best pic-
ture on view. This canvas of a woman’s head,
though flat in treatment and set down with many
of the new tricks of colour, had that planar divi-
sion and balance which has been made familiar
to us by Picasso, Bracque, Gris and Rivera.
Burty is a painter of talent, though he displays
no sensitivity to colour, form or drawing; but
his pictures reveal a certain charm of light touch,
a quick aptitude for imitation, and an easy at-
tainment of the slight quality which he is after.
Like Gris, Rivera, Ortiz and Man Ray, Burty
is striving only to achieve the flat, balanced and
eccentric depiction of reality, with certain tex-



Courtesy Daniel Galleries
GIRL ON HORSEBACK

BY CHARLES DEMUTH

XCVII