International studio (61.1917)

Modern Art: From Daumier to Marsden Hartley


vases of Marsden Hartley
are to be seen contrasted
with his earlier work.
These later pictures appear
to be what Hartley calls
“pictural” presentations
of sail-boats, some with
wings extended, flying be-
fore the wind, others be-
calmed, with sails only half
full and snapping; still
others tacking obliquely.
In them Hartley has made
an obvious stride both in
the refinement and re-
straint of his colour, and
in the grasp of his strange
and arresting talent. In
handling simple flat planes
of neutralized tones he has
avoided the somewhat
chaotic and over-accentu-
ated aspect of his German
period; and in dealing
almost exclusively with
angular shapes and more
or less regular circles he has
intensified and focussed
his vision.
These recent pictures are
wholly enjoyable, and, in
. Courtesy Knoedler Galleries
getting away from the EDNA
complexities of an unre-
strained and undeveloped
palette, he has had time to devote his attention
to the purely aesthetic demands of his art: I speak
here of the delicate balance of his masses—an ele-
ment which formerly was obscure and only par-
tially realized. In some of the later pictures this
balance more than holds one; and the calm at-
mosphere resulting from his straight lines and
whitened tints produces a peaceful solitude not
unlike that of a summer’s day. Needless to say,
Hartley has not found his final type of expres-
sion. In time his planes will extend into depth,
and his pictures will flower into a wider and fuller
conception, even as these present works sum up
and complete the earlier stages of his development.
Mr. Stieglitz’s plan of exhibiting a painter’s
early pictures along with his latest ones (as in the
case of Hartley), while not a new one, cannot be
improved upon. It gives the public, as well as the

BY ROBERT HENRI
critics, a sure road to follow in analyzing an ar-
tist’s temperament and calibre. What a treat
it would be to behold in one gallery the consecu-
tive steps taken by Rubens or Michelangelo from
their student days to their full-blown maturity!
The Modern Gallery celebrates its return to its
old quarters by exposing Toulouse-Lautrec, Dau-
mier and Guys. Such an exhibition was needed
here, even aside from its aesthetic interest. Lau-
trec is an historical, as well as an artistic, figure;
for not only much of Matisse and Picasso came
from him, but the entire world of illustration is
indebted to his genius. He is a kind of modern
incarnation of the spirit of Velazquez, Goya and
Hogarth. As an illustrator he has depicted life
in the stews—the natural and unmasked life
where hypocrisy is non-existent and where man
stands forth in all his animality. And Lautrec

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