International studio (81.1925)

inCGRHAClOnAL

Let us suppose, however, that this monotony
induced by persistent emphasis on the horizontal
is avoided, that the architectural scheme is so
subtle that it requires an effort of will to transfer

"le cirque"

it from the subconsciousness to full consciousness.
What then of expression? Will the range of the
medium prove as compared with the range of
human emotion, exhaustive? Hardly. For it is by
no means clear that the calm which it envisages
as the norm is in any way related to human values,
and not rather a purely mechanic calm, an ab-
sence, that is, of movement. In the latter case,
the whole range of expression, from sad to gay,
resolves itself into a kind of multiple gear, capable
of accelerating movement, but whether that move-
ment will have any human significance is far from
probable.

But indeed it is not even certain that, if the
theory be faithfully applied, even mechanic move-
ment will in fact result. Will not rather the rigid

observance of the law of contrasts, the balancing
of every color with its exact complementary, the
canceling of every line with another line bearing
an exactly opposite relation to the horizontal,

by georgesseurat

result in arrested movement, the only measurable
range of the medium lying in the moving of the
focus upward or downward from the centre of the
horizontal? Will not the forms, denied expansion
by the very nature of the divisionist technique, be
as it were frozen in space?

". . . 'Le Cirque,' 'Le Chahut,' 'La Pa-
rade,' 'La grande Jatte,' writes Lhote, "depouilles
de leur richesse exlerieure, viennent se situer dans
cette region merveilleuse oil se cristallisent definitive-
ment les mille accidents des apparences. L'anecdote
si jacilement decriee, nest done pas un obstacle a la
reussite picturale: un mauvais peintre representera
un simple verre de jacon anecdotique; un bon peintre
pourra, comme Breughel le Vieux, faire d'une ker-
messe une ceuvre eternelle."

MAY 1925

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