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I

IV

THE POINT OF VIEW OF

THE "MODERNS"

BY WALTER PACH

tive.

VOICE the conviction of thousands who have preferred the former alternaof people when I say that the present era is one of the greatest artistic importance, and that it is made so by the noble line of painters that culminated in Cézanne, to go on to further realizations in the present and near future.

The word "moderns" is of course purely relative. Only a few years ago Professor Holmes wrote of Constable as the first of the moderns. Later André Suares spoke of Delacroix as the man from whom modern art is descended; perhaps Manet is the choice of the majority now, with a somewhat smaller, but increasing, number inclined to make the modern movement begin with Cézanne. The limits of the past and the accepted are constantly being set forward, and we see that the men who were thought to break most with tradition have only enriched it. The process keeps up to

day, and it is this that makes our time inspiring. We feel that we are alive and producing. We have learned the lessons of the past, including its greatest one, that we are worthy of our heritage and able to appreciate it only when we add to it. "Invent or perish," the great warning of Ruskin. It will be my privilege to speak here of the men

was

They are men who justify their lives by their works, not by their artistic ancestry; nevertheless, as we are trying at present to understand these works better, it is worth while to glance backward and see how steadily the ideas of to-day have evolved from those of yesterday. With this in mind we shall be prepared to follow out in the Post-Impressionist and the Cubist pictures the continuing of the essential tradition of art, which is life, however they diverge from the unessential traditions of the manner of expressing it.

The history of the first three quarters of the nineteenth century is well known.

MADEMOISELLE POGANY

CUBIST BUST IN MARBLE BY BRANCUSI

A magnificent grotesque; the model is portrayed by
emphasizing the salient characteristics. Brancusi
evolved from an earlier Rodinesque manner to one
where line, volume, and surface are used for their
esthetic and expressive effect, independent of realism.

After the struggle between Classicism and Romanticism came the Realists. The Impressionist school, with its scientific analysis of light, completed their work. It would of course be false to deny to men like Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir the possession of the classic qualities of form and color. In the perfect achievement of Renoir they are so splendid that he must be ranked not with the lesser, but with the greater, classics.

But with these men the obtaining of the esthetic qualities was mostly instinctive; with Cézanne we have the all-important

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"NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE"

FROM MARCEL DUCHAMP-VILLON'S CELEBRATED CUBIST PAINTING
Described on page 863.

evolution to an art where they are sought
for consciously. A deep student of the
old masters, like all the great French
painters of the nineteenth century, Cé-
zanne went further than any of his fel-
lows, his mind being the profoundest of
them all, in penetrating to the motives of
the great gods of the museums. So, while
a man of his time, he goes far beyond it
in recognizing the supremacy over realism
of the esthetic and expressive phases of the
work of art. As he grew older, he cen-
tered his attention more and more on these
matters, and was quite willing to let real-
ism confine itself to a general, elemental
statement of the form and color of his
subject. The vast majority of the public
saw at first only what it thought to be the

sacrifices of Cézanne's work. Now that he is better understood, and even the laymen are more occupied with his qualities than with his so-called defects, the rancor of those who oppose all change in the forms of art is transferred to the successors of Cézanne, who break still further with the superstition that a picture must look "just like nature." Only one who has carefully watched the crowds at such a manifestation as the International Exhibition of last spring can know what a vast number of people are ready to overcome this obstacle or have done so already.

For those who know him best, Cézanne is the greatest master of modern times, and one whom only the greatest of the old painters have equaled. He realizes the

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FROM THE PAINTING BY JOSEPH STELLA

This painting, which in all probability is the last word in modernism, is a daring interpretation of the artist's impression of the dazzling light, the noise, the confusion, and the ceaseless motion of Coney Island. It represents an attempt to express the brilliance and the dynamic energy of modern life so evident in America. The artist believes that the static traditions and conventions of the past must be abandoned before art can reflect the changing material conditions and theories on which a new civilization is being founded.

He has evolved a style of his own from various elements in the modern movement. Had he merely represented the physical appearance of the American fiesta, he believed that he could not have given the rhythm of the scene, which transforms the chaos of the night, the lights, the strange buildings, and the surging crowd into the order, the design, and the color of art.

Pictures Showing How Post-Impressionism is
Influencing Modern Painting

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In this painting by the curator of paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are reminiscences of Persian illustration and of the naïve Italian Primitives; yet the work is executed in a modern spirit, the drawing of

the detail showing vitality and freedom from archaistic tendencies.

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