The Seven Arts, Vol. 2, No. 4

The Seven Arts Chronicle Sevenics cannot face its secondArts, year with Augustapart from the current 1917 cant of com that same wise avoidance of pro ment which blames or praises, too fessional criticism. Perhaps it is hu interested in the play for the play’s manly impossible for the Province - sake to be self-conscious or afraid. town Players to preserve within them But, not inviting publicity, they selves the same real indifference to have achieved it, and in their pros outside criticism with whch they pectus have accepted it. Their ideals came into New York last year. By may be rooted deep enough to sur just so much as they value it, how vive the crucial test of this second ever, and are influenced consciously and crucial year. If they do move or unconsciously by it, they depart through their second season here from the basic ideal on which the without swerving from their ideal W harf Theater at Provincetown was policy to consider plays first, the au founded— a theater for playwrights, dience last, and critics not at all, they artists, and actors, avowedly experi will have wrought out of themselves mental, inviting an audience inter one of the few miracles of dramatic ested in experiments rather than re history in America. sults, holding themselves serenely Z. Photography Photography, which is the first and of understanding and respect for their only important contribution, thus far, material, on the part of the photog of science to the arts, finds its raison raphers themselves, which directly ac d'etre, like all media, in a complete counts for the consequent lack of re uniqueness of means. This is an ab spect on the part of the intelligent solute unqualified objectivity. Un public and the notion that photogra like the other arts which are really phy is but a poor excuse for an inabil anti-photographic, this objectivity is of ity to do anything else. the very essence of photography, its The photographer’s problem, there contribution and at the same time its fore, is to see clearly the limitations limitation. And just as the majority and at the same time the potential of workers in other media have com qualities of his medium, for it is pre pletely misunderstood the inherent cisely here that honesty no less than qualities of their respective means, so intensity of vision is the prerequisite photographers, with the possible ex of a living expression. This means ception of two or three, have had no a real respect for the thing in front of conception of the photographic means. him, expressed in terms of chiaroscuro The full potential power of every (color and photography having noth medium is dependent upon the purity ing in common) through a range of of its use, and all attempts at mixture almost infinite tonal values which lie end in such dead things as the color beyond the skill of the human hand. etching, the photographic painting The fullest realization of this is ac and, in photography, the gum print, oil complished without tricks of process or print, etc., in which the introduction manipulation, through the use of of hand work and manipulation is straight photographic methods. It is merely the expression of an impotent in the organization of this objectivity desire to paint. It is this very lack that the photographer’s point of view [524] The Seven Arts Chronicle Seventowards Life enters Arts,in, and where a Augustthis innocence was their 1917 real strength. formal conception born of the emo Everything they wanted to say had to tions, the intellect, or of both, is as be worked out by their own experi inevitably necessary for him, before an ments ; it was born of actual living. In exposure is made, as for the painter, the same way the creators of our sky before he puts brush to canvas. The scrapers had to face the similar circum objects may be organized to express stance of no precedent, and it was the causes of which they are the effects, through that very necessity of evolving or they may be used as abstract forms, a new form, both in architecture and to create an emotion unrelated to the photography that the resulting expres objectivity as such. This organization sion was vitalized. Where in any me is evolved either by movement of the dium has the tremendous energy and camera in relation to the objects them potential power of New York been selves or through their actual arrange more fully realized than in the pure ment, but here, as in everything, the ly direct photographs of Stieglitz? expression is simply the measure of a Where a more subtle feeling which is vision, shallow or profound, as the the reverse of all this, the quiet sim case may be. Photography is only a plicity of life in the American small new road from a different direction, town, so sensitively suggested in the but moving toward the common goal, early work of Clarence White? which is Life. Where in painting, more originality Notwithstanding the fact that the and penetration of vision than in the whole development of photography portraits of Steichen, Kasebier and has been given to the world through Frank Eugene? Others, too, have “Camera W ork” in a form uniquely given beauty to the world, but these beautiful as well as perfect in con workers, together with the great ception and presentation, there is no Scotchman, David Octavius Hill, real consciousness, even among pho whose portraits made in 1860 have tographers, of what has actually hap never been surpassed, are the impor- pened : namely, that America has real tant factors of a living photographic ly been expressed in terms of America tradition. They will be the masters without the outside influence of Paris no less for Europe than for America art-schools or their dilute offspring because by an intense interest in the here. This development extends over life of which they were really a part, the comparatively short period of sixty they reached through a national, to a years, and there was no real movement universal expression. In spite of in until the years between 1895 and difference, contempt and the assurance 1910, at which time an intense re of little or no remuneration they went birth of enthusiasm and energy mani on, as others will do, even though their fested itself all over the world. More work seems doomed to a temporary ob over, this renaissance found its high scurity. The thing they do remains est aesthetic achievement in America, the same ; it is a witness to the motive where a small group of men and force that drives. women worked with honest and sin The existence of a medium, after cere purpose, some instinctively and all, is its absolute justification, if as so few consciously, but without any back many seem to think, it needs one, and ground of photographic or graphic for all comparison of potentialities is use mulae, much less any cut and dried less and irrelevant. Whether a water- ideas of what is Art and what isn’t ; color is inferior to an oil, or whether [525] The Seven Arts Chronicle Sevena drawing, an etching, Arts, or a photo- August gratitude everything 1917 through which graph is not as important as either, is the spirit of man seeks to obtain ever inconsequent. To have to despise some- fuller and more intense self-realiza- thing else is a sign of impotence. Let tion. us rather accept joyously and with Paul Strand. Music and Recruiting It was at the concert of June 20th, were sung by Miss Anna Case, be the first of those planned for this comingly draped in the folds of the season by the Civic Orchestral So American flag. It was only when, at ciety, that Mr. Otto H. Kahn ad the close of the intermission, there ap dressed the audience. peared in the conductor’s stand not The concert, as well as the entire M. Monteaux, but Mr. Otto H. series, had been advertised as “ Patri Kahn, that the audience realized with otic.” The adjective has of late lost a shock that there were intentions in something of its edge, its precision the word “patriotism” which it had of meaning, and most of the people not as yet encountered. who attended the first concert doubt M r. Otto H. Kahn made a speech. less speculated on the element that It was not a short speech. But it can would distinguish this concert from be summed up in a few sentences. others. To some, the word no doubt Mr. Otto H. Kahn congratulated suggested that St. Nicholas Rink, the audience on the fact that art was where the concerts take place this still neutral, and expressed his delight year, would be festooned with the that the conductor of the concerts of banners of the United States, of the Civic Orchestral Society was a Britain and of France. To some, it “son of France.” He expressed also foreshadowed the inclusion of certain his delight that the realm of music patriotic airs in the exercises. To had not as yet been contaminated by others, the word presented itself as the war, and announced that it was the advertisement of the fact that the the intention of the Society (of which society had obtained the services of a he is Treasurer) to demonstrate the Parisian conductor eager to include connection between music and patri a good deal of French music on his otism by introducing speeches on programmes. To few, however, did Patriotism and Art and other allied it intimate the performance that was subjects into the course of each con to take place.

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