The Public Be Damned By Huntington Hartford

R. DONALD ADAMS, a critic writ- music or literature. If music lacks M ing in , melody, it grates harshly on the ear. has the following to say about his If a book uses too many garbled profession: "I doubt that criticism sentences, you stop reading. But has ever reached a point as low as painting — it's a free-for-all! You that to which it has fallen today. make up your own rules today, and With few exceptions, criticism has anything goes. become a monkish practice, divorced Do many art critics deliberately from life, bastardized by the as- set out to deceive and confuse and sumption of scientific method, writ- demoralize the public? ten in intolerable English, a jargon- Let us look for a moment into the ized medium of exchange between a pages of the Art News, often con- group of individuals talking to one sidered the foremost magazine of its another and busily thumbing their kind in the country. When the Art noses at the average intelligent News sets to work to explain a paint- reader." ing, does the writer make a sincere With criticism in America, by its effort to point out salient features own admission, having fallen to such which may help the intelligent depths, it is hardly surprising that reader to understand what he is our standards of literature and the talking about? arts have fallen with it. But no- Mr. , Dutch where have these standards taken artist turned American, spent two such a dive as in the field of paint- years working on a painting en- ing. Why has the fiasco of modern titled "Woman" which was repro- art not been possible to the same ex- duced in varying stages of comple- tent in literature or music or the tion in the magazine. From every drama? First, because people have standpoint the final result was a traditionally been able to walk into hodge-podge, and I wondered how museums free; they are willing to be the critic would explain it. a bit gullible when it costs them "In the case of 'Woman,' de nothing. Again, standards in paint- Kooning's latest," said he, "the ing have never been as obvious as in stages of the painting ... are nei- 35 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED The ^American Mercury ther better nor worse, more or less biguity," says the Art News enthu- 'finished' than the terminus. Some siastically, "exactingly sought and might appear more satisfactory than exactingly left undefined has been the ending, but this is irrelevant." the recurrent theme in 'Woman'." It was irrelevant to the Art News, in I am frankly bitter against those other words, whether the painting who encourage obscurity in painting was better when completed than — bitter because the kind of warped when it was begun. In fact, the thinking which creates it is one ol critic went so far as to make a virtue the prime movers in the current de- of the delay in finishing it; he spoke humanization of the arts. I am bitter of the work which de Kooning did in about the methods of mass produc- his Greenwich Village studio as a tion which require only bright flat "voyage," and even talked about colors and startling designs — re- '"the cities that were visited, friends gardless of subject matter! — to at- that were met." Perhaps Mark tract the eye in the pages of slick- Twain had a better idea of this pic- paper magazines. I am bitter, most ture when he told of the drawing of of all, against the critics for either a lady who had as many arms as a their utter irresponsibility or their spider because the artist could never auto-hypnosis — I have been unable decide which was the best pose. to decide which — concerning mod- How did the critic describe the ern art. painting itself? Let us quote him. You look at one of these con- "At first 'Woman' was sitting in- temporary abstractions, and you doors on a chair. Then a window- can't make head or tail of it. "Just shape at the upper right established use your imagination," the critic a wall and distance — but she could tells you, "and you will begin to see have been outside a house as well as what it really means to you." inside, or in an inside-outside porch "What does it mean to you?" you space. This state of anonymous sim- ask a bit defiantly as you stare at ultaneity (not no-specific-place but utter chaos. several no-specific-places) is seen "A bluebird winging its way across more clearly in the few 'objects' a lagoon in the moonlight," he re- which appeared, then disappeared plies without a tremor. around the seated figure. De Koon- "But I can't see that at all," you ing claims the modern scene is no- counter. environment and presen ts it as such." "Of course not!" he exclaims tri- umphantly. "To each individual the HAT kind of double-talk is this painting means something different. Wfor the art departments of To John Doe it is a python slowly universities throughout the country curling its way about an elephant's to pass on to their students? "Am- trunk. To Jim Jones it is Fifth Ave-

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED The Tublic He T)amned 37 nue and Forty-Second Street on a about seeing "nothin' but nothin' hot summer day. This painting was and then some more nothin'." When created with such purity and free- Casanova made a long romantic dom of expression that no two hu- speech to Camille about his shirt man beings can see it in the same tails being aflame with love, she re- way." plied, "Don't con me." What can you possibly answer to Although Brooks Atkinson, the such nonsense? Having cleared the dean of the theatre critics, called deck of all legitimate standards of this play "as eloquent and rhythmic art, the critics are quite tree to make as a piece of music," the public had their own standards and establish a different opinion of it. "There their own little dictatorship. The art have been plenty of indications," world has its constitution and its bill admitted the playwright, "that this of rights too, my friends, and when play will exasperate and confuse a you become party to their public certain number of people. ... At burning in the streets, when you re- each performance a number of peo- fuse to stand up for your own opin- ple have stamped out of the audi- ion even in so insignificant a branch torium, with little regard for those of your life as this, you are hastening whom they have to crawl over, al- the day when you will no longer most as if the building had caught on have the opportunity to voice that fire, and there have been sibilant opinion. noises on the way out and demands It is perhaps unfortunate that the for money back if the cashier is fool- art-loving public is not required to ish enough to remain in his box." pay four-eighty top to spend an evening looking at paintings, for on T EXASPERATED the public, all occasion their reaction might be I right, and closed in a few weeks. fully as vociferous as that of the But if it had been an exhibition of theatre-goers, and the art critics "avant garde" modern art the critics might wake up to the true value of would have managed to breathe arti- their wares. ficial respiration into it for months. recently It appears that I am doing a good wrote a play called Camino Real. deal of raving and ranting, and per- The setting was classified in the pro- haps the long-suffering reader is be- gram as having no time and no place. ginning to wonder if all my com- A chorus of dancers were described ment is on the destructive side. in the stage directions as having "a Quite the contrary — I have defi- look of immense torpor as if they nite standards and ideals concerning were stunned or drugged." The painting. But before I discuss them hero, Kilroy, walked about with a I would like to present a definition. red light blinking on his nose talking I have used the word "abstraction"

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED The

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED The Tublic He "Damned 39 paints her exactly as the eye sees her, ering from the real into the ideal. he has plainly done no more and no But even in the ideal and eternal less than the camera would have world of Plato, if I remember cor- done; thus he has made no comment rectly, you could still distinguish the on her. If he permits his emotions, chair from the table. on the other hand, to carry him to the point where she is no longer his REAT PAINTING, whether as mother but (as Picasso painted and G nearly photographic as a Hol- described his father) a group of bein or as nearly abstract as a packing cases, he has likewise made Cezanne — must, must have a little no comment — at least none that of its opposite to be great, just as anyone is aware of. For the artist to there has usually been a dash of the react most effectively on canvas the opposite sex (whether male or fe- painting must be neither too close to male, no matter) in great personali- the subject matter at one extreme ties throughout history. A Holbein nor to his own emotions at the other. might seem at first glance to have To put it another way, there must been snapped by a camera, but noth- be a particular subject or group of ing is farther from the truth — the subjects for the artist to paint (and artist has poured his life blood into for us to understand). Given this, he it. His subject may seem to the must take us by the hand, figura- casual observer no more than a sim- tively, and lead us into the realm of ple drawing or an unobtrusive por- the beautiful, the ideal — into the trait, but this simple drawing is realm, if you wish, of the abstract perhaps one of the greatest ever and of the emotions. He must lead us placed on canvas, and there is a from the small white cottage which reason for the fact. Dull and stodgy he is painting to the memory of a — from the "avant garde" point of cottage, perhaps, where we lived as view! — Holbein manages to step a child. He must lead us from the right into the bailiwick of the ab- objective study of one old man to a stractionists and emerge with his love for all the old men in the own individual samples of color and world. The great artist is a great design and beauty (that "terrible personality, a great man; and it is word," as the Art News calls it) this personality, working its magic which the most modern painter on the subject matter, which meta- might be proud to emulate. morphosizcs it into a form most appetizing to the observer. The pure By the same token a Cezanne, on essence of such everyday objects as the other hand, might sometimes a chair or a table of which Plato seem so impressionistic that it ap- spoke might well afford a momen- pears incoherent. But whether it tous preview in history of this flow- was a house, or a forest, or a portrait, or a group of swimmers, it may cer-

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 40 The ^American Mercury tainly be said of Cezanne, though he At this point I can hear ar> ~ used the abstract to great advantage, screaming on all sides — "Hey, v i . that he rarely permitted himself to a minute! It's all very well to t-lk be swallowed up by it. It was gen- about making a comment on real erally his servant, not his master. people and real objects, but you're And to what purpose did he use it? only being nai've. We've gone far To find a subject in the twining of beyond real objects. It is our in- trees or the interplay of human alienable right as artists to make any limbs teetering so close on the brink kind of comment we want on can- of pure design that with the flick of vas, with no more regard for the dull a wrist he might turn it into an and pedestrian Reality of which you Oriental arabesque? Far from it! talk than for the people who happen Though Cezanne's works may seem to see our painting. We, the artists, engrossed with design and the con- are individualists, and our aim in trast of color, they are engrossed for working laboriously at our task is to only one reason — to bring out the express ourselves to the fullest of our spirit and the inner essence of the capacity; what right have you to subject which he happens to be circumscribe us with petty rules and painting. After walking through for- regulations?" ests for years he has finally discov- With the spirit of such a speech, ered all the significant details which I must admit, I am in full accord; make it a forest instead of a bar in self-expression in an artist is the most Chicago and he is attempting to put fundamental of virtues. I will even them down on canvas. What is his go so far as to agree, at the risk of an ambition in doing so? Why would inconsistency somewhere along the he not be satisfied with a colored line, that from a certain aspect it is photograph on the one hand or an acceptable for the artist to ignore arabesque on the other? Because he his public. "To thine own self be wants to make the forest he repro- true" — if the artist is sincerely true duces as close as a human being can to the best that he has to offer, there possibly make it to the one which he is little need of his worrying about sees and feels and hears and smells in what the public thinks. There is at his wanderings. He will never suc- least one point, however, at which I ceed in replacing an actual walk disagree with the contemporary ar- among the trees with his canvas, but tist, and this point, like the Russian at least he will be able to say to us: veto in the United Nations, is suffi- this painting reminds you of the cient to throw all my palm branches trees, doesn't it? It makes you want into the fire. It is quite impossible for me to believe that there can be to take a walk in those woods back any genuine artistry, any real truth, home where you played as a child, any individuality, yes, any self- isn't it so?

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED The ^Public He "Damned 41 xpression — unless the artist is will- If a painter tells a story, as in the g to accept the fact that he must case of "The Last Supper" or "The mmunicate with his audience, and Descent From The Cross," the moral 1 .at a world which is reasonably is an obvious one, and even the most lecognizable to the public must be literal person will have no difficulty the basis of all his work. in understanding what the artist is trying to say. But in the large ma- NE PICTURE is worth a thousand jority of paintings, particularly those O words, say the Chinese, and of modern times, the moral is subli- there is profundity in the state- mated in such a way by the nature ment. There is a swiftness and ex- of the subject matter that it is almost citement in the painter's manner of invisible to the naked eye. What telling a story by depicting real ob- lesson can one draw, for example, jects on canvas which the writer from looking at a landscape of himself has often envied. Is there Inness or a seascape by Homer? The any more sense in the painter giving fact that the lesson is not easily ex- up the very reason for his use of pressed in words, however, is no lines and colors in the first place — indication of its absence; the teach- the realism of subject matter — ing is simply taking place without than there is for the author to write the knowledge of the pupil. It is the abracadabra such as James Joyce at- old lesson which Beauty has taught tempted? Why throw unnecessary for so many years without material obstacles in a path which predeces- compensation, the lesson of goodness sors for so many centuries have been and kindness and strength which has trying to clear? caused poets to identify it with the Of course communication is nec- word "truth." But in cases where essary to art, as it is to all phases of such beauty is indeed absent, par- life. In the final analysis, however, it ticularly if it happens to be replaced is only a means to an end: if the on the canvas by ugliness or filth, artist wishes to make us understand there is little doubt of the alacrity him, it is because he has something with which the average observer important to say — because, con- will recognize the loss. sciously or otherwise, he desires his painting to be an instrument of ET us EXAMINE one of those paint- justice. Ij ings of Jesus Christ by Rouault. The purpose of great art, in my Does this particular portrait carry opinion, is a moral one; without such the banner for religion? The first a purpose, one would be at a loss to thing that strikes the eye upon ob- explain the tremendous veneration serving it is a muddy color through- in which art and artists have been out and a few heavy black lines held even to the irreverent present. which are intended to depict the

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 42 The Mercury outline of the tortured figure. Here tion of religion rather than the fur- and there the paint has been applied therance of it? The mind may pro in so careless a manner that one can test, and yet it is this very kind o clearly see that it has run halfway suspicion which is so often verified down the canvas. The overall elTect, by the bitter pronouncements of needless to say, is one of extreme many of the artists of our day. When ugliness both of color and of de- the church is on the lookout for lineation. Has the painter intended works of art it would do well to it that way? Why, to be sure. He is consider whether or not the spirit portraying the last agony ol the of the work is as religious as the Saviour upon earth, and the more subject matter. violently he can impress us with the We Americans are constantly ac- horror of the situation the more suc- cused of being so preoccupied with cessfully, in his estimation, he will business and money-making that we have told his story. have little time for the arts. Perhaps, But it is at this point that I wish indeed, there is an element of truth to take exception. He has not con- in these statements. Whatever the vinced us of the horror of the situa- case, I believe the diseases which tion. He has presented nothing in infect the world of painting today — the picture with which we can truly of obscurity, confusion, immorality, identify ourselves. To be more spe- violence — are not confined either cilic, he has presented the one figure to this single art or even to the arts in the scene by which the entire in general. These are the diseases painting stands or falls, Christ, as which, if the disaster of dictatorship unsympathetic. Had he wished, he ever overtakes our fair country, will might have placed the hill of Cal- be a major cause of it, and since the vary in Dante's Inferno and my germs exist in such a pure, unadul- imagination could have gone along terated form in the realm of paint- with him. But to present Jesus as ing (as if they had been isolated and ugly, stupid, bleary-eyed — if one placed on a warm, moist canvas to can make out what He looks like at all multiply) I suggest with sincere in such a picture — has affected me deference that it is time we take a to the point where I can't really be- few minutes out of our busy lives lieve that He has been worth all the and—do something about it! La- adoration that so many generations dies and gentlemen, form your own have extended Him. Are we wrong opinions concerning art. Don't be about the intention of the painter, afraid to disagree — loudly, if neces- after all? Was his real purpose in sary, with the critics. Stand up and creating this painting the destruc- be heard.

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PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED With the recent passage of a (AJp ^fedi ^te ordinance for- bidding the use of sirens by ambulances, there has been a tragic upsurge of cases in which accident victims have died waiting for help. In a re- markably vivid style, Jess WHITING Stearn, feature writer for New York's famous Daily News, tells the story of this new problem —a grim lesson to other cities which may be faced with for the the same situation. HMBULHNCE

THE AMBULANCE sat waiting for its way through a maze of mid town A a red light, the man on the traffic, forbidden to use the siren stretcher suddenly became quiet. which once cleared all lanes. Hard-boiled Eddie Paul, who had Another man had died while an been driving for 's St. ambulance took twice the time to Vincent's Hospital for 10 years, mut- accomplish a mission than before a tered something under his breath. recent city order designed to reduce "Is he gone?" he called back into accidents involving ambulances. the van. Forty minutes it had taken Eddie The ambulance attendant, already Paul to reach a dying man and get pulling a sheet over a limp figure, him back to the hospital — dead. nodded glumly. "In the old days," observes driver It was getting to be a familiar Paul, "the whole trip would have story. taken 20 minutes." Another man had died in New In the old days, as the driver puts York that day, without getting a it, the victim would have been alive chance for hospital care. Another when the ambulance got back, not man had died while a New York am- that treatment could have helped in bulance, under orders from the city's this case. "Maybe we couldn't save Department of Hospitals, had ob- some of these people anyway," a served the same traffic rules as any driver says, "but at least we should pleasure car. be able to give them a fighting Another man had died while an chance." ambulance helplessly tried to weave It almost seemed incongruous for

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