Cubists and Post-Impressionism

by Arthur Jerome Eddy

As a matter of fact most of the extreme moderns such as Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, are past-masters of the art of drawing.

But they do not now attach the importance to drawing, merely for the sake of drawing, they once did.

Kandinsky’s own attitude is expressed in the following extract from a letter:

As regards other artists, I am very tolerant, but at the same time most severe; my opinion of artists is influenced but little by considerations of the element of form, pure and simple; I expect of the artist to bear within at least the “sacred spark” (if not “flame”). There really is nothing easier than to master the form of something or someone. Boecklin is quoted as having said that even a poodle-dog might learn how to draw, and in this he was correct. At the schools I attended I had more than a hundred colleagues who had learned something, many had in good time managed to draw quite well and anatomically correct—still, they were not artists, not a pfennig’s worth. In short, I value only those artists who really are artists; that is, who consciously or unconsciously, in an entirely original form, or in a style bearing their personal imprint, embody the expression of their inner self; who, consciously or unconsciously, work only for this end and cannot work otherwise. The number of such artists is very few. If I were a collector I would buy the works of such even if there were weaknesses in what they did; such weaknesses grow less in time and finally disappear entirely, and though they may be apparent in the earlier works of the artist still they do not deprive even these earlier and less perfect works of value. But the other weakness, that of lack of soul, never decreases with time, but is sure to grow worse and become more and more apparent, and so render absolutely valueless works that technically may be very correct. The entire history of art is proof of this. The union of both kinds of strength—that of intellect or spirituality with that of form, or technical perfection—is most rare, as is also demonstrated by the history of art.

From his exceedingly abstruse article “On the Question of Form” in “Der Blaue Reiter,” I take and paraphrase the following:

At certain times our inner forces—impulses—mature and the result is a longing to create something, and we try to find a material form—manifestation—for the new value that exists in us in spiritual or intellectual form.

This is the seeking of the spiritual for material expression. Matter is but the store house out of which the spirit selects the necessary elements to secure the objective result.

Thus the creative spirit is hidden in the matter, behind the material manifestation through which it must make itself known. But often the material envelope is so dense that only a few people can discern the spiritual idea within and behind it; some people never penetrate behind the matter at all, and therefore, never comprehend the spiritual message.

While many comprehend the spiritual content behind the outward forms of religion, they do not realize that there is, or should be, a spiritual content behind the outward forms of art.