Youth gazes curiously at the experiment—painting, poem, play—from which age turns in anger.
Cubist paintings interest the young; they irritate the old.
Nothing keeps a man young so effectually as a vivid and sympathetic interest in every new and seemingly revolutionary movement.
People who looked at the cubist paintings and laughed did so through ignorance; the sad part was that many frankly said they did not care to understand; not a few insisted the paintings were quite without meaning, utterly devoid of sense.
In other words, the public, day after day and week after week, struggled and paid to see works that were meaningless!
Painters, sculptors, critics, argued and fought over canvases devoid of significance! A paradox! For if devoid of significance, why should the world of artists, critics, writers, argue, swear, and fight over them?
The question answers itself; the trouble is the works do possess a significance, a significance far beyond the merits of any particular one, far beyond the merits of cubism itself; they are significant of the spirit of change that is within and about us, the spirit of unrest, of the striving, of the searching for greater and more beautiful things.
Cubism will pass away, but the spirit of change will not pass away. One enthusiasm will follow another enthusiasm so long as men possess ambition.