No. 4—Figures of three dancers. They make a striking ensemble. They have the firm totality of carved jade. Blue of a haunting but slightly acid tint. The daring emphasis of ugly things.
No. 26—The picture keeps the effect of blown flame in some boisterous wind of spring, or neglected nasturtiums in a burnished, overturned British garden. With beauty, one somehow remembers England! A group of ballet girls; gay spirits.
No. 40—Again ballet girls. Sober. Restrained. Distinguished. A wall of sullen, silken yellow. A yellow that only Arabian or Indian textiles know. Gauguin would have loved it.
Degas sometimes shows pale, regretful blue that attunes the mind like a melody of Schumann, heard when November snows begin to fall, then filter flower-bought sunlight. Like chalcedony! Colors personal, that expressed the lonely soul that could find no pleasure in people. His pleasure, his companionship, was in tone the rainbow knows in unreachable heavens.
He knew purples, pinks, that quickened his heart. He knew talkative, loquacious yellows that were like sensations. He knew savage, slashing reds, hues of crime and temptation, that gave him the feeling of languorous liaisons, flattered, foolish gayety with women; love; delightful debauchery. He knew greys that kept the self-commendatory feeling of discipline and restraint.
This was the way he was active and energetic. In imagination he dashed across lush, green hunting fields, with the wet, warm wind on his mouth, hounds at his heels, and gay companions, and grew dizzy at the scent of the grasses. This was life. This was society for him. He never allowed anything to divert him from his one joy, painting.
Never for a moment was he unfaithful. There was nothing that could tempt him. Therefore his reward was great. He spilled the gold coin of his heart like a dazzled spendthrift. His buying was commensurate. Only the generous, the self-forgetful, can buy as he did.
Art critics have given scant attention, and measured scantily, their courtesy to Tami Koume, Japanese extremist in painting. But sometimes there are more things concealed in painting than even in the philosophy of critics, good in concealing or great in ignorance.
Here modernism is manipulated by a wizard Eastern hand, and seen, then estimated through the ancient trained mind of the Orient. He expresses what he thinks by line, color, without confusing form, without complexity of object; telltale, indiscreet fact. In this way it is art purified.
He gives his brush, sensations music gives. He has done well. He has a spiritual subtlety that did not belong to French and Italians who did the same thing, something of a more exquisite, older race. Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter. Koume has brought unheard melodies.