The misunderstanding which has attached to modern painting has been colossal. The newer men, because they have dared search for means of expression superior to those of the past, have met with ridicule and abuse. From Delacroix to Synchromism the critics and public have fought every advance. Immured in tradition, their minds have been unable to grasp the meaning of the new activities or to sense the artist’s need for pure creation. No school has escaped the obloquy of the professional critic who, judging art from its superficial and unimportant side, has failed to penetrate to its fundamentals. Delacroix was declared crazy by the leading critics. The Journal des Artistes said of him, “We do not say this man is a charlatan, but we do say this man is the equivalent of a charlatan.” The Observateur des Beaux-Arts, commenting on this artist’s failure to procure an award, remarked, “Delacroix, the leader of the new school, received no honours, but in order to recompense him, he was accorded a two hours’ séance each day in the morgue.” Gros, Delécluze and Alfred Nettement are conspicuous among the academicians and critics who bitterly opposed Delacroix’s innovations. Courbet met with a similar reception. Gautier, after studying one of his pictures, wrote, “One does not know whether to weep or laugh. There are heads which recall the ensigns of tobacconists and of the menagerie.” Clément de Ris said of Courbet’s work, “It is the glorification of vulgar ugliness;” and de Chennevières called one of his finest pictures “an ignoble and impious caricature.” Even Manet, whose radicalism was slight, brought down upon himself the abuse of the critics for daring to paint modern themes. Claretie drew the following conclusion from the Olympia: “One cannot reproach Manet for idealising vierges folles, for he makes of them vierges sales.” The remark was characteristic. Manet revolted against classic subjects, and for his modernity was excoriated by the moral traditionalists.
The early Impressionists, as pretty as they were, did not escape critical abuse. Benjamin Constant called them “the school of snobs, the conscious or unconscious enemies of art,” and added, “Their days are numbered.” Albert Wolff was more venomous. “These soi-disant artists,” he wrote, “call themselves the intransigents. They take canvases, colours and brushes, fling at hazard several tones, and then sign the work. It is thus that the wandering spirits at Ville-Évrard pick up pebbles on the highway and think they have found diamonds. Hideous spectacle of human vanity straying toward dementia!” Paul Mantz’s remarks were similar. His criticism in part read: “Before the works of certain members of the group one is tempted to ascribe to them a defect of the eyes, singularities of vision which would be the joy of ophthalmologists, and the terror of families.” (How like the recent criticisms of the very modern men does all this sound—these accusations of insanity, these hints of defective vision! Such comments would seem to have been lifted almost bodily by the detractors of Cubism, Futurism and Synchromism.) Renoir shared a similar fate. One leading critic said it was futile to “try to explain to Renoir that the female torso is not a mass of decomposing flesh with spots of green and violet which denote the state of complete putrefaction in a cadaver.” Roger Ballu explained the appearance of Renoir’s work thus: “At first view it seemed that his canvases, during their trip from the studio to the exhibition, had undergone an accident.” With the exception of Manet two years prior to his death and Renoir at the age of sixty-eight, not one of the Impressionists was decorated by the French government. They were banished from official Salons, and compelled to expose in private galleries.
To quote from the critics who denounced Cézanne would be an endless task. When he exposed at the Impressionist exhibition in the Rue Peletier in 1877 he was universally regarded with disgust and horror and considered a barbarian. The venom of the critics was appalling. They attacked him from every standpoint, though on one point they seemed in agreement, namely: that he was a communard. Nor did the abuse cease with his early works. His greatness has consistently evaded critics and painters alike. Recently the American painter, William M. Chase, offered the suggestion that Cézanne did not know how to paint. Chase’s opinion is not an isolated one: it is typical of the minor academic painters and the critics who view art through the eyes of the past. Henri-Matisse is another painter who has received short shrift from the reviewers. One need not have a long memory to recall the adverse criticisms he provoked. His distortions have served as a basis for a display of ignorance which has few parallels in art history. Matisse himself has fed fuel to the fire. In his interview with newspaper men he indulged in much high jesting, and the remarks attributed to him were in many instances blague. Others, judging him by his words, have pinned on him the labels of charlatan and degenerate.
The Cubists, misunderstood from the first, have been a source of ridicule rather than of contumely. Systematisers have sought to trace them to Dürer, forgetting that Cézanne once wrote: “Treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere and the cone; the whole put in perspective, so that each side of an object and of a plane directs itself toward a central point.” Even today, after the vital contributions of the Cubists have altered the whole trend of modern art, there are few who see in them aught but the material for laughter. The critics who have accepted the Impressionists and Cézanne deny the merits of Cubism, venting their derision in a manner which recalls the detractors of the very schools which these critics now uphold. Synchromism has perhaps called forth the bitterest protests. It was the last step in the evolution of modern means. It had no affinities with the academies. There was no foothold in this new school for the conservatives and reactionaries. The Munich critics were first to attack it. Later in Paris André Salmon wrote, “The public will believe that Synchromism is the final movement of which it has learned. Synchromism is the worst of backward movements, a vulgar art, without nobility, unlikely to live, as it carries the principles of death in itself.” Les Arts et Les Artistes summed up Synchromists with: “The house painter at the corner can, when he wishes, claim that he belongs to this school.” La Plume discovered the fact that “Macdonald-Wright copies with a dirty broom the Slave of Michelangelo.” Charles H. Caffin declared, “The whole tenor of their foreword and introduction is one of egregious self-exploitation and self-advertisement. This ... raises the very obvious question: ’Are these men megalomaniacs or charlatans?’ Possibly they are neither the one nor the other. I am not in a position to decide.”
These quotations and comments are set down to reveal the opposition which the genuine modern painters have had to contend with. The criticisms of each movement repeat themselves with the following one, even to a point of verbal similarity. The attacks on Synchromism are strangely like those which companioned Impressionism. The same facetiousness, the same irrelevant denunciation, the same opposition to the new, the same antipathy for progress are manifest in all the critics of the new painting from Delacroix to date. All arise out of ignorance, out of that immobility of mind which cannot judge clearly until a thing is swathed in the perspective of the years. Art has grown faster than the critic’s ability to comprehend. Its problems are a closed book to him, for, not being a painter himself, he requires a longer period in which to assimilate the new ideals. Gradually as the new methods establish themselves, and become accepted (as in the case of Impressionism), the critic at last comes abreast of a movement; but by that time art has gone forward and left him in the rear. Again he attacks the new. All innovations are as poison to his system, until he again becomes adjusted. Thus can we account for the animosity and ridicule with which each modern movement has been met.
Nor are the animadversions of academic critics the only obstacles in the path of æsthetic development. Those who sympathise with the new without understanding it do more harm than good. There are those who always accept the latest men irrespective of their individual merit. But modernity in itself is not a merit, and the modern enthusiasts, in defending the newest painters, very often expend their energies on the undeserving. Thus the mediocrities are given prominence over the truly great; and the lesser artists are looked upon as representative of the epoch. Again, those who admire without comprehending are given to emphasising the less important points of departure in the new men, and of ignoring the deeper qualities which represent the primary importance of modern art. The true meaning of the late movements is thereby obscured. Of this class of critic Arthur Jerome Eddy may be mentioned as representative. By crediting the distinctly second-rate moderns with qualities they have only absorbed from greater men, and by misunderstanding the animating ideals of today’s painting, he presents so disproportionate and biased a history that the entire significance of modern art is lost. England, France and Germany possess critics who feel the grandeur but miss the meaning of the new ideals, and their books and articles, while crediting the modern painters with vitality, go little beneath the surface.
However, there are a few men to whom the modernist owes much for intelligent assistance. One may name Meier-Graefe as one of these, despite his being in reality a pioneer. He has shown an eager attitude to do justice, and has succeeded in bringing the modern men to the attention of the world. Guillaume Apollinaire, editor of Les Soirées de Paris, has done more intelligent service for the younger heretics in France than any other man. Clive Bell and Roger Fry represent the ablest and most discerning defenders of the modern spirit in England; although Mr. A. R. Orage, by opening up the columns of the New Age, has permitted a healthy discussion and exposition of the radical art theories. In America much credit is due Mr. Alfred Stieglitz for his insistent demands that the later men be given a respectful hearing. By his sympathetic attitude and his ceaseless labours he has brought before the American public the work of many prominent modern artists; and his sincerity and understanding have done much toward ameliorating the conventional scoffs of American critics.
But were there no far-seeing defenders of modern painting, the signs of the awakening are too numerous and too conspicuous to be ignored. On every hand we are conscious of the struggle for new methods and forms. Not all the inertia of the critics and the public has succeeded in suppressing the vital spirit. Nor will it succeed. The modern tendency in painting cannot be dismissed as charlatanism or extremism. The ignorant and reactionary may laugh and hurl philippics. Such opposition, if it has any effect, will only prove a stimulus to those who have experienced the ecstasy of the new work. The old dies hard. Even when the corpse is buried (as it has been) the ghost lingers. But the light will soon grow too strong. The ghost in time will be dissolved. For centuries painting has been reared on a false foundation, and the criteria of æsthetic appreciation have been irrelevant. Painting has been a bastard art—an agglomeration of literature, religion, photography and decoration. The efforts of painters for the last century have been devoted to the elimination of all extraneous considerations, to making painting as pure an art as music. But so widespread is the general ignorance regarding art’s fundamentals that the modern men have been opposed at every step. Public and critical illiteracy in the arts, however, matters little. The painter’s joy lies in the rapture of creation, in the knowledge that he is carrying forward the banner of a high ideal.