X Ugliness
The modern movement is in the direction of greater freedom, freedom to produce beautiful things in one’s own way.
Unhappily many of the things produced are not beautiful now—not nearly so dignified and beautiful as thousands upon thousands of old pictures.
One’s first impression on entering an exhibition of extreme modern works is not an impression of beauty but of ugliness.
There is no denying that, and it takes even the most impartial and sympathetic observer a long time to pick out the things which are fine in color and line and to readjust his notions of beauty.
Many of the pictures are brutal and most of them are crude, but while the first impression may be one of ugliness it is more, it is one of exceeding vitality.
There is nothing musty about the moderns, their canvases are so alive they scream.
As compared with the subdued tones of an academic exhibition a modern seems like a babel of discordant sounds, but the confusion is more apparent than real. By going day after day one gets accustomed to the newness, the freshness, the strangeness of it all and begins to understand and appreciate the one big, dominant note—vitality.
Then, too, when we say the first—and last for most people—impression is one of ugliness, we must not forget that our appreciations are primarily the result of environment and habit, and only secondarily, and with comparatively few, the result of intelligent discipline.
We like what we are accustomed to and dislike what we are not accustomed to. Few take the pains to discipline their likes and dislikes.
Seventy years ago public and critics thought Turner ugly in the extreme.
Sixty years ago public and critics thought Millet ugly in the extreme.
Fifty years ago public and critics thought Manet ugly in the extreme.
Forty years ago public and critics thought Monet ugly in the extreme.
Thirty years ago public and critics thought Cézanne ugly in the extreme.
Twenty years ago public and critics thought Gauguin ugly in the extreme.
Ten years ago public and critics thought VanGogh ugly in the extreme.
Today public and critics think the Cubists and nearly all the new men ugly in the extreme.
Each decade has its men in art, music, science, literature whose works at first seem ugly, only to win out in the long run.
Hence the danger in pronouncing this or that painting ugly; it may seem grotesque and hideous today; thirty years hence it may command thousands from men and museums eager to possess it. That has been the history of many great paintings.
Still we do have our notions regarding the ugly and the beautiful, and while our notions change and develop year by year they naturally control at each given moment; that is, we cannot say we think a picture or a piece of music is beautiful today because the chances are we will think it beautiful a dozen years hence, any more than we can say we like olives on first tasting them, simply because most people come to like them after a time.
To the London public in 1840 the pictures of Turner were absurd.
To the Paris public in 1874 the pictures of the Impressionists were ridiculous.
To the New York public in 1913 the pictures of the Cubists were grotesque.
These several publics were not to blame; they could not help their impressions. They had been brought up on very different picture-food and did not like the taste of the new.
The attitude of the public was normal, logical, and sane. If the people had received the new men with wild acclamations of joy and called them great on first sight it would have meant such instability of opinion and character as to render the homage absolutely worthless.
In a sense, tenacity of opinion on the part of the public is the salvation of art as well as of morals; it is essential to substantial progress.
Therefore the everlasting conflict between the old and the new is a normal conflict; the clash between the public and new art, new music, new thought is a healthful clash, because the fiercer the conflict the more certain that what survives will be worth having.
The only excuse for an ugly picture is superb technic—and even then the excuse is not a very good one for the same technic should paint a beautiful thing.
There were plenty of ugly pictures in the exhibition; some were interesting on account of their technic, others were without any excuse at all—just ugly.
A great painter may paint things, a great writer may write things which no amount of good painting and no amount of good writing can excuse—there are plenty of such paintings and books in the world.
But because there were a number of ugly—ugly to the extent of being objectionable—pictures in the exhibition, that should not and does not detract from the merits of men who did not paint them.
An ugly work is a comment upon him who produces it and upon those who accept it. It is a golden opportunity, a touchstone to those who reject it.
There is a great deal of the ugly in the work of Matisse, mixed with a great deal of extraordinary technic. He is a good man to study, but a bad man to imitate—for that matter, the same, in a profounder sense, may be said of every man of ability.
Then, too, it should never be forgotten that refinement is an essential element in all great art.
The supreme justification of the new art is that its works shall tend toward the beautiful. If they make for ugliness their existence is without rhyme or reason. Many of the new men seem to forget this.
However, even the ugly, the grotesque, the hideous has its use. Any art may become so smug, so complacent, so conceited that it requires the shock of the ugly to stir it to new life.
After Bouguereau, Matisse was inevitable.
However, a very little of the ugly goes a long ways, a very little of Matisse at his worst is all that is needed as an antidote to Bouguereau.
Zola-like fidelity in depicting the ugly in life has its uses—and abuses.
It is easy enough to paint a conglomeration of angles and cubes, but it will be as hollow and meaningless as the pattern of an oilcloth unless it has sincerity behind it.
No doubt many of the new men lack sincerity. Doubtless not a few are inspired with simply the desire to create a sensation, but these men soon betray themselves.
The artist may not succeed in making his meaning clear, but the public—yes, even the much despised public—will instinctively feel whether there is some meaning, some intention worth finding out.
That was the secret of the success of the Cubist pictures. They attracted throngs because they were strange, but the throngs would never have gazed as they did unless behind the outward strangeness there had not been an inward seriousness of purpose.
“Those fellows are trying to do something,” was an expression often heard.
The papers would say, “They are simply making fun of the public,” but the public, generally speaking, did not feel that way.
A goodly section of the public made fun of the pictures, but very few people honestly felt the pictures made fun of the public—if anything they were rather too serious.
To return to the proposition that a Cubist picture—being so largely esoragoto—must be well painted.
The painter of scenes and things is helped out by his subject.
The portrait of a beautiful woman may be very badly painted, but if it conveys the impression of a beautiful woman it is accepted.
The Cubist who tries to paint his impression of a beautiful woman has no likeness to help him out; he must make his painting so beautiful in itself that those who see it will, without knowing why, get some of the enjoyment from the mere composition of line and color that the artist received from knowing the woman who inspired the picture.
To do this a man must be a greater master of line and color, a greater technician, than the average portrait painter.
Ask the average portrait painter to paint a composition of line and color, beautiful in itself without reference to any object, and not one in a hundred can do it.
The average portrait painter finds his compositions of line and color ready-made; he takes them as they come to him. He has little practice in composing for himself.
However disconcerting the exhibition was to most painters it should have been stimulating to decorators and interior furnishers.
The older pictures are of little help to the decorator. On the contrary he rather dreads their presence on his walls. A room may be quite upset by a strong picture. To make the Leyland dining room harmonize with the “Princess from the Land of Porcelain” Whistler painted practically every inch of walls and ceilings, completely covering costly woodwork and old Spanish leather.
To rightly hold a Rembrandt a room must be subdued and rich in tone, otherwise the picture is a dead weight. The greater the picture, the more completely the surroundings must either rise to it or be completely subordinated to it.
It is not so with the more abstract Cubist pictures; they do not thrust a great landscape or a powerful personality into the room; they are not intended to thrust any object upon the attention of the visitor. Intended to express simply the mood or emotion of the painter, they are unobtrusive, as unobtrusive as a pattern of the wall covering, a rug, or a tapestry; in effect they are not unlike a tapestry, save they are essentially modern in feeling, and therefore fit into our modern rooms as tapestries—and often rugs—do not.
Imagine the editorial room of a live, up-to-date newspaper—say a typical yellow journal—hung with Titians and Rembrandts! The paper would be paralyzed, the editorial staff would be depressed by the dignity and the sobriety, by the old-world flavor.
Whereas a lot of Cubist, Futurist, Orphist pictures would be quite in keeping with modern journalistic methods, and stimulating in the extreme. In the picturesque language of current journalism, they would be “live stuff.”
It is worth noting in passing that the time is probably coming when about as many pictures will be bought for offices as for homes, and fewer and fewer will be bought for those graveyards of art—private galleries.
Why should men buy pictures and hang them where they are seldom seen, often in places where the light is so bad they cannot be seen?
Where do most men spend most of their time? In their places of business. Then why not make their places of business attractive and livable?
Every man knows how relaxing and delightful it would be if in the midst of a busy afternoon he could drop business for a moment and read an interesting book or listen to some good music. Well, we can’t do that; it takes too long to get into a book, and music is not at hand.
But we can turn from our desks and in a second lose ourselves in the contemplation of a beautiful picture.
The physician covers the walls of his office with prints of such pictures as Rembrandt’s “Lesson in Anatomy.” Ugh!
The lawyer covers the walls of his office with dusty lawbooks. Whew!
The manufacturer covers the walls of his office with prints of factories, machinery, goods, etc., etc. Shop! Shop! Shop!
No relief anywhere for man, patient, client, or customer.
Tired eyes that seek rest in change are met with the same old story—reflections of the daily grind.
Speaking from experience, I can say that next to getting out of an office for a brief respite, the contemplation of pictures yields the greatest rest, actually enabling one to do more work per day with less fatigue.
It is so refreshing to get up from one’s desk for only a few moments and be instantly transported far away on the wings of the imagination of a painter.
It is a rest, a complete rest, for the tired brain-cells, to lift one’s eyes from one’s work and gaze at a picture—the effect is like unto that of distant music wafted through the open window.
Of all men in the world, the busy American is most in need of pictures on the walls of his office—not one or two, but many. The busier he is, the more he needs; his walls should be a blaze of color.
Most of our bankers and corporation magnates spend large sums in “solid mahogany fittings.” Their offices resemble old-fashioned Pullman sleepers. Cost is the one impressive feature. Woodwork, furniture, rugs, everything to the inkstand are massive and—oppressive. Everything is admirably calculated to make work more burdensome; commercial and financial life more sombre.
Why not the reverse of all this? Why fit up an office so that it is about as inviting as a tomb?
Why not make it so attractive that a man will look forward each morning to entering it? Why not so inviting that friends and strangers will be glad to visit it?
Why should an office be a place where no one goes except for business? Why should not men say to one another, “Come in a minute; I have a new picture I want to show you”?
One has simply to enter the offices and school-rooms of any art institute to realize the hollowness of the pretense of love for the beautiful. Infinite pains are taken to arrange the pictures and sculpture in the galleries; once out of the galleries, and all feeling of art disappears; the offices and school-rooms are more sordid, barren, and uninviting than most shops and factories.
In other words, the very men who are supposed to be devoting their lives to the service of art, to making the world more beautiful, who promote exhibitions and urge people to buy pictures, are content to pass all their working lives amidst surroundings unrelieved by a single picture, unadorned by a single fresco.
There is a great opportunity for missionary work in this direction. Why should not the many organizations such as “Friends of American Art,” etc., whose disinterested purpose is to advance art, organize a movement the object of which will be to place, by loaning if necessary, pictures and small sculpture in the offices and business haunts of the busy American man, and so create a new demand for beautiful things?
Once fill a man’s office with pictures, he will be reluctant to let them go.