The Avesta, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer, 1942 Page: 36
36 p. : ill. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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prevailing opinion, it is not a book
to be read; and even more than the
writer, the artist must please him-
self. When he does illustration he
must be graphic, but painting is an-
other thing.
I cannot say that I know what
surrealistic paintings mean. But they
do not leave me confused and resent-
ful. I see that they are good in color,
in harmony, balance, weights, val-
ues, and I am pleased and satisfied.
That is meaning enough for me:
that is their excuse for being.
At the same time, I can laugh
heartily at surrealism, sublimely ri-
diculous as it is. Everybody knows
the painting with a clock draped
l'mply over a tree limb looks more
like a hot water bottle with time on
its hands. I can't be told that a thing
which inspires laughter isn't good. I
know modern art is good because it
arouses such a furor wherever it ap-
pears. A Merida lithograph is one
of my prized possessions. It has
drawn more comment and more
laughs than any realistic painting
could have done. Visitors to my
room, however tactful in other mat-
ters,' inevitably demand bluntly,
In Defense of Color
(Continued from page 19)
I wonder if this great free sweep of
artistic energy can be enjoyed by us
nose-to-the-grindstone common folk
on whom it is inflicted, not by the
artists themselves; but by the move-
ment as a whole and by the indefina-
ble conscience which says that since
our fellowmen produce it for beauty,
we must see a beauty in it.
To me this gamut of the sub-
conscious, this mixture of imagina-
tion and inhibitions on exhibition is
personal property, whimsical half-
thoughts which can belong only to
their creator and the few who think
like him. It seems rather impudent,
rather crude, for the utter stranger to
poke an inquiring curiosity into the
secrets of someone else's subconscious.
Surrealism, abstract art, and pir-
ouetting oak trees are private matters,
it seems to me, for the edification of
their creators, a means, perhaps, of
letting off artistic steam.
But are they the culmination of
artistic skill? Are they the meaning-
ful, inspiring, open-to-the-world art
which link an artist and a thinking
public? Are they the timeless, artis-
tic interpretation of a people and age?
36"What IS that?" Some wit decided
that the painting looks like two
drunks coming home on a barrel at
midnight by the light of the moon.
The lithograph is familiarly known
to the girls in our house as "the two
drunks." They won't admit it, but
they like it now that they're used
to it.
That is a sample proof of my
hypothesis that abstraction and sur-
realism will come to be accepted, ap-
preciated, and understood for what
they are-superb plastic composition.
Art cannot be great in both color and
form: modern art emphasizes color
over form. That is not an indict-
ment: modern art is an expression of
our time, and that is a recommenda-
tion.
Surrealism is the stuff of dreams
and unconsciousness. Abstraction,
absolving dependence on recognizable
form, is its kith and kin, but it is
not so madcap. I like abstraction bet-
ter because I think it has its roots
down further, but then, it is older,
and surrealism will grow up. It may
become calm and staid, but not com-
pletely, I hope, for then it will have
lost its charm.
They exclude meaning and thus deny
the place of meaning in the world.
Is that an acceptable code?
Perhaps so; I'm not the prophet
or the authority who can say. I do
feel, however, that this art is one
which holds little for the layman
now, and perhaps even less in the fu-
ture when the mood has gone "cold"
and another generation views the
work of this with a cynical eye.
True, it is certainly not the duty
of an artist to appeal to the masses,
nor to anyone at all, in fact, but
himself. Nor is it the criterion of a
work that it appeal to the public.
I am questioning whether or not
it is the public's duty to appreciate
the art which is not in their scope.
The responsibility for the existence
of that feeling, as I have said, lies
partly with the movement, partly
with the public itself. We are proud;
we tell ourselves we must keep plug-
ging at this problem; we must un-
derstand this art.
Let's relax. Let's agree that the
artist knew what he was doing, that
it all came out of a private corner of
his mind, that he doesn't care wheth-
er we like it or not, that we don't
either. Let's discover that there are
some understandable things which
are also art. Let's admit that it is notIf I agreed that modern art is
basically castor oil, I could not be
optimistic, of course. But I am sure
that time will prove it sincere, and
that it will be accepted when people
are thoroughly used to it. It is the
instinct of self-preservation that
makes us reject and fight the strange
and new; it is instinctive ego that
makes us resent what we cannot
understand. That modern art will
weather the storm of public disap-
proval I am sure.
The root of the trouble is really
the outworn standard of judging art
by how real it looks. Michaelange-
lo's sculptured people looked real and
they were good art; however, they
were not good because they looked
real, but because they were right for
that time, a sincere product of that
time. A modern imitation would be
ridiculous.
This is another time, and its art
is another art. The camera has come
between Michaelangelo and me, and
as for my part, I do not care to com-
pete with a camera. So pardon me if
I feel like painting a brick kiln that
looks more like a skyscraper. After
all, I'm not going to bake bricks
in it!
illegal to enjoy a magazine cover.
Me, I'm ready to forsake the de-
capitated earth worm entitled "Two
Old Men Playing Croquet in Cen-
tral Park." All I can see in "Profile
of an Unhappy Anthropoid" is a
flower-trimmed steam roller. I don't
understand why "Symphony in Blue
Flat Minor" includes two flying fish
surrounded by doughnuts. But I'm
willing to forget the whole thing and
go to a movie, where it says "Tyrone
Power" and means the same.
Gregarious
Proclivities
(Continued from page 25)
this Sunday afternoon some ridicu-
lous, pot-bellied, hairy grotesqueries
presiding over their revolting assort-
ments of nude brats yelling and cry-
ing and throwing sand enthusiastic-
ally, and harrying a beleaguered, vin-
dictive frau. There'll be bowlegs and
conceited sports displaying to femi-
nine admirers sunbrowned, extra-
ordinary muscles, and silly little girls
with inadequte bathing suits. Heigh-
ho, Vanity Fair, Punch and Judy,
burlesque.
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North Texas State Teachers College. The Avesta, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer, 1942, periodical, Summer 1942; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2105649/m1/38/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.