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Le Petit Journal illustré - 05 juillet 1925

ULTRA-MODERN ART: THE "FAUVIST" VERSUS THE "ART POMPIER"Le Petit journal illustré 1925 07 05 Page 07 les fauves contre les pompiers 7

It is traditional for world expositions to be ready two months after their inauguration. The Decorative Arts Exposition was no exception. Now, it is beginning to take shape, and we can judge its undeniable interest. For the first time, modern art is presented in its entirety, and even the most hostile minds are forced to acknowledge that an immense effort has been made to break free from the ruts. One even has the impression, at times, that creators have left the beaten track to gallop across the fields...
It is in Art that the genius specific to each nation is best identified. For example, it is certain that French works never stray far from the norm, while Soviet productions seem to escape a nightmare. Yet, a family resemblance emerges from all the pavilions, and the reason for this is undoubtedly that similar influences were felt by artists from all countries.

Au premier plan de celles-ci, il faut placer les tendances de la peinture moderne. Les beaux arts (peinture, sculpture, musique, etc.) sont toujours précurseurs des arts appliqués et lorsque les premiers cubistes exposèrent leurs toiles, sans doute ne se doutaient-ils pas qu'un jour les décorateurs, les architectes mêmes se recommanderaient d'eux. Aussi nous a-t-il semblé qu'une visite à la jeune peinture pourrait en quelque sorte servir d'initiation à tous ceux d'entre nos lecteurs qui visiteront l'exposition ou qui s'intéressent à la décoration moderne.
La première fois qu'un homme intelligent, cultivé, de bon goût, visite les salles de certains salons, les Indépendants, par exemple, il doit se demander s'il ne s'est pas égaré dans un asile de fous. Puis, à la réflexion, il sourit et se croit en présence d'une de ces farces d'atelier dont les rapins ont le secret. Mais il y aura toujours un exposant pour lui expliquer que ces œuvres sont on ne peut plus raisonnables et sérieuses. Alors, il essaiera de comprendre. Y arrivera-t-il? C'est une autre histoire, comme dit Kipling.
Un peintre vraiment moderne, un « fauve », se distingue d'abord d'un « pompier », d'un artiste respectueux des enseignements des écoles, parce qu'il se classe dans une des nombreuses catégories en « istes » de l'esthétique contemporaine. Il sera « cubiste », « futuriste », << synchroniste », «expressionniste »... et, quelquefois « fumiste », mais n'est-il pas prêt de l'avouer.
Le meilleur moyen de les voir évoluer dans leur milieu, c'est d'aller un soir, boulevard Montparnasse, au café de la Rotonde. C'est une véritable tour de Babel. Toutes les langues, toutes les races s'y donnent rendez-vous et il est de tradition d'y arborer les tenues les plus invraisemblables. Les femmes, surtout, déploient une élégance qui doit être la meilleure sauvegarde de leurs vertus. Et c'est dans cette atmosphère tabagique et bruyante que s'élaborent les théories qui ne dureront souvent pas plus de temps qu'un rond de fumée ou qu'une gloire. On y parle tant d'idiomes qu'on ne se comprend pas toujours, mais qu'importe? Même en français, les axiomes de l'esthétique moderne ne sont pas beaucoup lus intelligibles. Qu'on en juge par ces quelques extraits empruntés à un livre de Guillaume Appollinaire sur la peinture cubiste:

"This portrait, for it was exhibited in 1912, roughly expresses how Cubist painters saw the figures of their contemporaries."

"What differentiates Cubism from older painting is that it is not an art of imitation, but an art of conception that tends to elevate itself to creation. By presenting conceived or created reality, the painter can give the appearance of three dimensions, can, as it were, cubize. He could not do so by simply rendering seen reality..."

Apollinaire distinguished four tendencies within Cubism:
Scientific Cubism. "This is the art of painting new ensembles with elements borrowed, not from the reality of vision, but from the reality of knowledge."
Physical Cubism, "which is the art of painting new ensembles with elements borrowed, for the most part, from the reality of vision."
Orphic Cubism, "constructs new ensembles with elements borrowed, not from the new reality, but entirely created by the artist and endowed by him with a powerful reality."
Instinctive Cubism is a variant of Orphic...

But all this is rose water compared to the manifestos launched by the charming Italian fantasist named Marinetti, whose proclamations delighted his Parisian audiences some fifteen years ago. He is the creator of Futurism, to whom we owe, among other masterpieces, "the noisy symphonies" with horn accompaniment.
"Painting from a model who poses," wrote Marinetti, "is an absurdity and a mental cowardice, even if the model is translated on the canvas into linear, spherical, or cubic forms... Giving an allegorical value to a nude by deriving the meaning of the painting from the object the model holds in her hand or from those arranged around her is, for us, the manifestation of a traditional and academic mentality." This method, quite similar to that of the Greeks, Raphael, Titian, and Veronese, is well calculated to displease us..."
All this dates back to the early days of these trends, between 1908 and 1912. In general, the most wild of the wilds have domesticated themselves, and some have even achieved a mastery to which the firefighters themselves are obliged to pay homage. André Lhote is a living example.

But, one might say, all this is just a big joke and these good people never believed their lucubrations for a moment. The problem is perhaps more complex. In all these sentences there is first of all, it is certain, the innocent desire to impress the bourgeois. But there is perhaps something else, The Adventure of Customs Officer Rousseau is significant. About twenty years ago, some good friends, among whom we find Jarry, the author of Ubu-Roi, André-Salmon, Guillaume Appollinaire, met, in a small café, a retired customs officer. The good man had an innocent mania, painting, and a guilty pleasure, the bottle. Painters and writers saw the opportunity for an unprecedented joke. They gained the trust of the customs officer, went into ecstasies over his painting and organized an exhibition of his works. They held banquets in his honor where the new genius was greeted with macaronic speeches. They even persuaded him to go to the Élysée Palace to collect the Legion of Honor he deserved. I'll leave you to imagine the welcome Rousseau received!
Faced with such glory, the customs officer devoted himself entirely to his art. He perfected his technique, art dealers bought his work, and art lovers, of course, followed suit. The customs officer became famous, rich, and venerated! His early friends, the architects of his fame, found themselves overwhelmed by events. Were they caught in their own game and didn't dare deny a joke so profitable for the customs officer and his dealers? On the contrary, did they realize, after a few months, that beneath his ridiculous exterior, the man had real talent? That's what no one will ever know.
Courteline, the great writer, has a museum of horrors in his home. He piled into one room everything he could muster—ridiculous, silly, pretentious, and characteristically bad taste. He owned one painting in particular, which was the finest piece in the collection. One day, an art critic came to see him and raved. "What, you own a Rousseau Douanier! But this painting is worth a small fortune! A dozen thousand-dollar bills, perhaps."
"Well, I paid a hundred sous for it at the flea market."
...And Courteline, a philosopher, parted with the masterpiece.

This is indeed the frequent conclusion of all these comic-aesthetic manifestations. An art dealer buys the stock, makes a judicious "launch," and soon the art galleries of the New World or Central Europe are enriched, at very high prices, by the new revelation.
Some time ago, a dealer wanted to repeat the customs officer's adventure with two artists: a French fry seller and a rag-and-bone man. But the deal fell through. Due to too much haste, no doubt.
Yet, there is more to these trends than mere business and jokes, and no one ever has the right to challenge, a priori, the sincerity of an artist.

Cubism and its related schools have rendered great services to painting and, consequently, to the other arts. It has freed them from a false sentimentality, a taste for anecdote, and the facile approach in which artists had become mired. It has endowed palettes with new hues, and color sings once again on their canvases.
Finally, it has discovered this great truth: just as a work is beautiful through the harmony of its color, so too can it be beautiful through the proportions that exist between its different elements, in space, between its surfaces, or between its volumes. One must be convinced of this principle to understand the monuments erected at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs.
It is traditional to publish in this journal the articles of our contributors, as they submit them to us, because we know that they always express a sincere and reasoned opinion. It was therefore the same for the one you have just read. But it is possible that this study, devoted to ultramodern art, may surprise certain traditional ways of understanding and representing beauty, or shock those who always see the future as the ideal to be represented.
If there is one question in which contradiction is as pleasant to maintain as it is easy to preserve within courteous forms, it is this one. Therefore, we will gladly accept letters from those of our readers who wish to share their opinions on the value of ultramodern art, and we will be happy to publish the most characteristic of them.
Cubist sculpture also exists. Here, among others, is a statue symbolizing "human strength."

Back July 05, 1925