drawings are confusing beyond measure. The earliest drawings (those of the nudes). were made for the purpose of study. They are understood relatively easily. The later drawings, there is the rub! They are Cézanne's notes, notes in his own peculiar shorthand, notes which he alone could fully understand. They are packed with meaning, therefore full of interest. Because Cézanne was an artist, because he had an extraordinary feeling for that which is vital, his shorthand notes possess beauty and life. What more should we ask for in a work of art?
NEW YORKBy Nevinson
THE new Folsom Galleries in West 57th treet are attractive. There is much that is decorative in the tall figure of the new manager whom we used to admire in his rôle of a painter of ultra-modern art. The new galleries are cheerful and the light falls on the paintings so as to bring out all the beauty of each one. The first exhibition was work by a group of artists of fairly modern tendencies, and of the paintings, the Arthur B. Davies is the one I should most like to own. The charm of it comes from the mysterious nature of Davies' spirit. Alas, the blight of a formula is falling on his art! There are in all works of art rhythmic movements of line and, in the greatest works of art, of mass. These things have been felt from the earliest times instinctively. The laws which govern them can be worked out. It is very possible that Jay Hambidge has discovered many of them. Yet, when the artist attempts to apply these laws instead of following the workings of the spirit within him, he is substituting a cold intellectual formula for the creative breath of life. Hambidge's theories are largely concerned with line. The modern mind is thinking in terms of mass. Therefore the tendency of Hambidge's present teaching is reactionary.
The exhibition is a very good show, Du Bois, Henri, Gifford Beal, Lie, Hassam, Hawthorne, Miller, Carrigan, Dearth (a very beautiful one which was crowded out from the show but which can be seen by asking), Crane, Lawson, Granville Smith, Olinsky and Linde.
The group exhibition at the Folsom Galleries was followed by one of paintings by Clark G. Voorhees whose name is a new one in the art world, but whose style of work is not new. The best of his work seems to be that done in Bermuda, where the romance of the landscape has taken him out of his natural inclination to paint in a manner which lacks accents. His painting is too much like the speech of a person who, born deaf, knows nothing of the value of modulation. There is an evenness of touch which makes for monotony. His sense of form is rudimentary. This fault is especially noticeable in his painting of a yellow farmhouse near Lyme. The old farmhouses in that section follow certain principles of proportion which they never
