The Arts (magazine)/Volume 1/Issue 4

THEORIES concerning art flourish in these days, the Marratta theory of color, the Hambidge theory of composition. Theories concerning art have always flourished in eras of decadence. The impotent theorize. The lover does not begin to formulate theories until he finds himself unsuccessful in his appeals to the fair sex.

The last weeks have brought forth much evidence against the value of theories in art. At the Anderson Gallery they have been showing the work of Pamela Bianco, a child of fifteen, the daughter of an Italian father and an English mother. Those who have met the child all agree that she is absolutely not what one would expect of an infant prodigy. She is apparently just an ordinary child, rather young for her age, with no especial interest in art and none in her own work or in the admiring public. "How foolish they all are over my work," she is reported to have said. It is my conviction that the color of Pamela Bianco's work is more lovely than that of any of our American painters who are endeavoring to create color harmony by means of formula. With all their theories they cannot attain the beauty which comes to Pamela Bianco instinctively.

None of Pamela Bianco's painting seems to me to be as beautiful in color as the best work of Joseph Stella. In such a canvas as "Brooklyn Bridge" Joseph Stella takes a very high rank among modern colorists. So I went to him to ask what he thought of Marratta and of Hambidge. Now Joseph Stella does not use language such as all of my readers are accustomed to hear, therefore it is better to paraphrase his answer. He was wrought up against theorizers. He confirmed my opinions. "In all vital periods of creative art impulse to create is so strong that there is no tendency to theorize. The life within each artist bubbles over, energy is in the air, and men create great works of art, hardly knowing themselves how it was done. Then after art has reached its height, and when the decline begins to manifest itself, there is on all sides an attempt to analyze the great work of the past and to recreate it according to theory. That is what is happening in certain circles today."

So spoke Joseph Stella (toned down for publication).

Stella is a colorist, you will answer me, and colorists are emotional men who do not understand things intellectual.

Within the past week or two I have appealed to three of our greatest sculptors, Gaston Lachaise, Alfeo Faggi and Robert Laurent. Do you suppose they theorize about their art? With no hesitation all three were unanimous in their denunciation of any attempt to reduce art to theories, to formulæ. That there are immutable principles back of art I believe. That it is well to consciously apply these principles when painting I do not believe. The tight-rope walker is following certain very definite principles as he walks along the rope. Were he conscious of them he would soon fall to earth. So it is with the artist.

Our two frontispieces are two interesting pieces of sculpture, an early Gothic Madonna photographed by Charles Sheeler and reproduced by courtesy of M. De Zayas, and a modern bronze, "Pieta," by Alfeo Faggi, reproduced by courtesy of the Bourgeois Galleries.