Modern Art: The Men, the Movements, the Meaning

by Thomas T. Craven

S i THOMAS MODERN ART THE MEN - Y . THE MOVEMENTS THE MEANING NEW YORK SIMLN AND SCHUSTER 4 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED COPYRIGHT, 1Q34, BY THOMAS CRAVEN PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, 386 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK, N. Y. Designed by Robert Josephy R J Jt 21 34 TO AILEEN CONTENTS INTRODUCTION XIX 1. BOHEMIA 1 The magic of Paris. The authors adventures in the Latin Quarter. The French spirit. Bohemianism an economic asset, a patriotic industry. Civiliz ing influence of the cafe. The Left Bank from Abelard to Murger. Villon. La Vie de Boheme, and the Golden Age. Montmartre, past and present. The Romantic Movement. Bohemia an anti-bourgeois world. Whistler and his snobbish Bohemian creed. The women. System of compulsory cohabitation. In praise of the girls of Paris. The mythical grisette. Effect of Bohemianism on art. Verlaine. Toulouse-Lautrec. Paris produces the stereotype. The arti ficial prolongation of youth. 2. THE NEW CENTURY 35 The little people violently unsettled. The bourgeois machine. Politics in France. Jew-baiting. Anti-Semitic feeling in art. A Frenchman writes a letter. Universal Exhibition of 1900. Architectural horrors. The exotic craze the belly dancers. Loie Fuller, idol of Paris. The new age. French taste. Fashions of 1900. The French monopoly on styles. Invention of lingerie. The well dressed gentleman. No baths. Home life in France. The sordid household. French writers. High-life. The cult of Proust. The artists. Not a decent artist in the Exhibition. Rodins strategy. The academic mills. The impending storm. Revolt in Montmartre. French intolerance. The State and the Bohemians. g . TWO KINDS OF ART 6 1 France afraid of original art. All good men persecuted. The Academicians officially controlled. Old Bouguereau and his tribe. Impressionism its history and significance. Daumier. Courbet. Manet. Specialists in sunlight. Seurat. Renoir a real painter. Cezanne his life and work. His enormous influence. Cezanne and Poussin. Final estimate of Cezanne. The new men. 4. VAN GOGH 9 1 The home of Pastor Van Gogh. Vincents repugnant face. His youth in a boarding school. Spiritual agitations-. Assistant in an art gallery at The Hague. Model employee. Transferred to London. A painful love affair. Signs of lunacy. Escapes to Paris. London slums. Prepares for the Church. Evan gelist among the miners of Belgium. Terrible suffering. Turns to art. Un selfish devotion of his brother. In love again. Despised by women. He lives with a prostitute. Paints with maniacal industry. Studies in Paris. Mont martre and the skeptics. Drink and over-work. The South and the sun. The yellow house at Aries. Gauguin and the severed ear. The hospital and the asylum. Auvers and the final madness. He kills himself and is buried among the sunflowers. vii 5-GAUGUIN ll A study in abdication. Born with a grievance against the world. His bad blood Half-breed and half-artist. Strange childhood in Peru. Jesuit sem inary Three years before the mast. Prosperous banker for ten years. His marriage a failure. Restless and embittered, he turns to art as an escape from life Deserts wife and family, and retires to Brittany to paint. His many talents. His hatred of civilization. Fails to conquer Paris and sails to the South Seas. Life in Tahiti. The tropical paradise exposed. Marries a mulatto girl. A pseudo-savage. Makes a holy show of himself in Paris. The white mans curse. His Javanese mistress. Returns to Tahiti. Quarrels and degradation, disease and death. The cult of the primitive. 6. WILD ANIMALS 1 43 Van Gogh, his work, his influence, his limitations. Gauguin, his art a French instrument tattooed with savagery. The philosophy of escape. The impetus to pattern-making. Sensational uprising in art. Review of the forces precipitating Modernism. The new movement the culmination of anti bourgeois tendencies. A Bohemian revolt hatched in Montmartre. Picasso and his crew...

378 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1976

Reviews

[Craig Masten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern Art by Thomas Craven, written in 1934, is a nonfiction book of essays with the author's very strong opinions as a major art critic of his time. But I need to begin by saying that for a scholarly work, this book is eminently readable, in fact difficult to put down for anyone interested in art. That being said, the author, without the benefit of hindsight (and I'm not sure he would care a whit whether or not his opinions are out of sync with later judgments), is whole heartedly condemnatory of the modern art movement exemplified by men like Picasso and Matisse. In a nutshell, Craven considered their art, however creative, to be sterile, superficial and soullessly abstracted from true emotion. Great art in his opinion needed to utilize technique of the past, but be transformed by sensitivity to the realities to Its environment and grounded in real experience. This may seem dated and wrongheaded given the present ubiquitous praise of non-representational art, but the pleasure of the book lies in the author's feisty allegiance to his point of view, and ability as a writer to make intriguing bon mots on virtually every page. He has very entertaining storytelling ability, giving mini-biographies and critiques of the artists and and art movements of his age, woven together with his own life experience to make his case about what creates great artists. And who knows. Unchallenged past giants of the art world are sometimes later virtually unrecognized, their once perceived masterpieces residing in storage basements of museums where they once hung. Craven is not being craven (pardon the pun) in his very sharp and severe, but equally heartfelt and sincere ideas and opinions.

[Fred R · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little hyperbolic, but I share his basic model for what does and doesn't produce good art, so I had a good time. Also, it's refreshing to read discussions of art apart from the promotional or academic material with which it's usually presented.