Are Artists Going Mad?

This is the title of an article by Mr. G. K. Chesterton in the Century magazine. Mr. Chesterton here discusses the artists of the " newer schools," for whom he sees little hope--unless the rest of the world goes mad as well.

Henry Tyrrell, art critic of The New York World, now replies with the question "Is Chesterton Sane?" Apparently, his conclusion is that Chesterton is misled by his head, though his " heart is in the right place."

Chesterton said: " It was the whole point of Whistler and his school that they produced the picture without troubling about the meaning. We may say it is the point of Picasso and the rest to paint the meaning without troubling about the picture."

Henry Tyrrell, quoting Elie Faure, writer of the greatest history of art of recent years, says: " Picasso was undoubtedly a great criminal, in the sense that he is largely responsible for the muddle (sic) which painting has got into latterly. It is from him chiefly that the younger artists have taken the notion of looking within themselves to interpret the outer world, instead of, like their elders, looking at the outside world to realize themselves. Because oftentimes they are unable to distinguish much of anything within themselves, you know what happens (They get themselves called crazy). That is Picasso's crime. But Michael Angelo shares his guilt, and Rembrandt, and Delacroix, and Cezanne."

From this, Mr. Tyrrell concludes that Chesterton is quite wrong about Picasso and the mad modern artists.

However, though it certainly is not crazy, modern art, according to M. Faure himself, is in a " muddle." It is lost and groping its way in its search for new forms, and this naturally troubles such conservatives as Chesterton. The followers of Michael Angelo (individualists, like Picasso) represented a definite decline in Italian art. Are the imitators of Picasso also on the wrong tack?

Some of them seem to think so, for they are attempting, in their latest craze for being " primitive," a thing really opposed to the earlier phase. They are trying to get back to the " unspoiled vision" of a child or a savage; which is the same as looking "out" instead of "in."

Mr. Chesterton also objects to this phase, as being an affectation. He is convinced that modern artists are mad, whatever they choose to do.