Artist v. Citizen

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AMERICAN --Matthew Josephson--Harcourt, Brace ($3).

U. S. artists sometimes worry about U.S. art, wonder why it is not bigger & better, why so many U. S. artists have been expatriates, literally or in spirit. Critic Josephson here collects a formidable array of case histories: James Whistler, Lafcadio Hearn, Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, Henry James, Henry Adams, Henry Harland, Stuart Merrill, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein.

Critic Josephson thinks the "humanities" are "threatened" by our machine civilization, has taken the case of the artist as "a short cut, a convenient symbol." Says he: "In him [the artist] we may see the human faculties, as against the animal or automatic appetites, at their apex: human intensity stated in its highest terms, as Henry Adams would say." The great U. S. artists, says Josephson, have influenced Europe before the U. S.: "the test of a great American artist . . . is whether he is a good boomerang."

Critic Josephson, like Critic "Notch" (see p. 79), dislikes "the social empire" of Henry Ford, but sees hopeful signs on the horizon. He hopes U. S. artists of the future will be U. S. citizens, not expatriates. "The salvation and the strength of artists . . . lies in their ability, here after, to incorporate themselves within the actual milieu."

Author Matthew Josephson, critic, poet, biographer, is one of the younger-left-wing literary figures. Onetime associate editor of Broom (onetime esoteric occasional published abroad), he is now U. S. correspondent for transition (TIME, Feb. 17). Hard of hearing, with large, gazelle-like eyes, he wears a mustache, parts his hair in the middle. Last February Critic Josephson planned to take his wife and two small sons to Europe; the night be fore the Bremen sailed the Josephson's Manhattan apartment caught fire. Josephson saved his family, tried to save a favorite picture by Artist Charles Sheeler, was badly injured, failed to save it. Other books : Galinatius and Other Poems (privately printed), Zola and His Time.

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