olors of John Marin are restless with energy, which is in
its way a real virtue. They do, I think, require, at times at least,
more of the calm of research and less of the excitement of it. All
true artistry is self-contained and never relies upon outer physical
stimulus or inward extravagance of phantasy, or of idiosyncrasy. A
work of art is never peculiar, it is always a natural thing. In this
sense John Marin approaches real art because he is probably the most
natural water-colorist in existence.

With Charles Demuth water-color painting steps up into the true
condition of ideas followed by experience. He has joined with
modernism most consistently, having arrived at this state of
progression by the process of investigation. The tradition of
water-color painting takes a jump into the new field of modernism, and
Demuth has given us his knowledge of the difference between
illustration, depiction, and the plastic realization of fact. Probably
no young artist has accomplished a finer degree of artistic finesse in
illustration than has Charles Demuth in his series of illustrations
for "The Two Magics" of Henry James, or more explicitly to say "The
Turn of the Screw". These pictures are to the true observer all that
could be hoped for in imaginative sincerity as well as in technical
elusiveness. Demuth has since that time stepped out of the confinement
of water-color pure, over into the field of tempera, which brings it
nearer to the sturdier mediums employed in the making of pictures
evolving a greater severity of form and a commendable rigidity of
line. He has learned like so many moderns that the ruled line offers
greater advantages in pictorial structure. You shall find his approach
to the spirit of Christopher Wren is as clear and direct as his
feeling for the vastiness of New England speechlessness. He has come
up beyond the dramatisation of emotion to the point of expression for
its own sake. But he is nevertheless to be included among the arrived
water-colorists, because his gifts for expression have been evolved
almost entirely through this medium. There is then a fine American
achievement in the art of water-color painting which may safely be
called at this time a localized tradition. It has become an American
realization.

THE APPEAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography is an undeniable esthetic problem upon our modern artistic
horizon. The idea of photography as an art has been discussed no doubt
ever since