The Little Review, April 1916 (Vol. 3, No. 2)

The Cry

Whenever there is silence around me, By day or by night, I am startled by the cry “Take me down from the cross!” The first time I heard it I went out and searched Till I found a man in the throes of crucifixion, And I said, “I will take you down,” And I tried to take the nails out of his feet, But he said “Let be; For I cannot be taken down Till every man, every woman, and every child Come together to take me down.” And I said, “But I cannot bear your cry— What can I do?” And he said “Go about the world, Telling everyone you meet ‘There is a man upon the cross.’”

The Excuse

I go about the world Telling all the rich, And all the happy, and all the comfortable, “There is a man upon the cross.” But they all say “We are sure you are mistaken; There was a man upon the cross Two thousand years ago; But he died, and was taken down And was decently buried; And a miracle happened, So that he rose again And ascended into Heaven, And is happy evermore.” Still I go about the world saying “There is a man upon the cross.”

The Cross

Any groveller May be straightened by a cross If he lies down upon it at night, And sleeps upon it with outstretched arms; If he rises in the morning, And shoulders it bravely, Neither resenting it Nor being ashamed of it, He will find that he can bring his eyes To look upon life Instead of upon the grave, And that he will even be able To lift them to the stars; And that he can live On the levels he is able to look upon.

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[2] I do not know whether these poems have been published elsewhere or not. They were read by Ellen Gates Starr in a mass meeting in Kent Theatre on the University of Chicago campus—a mass meeting in protest against police brutality during the garment strike.

What Then—?

R. G.

There are signs of life at the Art Institute. In throwing out Charles Kinney, it stated the case against itself more emphatically than Kinney ever could have done. When an “institution” becomes violent over criticism there is too much work for one reformer.

This seems to have been a season for things Art to be stating the case against themselves. At the last meeting of the Chicago Society of Artists, when there was a slight murmur of dissatisfaction with the management of the Institute, one of the older men quickly reminded the painters that they were but guests of the Institute—and there was silence. Art has come by hard ways, but never to worse than this:—the guest of the Corn Exchange Bank!

Again at a meeting for the formation of the new Arts Club, before the matter of the Club could be discussed there had to be a speech assuring the Art Institute that the artists would never, in any way, _ever_ do anything on their own, but would always conform to the ideas of the directors of the Institute. But where they really proved themselves was at the annual dinner, at the opening of the Chicago Artists’ Exhibition. Herded into a room they meekly submitted to oyster stew and a speech by a minister of the Gospel. Artists! That is their case as stated by themselves.

Kinney blames the directors pro tem., and the Dean, for the “factory system” in the school. Knowing that all the small towns in the West and Middle West having any kind of an Art School pattern after the Art Institute, he is excited and fears the factory system will prevail everywhere. But he might have hope that here and there accidentally a few artists may get mixed up among the other students and frustrate this plan.

It would be interesting to know whether the administration by its methods has so completely discouraged artists that they no longer seek the Art Institute as a place of study, or whether the administration is simply changing its methods to meet the demands of the kind of student now attending the Institute.

This much is certain: no administration could take away every ancient prerogative of art students; lead them gently into organization; impose discipline upon them; and appoint God a chaperone over their play—in fact make a crêche of the school—if there were any of the stuff in them of which artists are made.

There always has been a fight on the part of the school to get what it wanted from the directors; but things can be done. Read the list of “illustrious names” of visiting instructors, years ago, and then compare the student roll of the same time. Once the Art Institute was an art school with art students, who were artists, who in spite of everything led the life of artists, knew the analogy between painting and the other Arts, swarmed to concerts and the theatres, and created their own atmosphere. That was the time when Bernhardt came to the school in her yellow-wheeled carriage and walked down a double line of quaking, adoring art students. And when Calvé came to sing.... How many students there now know these names, know anything beyond fashion drawing?

They have indicted themselves. If there were artists the Art Institute could seek exhibitions. If there were art students we could have an art school, not a “factory.” And if the directors of the Art Institute and its patrons really wanted Art, and the directors would throw the Institute open to all kinds of exhibitions, we might even in time find Art.

German Poetry

WILLIAM SAPHIER

Learned essays on this or that poetry make little red devils dance in my brain and my right hand reach for a Japanese sword. They are invariably inferior to the spirit, and occupy only a small section of the horizon of their subject. I have translated these three poems because I felt that they were as good or better than the best things published in this country, and because so little is known of this kind of German poetry here. The first is by Julius Berstl and the second two are by Fritz Schnack. I know of many more, but I am unable to get their work just now. As you perhaps know, they are engaged at present in a different direction.

Highland

(_From the German of Julius Berstl_)

Early light reflexes climb with rose fingers up the cliffs. The chilly valley slumbers and cowers in its white fog bed, But nude and cool, unearthly fine and clear, Glitter the glacier chains.

The morning wind faint-heartedly plays a lyre, No bird strikes screaming through the distance; It is as if the sound of a timid harp Spreads with bird-like wings Along the stone cliffs and over the valley.

And now, as if breathed by the fragrance and dew, Out of fog blossoms a wreath of meadows; Behind them blooms a crystal glacier blue, And a dream-laden delicate purple grey Plays all around the giant mountains.

Young Days

(_From the German of Fritz Schnack_)

Soft, delicate morning air ripplings Sway between the willow bushes Rustling, as if a woman in silk ruchings Passes over the meadows ... Without end and blessedly far Purls the cajoling sweetness. O! how anxiously do I bear this air. Like chords from the cloudland Fall the deep shining days Resounding in my trembling hand.

One Morning

(_From the German of Fritz Schnack_)

The light, Flows spring-like out of the night, And the big splashing wave Spreads over the earth’s surface ... White villas glisten in the light Glowing all around with red roses; Laughing young beauty blooms On every threshold ...

At a distance I stand and watch And think: whoever thus can build ... And longingly go my way.

An Isaiah Without A Christ

_And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of Man, prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, hear ye the word of the Lord; thus sayeth the Lord God: woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. O Israel, thy prophets are like foxes in the desert.—Ezekiel 13:1-4._

CHARLES ZWASKA

I.

And the youth returned to his village and found it vile. In the City he had seen visions of what a town might be.... Nicholas Vachel Lindsay had been studying Art in Chicago and on his return to Springfield published, in the fall of 1910, _The Village Magazine_: a scattering of verse, prose, sketches, and ornamental designs and propaganda. “Talent for poetry, deftness in inscribing, and skill in mural painting were probably gifts of the same person”, he tells us later, in speaking of the ancient Egyptians. “Let us go back”—the village must be redeemed. The first editorial in the magazine was _On Conversion_. The people of Springfield “should build them altars to the unknown God, the radiant one; He whom they radiantly worship should be declared unto them in His fullness.” The next was _An Editorial on Beauty for the Village Pastor_—it expressed the belief that the Sunday-school, the Christian Endeavor Society, the Brotherhood, Anti-Saloon League, and the Woman’s Aid were the forces that were to bring about beauty. Springfield was to be the new Athens! A broadside was distributed throughout the village: _The Soul of the City receives the gift of the Holy Spirit_:

Builders, toil on, Make all complete. Make Springfield wonderful Make her renown Worthy this day, Till, at God’s feet—

(_Etc., the poetry of the thing will not be spoiled by omitting some lines here._)

Heaven come down City, dead city, Arise from the dead.

Verses like the above aside, here was revealed to us a poet; the foundations were laid, it seemed, for a future. But the youth did dream and see visions. Much was said about Utopias and the New Jerusalem, and poetry languished in the youth that he might materialize some ultimate world state. The most inexcusable optimism of them all—“Rome was not built in a day.” True, but it _was built_: not merely talked about or prophesied. And the youth remembered not that it hath been said in Isaiah: “For, behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind.” Yet the youth remembered the former still and did say much about the recoming of those civilizations which had been, at last to stay forever! His day, or the great poet who proceeded him by but a few years, he seemed to notice not:

What do you think endures? Do you think a great city endures? ... Away! these are not to be cherished in themselves, They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them, The show passes, all does well enough of course, All does very well till one flash of defiance ... A great city is that which has the greatest men and women; If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.

But the youth was at heart the poet, the dreamer, attempting to convince by arguments, similes, rhymes; not as the great Poet, by mere presence! Nor could he stand the offer of rough new prizes, preferring the smooth old prizes. He clung to the organizations of the day, and to augment their “influence toward the Millennium” he published _The Village Magazine_. That, gentle reader, was in 1910.

II.

In the year 1912 there went forth from Springfield this same lad. Into the West he went—through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and into New Mexico. He went preaching a gospel,—his own “Gospel of Beauty.” His sustenance he earned by reciting his own rhymes to those who were willing, in exchange, to give him bread. Thus did he make us uncomfortably imagine him a new John the Baptist, François Villon, or even Saint Francis of Assisi.... In the year 1914 his account of this adventure was published. Three rhymes, he claims, contained his “theory of American civilization.” This is from one of them:

O you who lose the art of hope,

. . . . . .

Turn to the little prairie towns, Your high hope shall yet begin. On every side awaits you there Some gate where glory enters in.

And “At the end of the Road”—by faith and a study of the signs—he proclaimed the New Jerusalem for America, particularly for his home-village.... Now, there is a peculiar value attached to this journey—the influence on the poet, not the preacher’s influence on the people. It was after this trip that we got _The Santa Fé Trail_, _The Fireman’s Ball_, written in a style in which were later written _The Chinese Nightingale_ and _The Congo_. And, because of the relation of its style to these, we even judge _I heard Emmanuel Singing_ a good thing. This, then, is Lindsay’s importance among us; his contribution of this style of vaudeville chanting. This is the poet. He does not count when writing _Galahad_, _Knight Who Perished_, _King Arthur’s Men Have Come Again_, _Incense_, _Springfield Magical_, or declaring “by faith and a study of the signs.”

III.

On November first, 1915, at Springfield, Illinois, Vachel Lindsay signed a book on _The Art of the Moving Picture_. The last chapter was called “The Acceptable Year of the Lord.” From having seen forecastings in photoplay hieroglyphics the children in times-to-come can rise and say: “This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears”:

Scenario writers, producers, photoplay actors, endowers of exquisite films, sects using special motion pictures for a predetermined end, all you who are taking the work as a sacred trust, I bid you God-speed. Consider what it will do to your souls, if you are true to your trust.... The record of your ripeness will be found in your craftsmanship. You will be God’s thoroughbreds.

It has come then, this new weapon of men, and the face of the whole earth changes. In after centuries its beginning will be indeed remembered.

It has come, this new weapon of men, and by faith and a study of the signs we proclaim that it will go on and on in immemorial wonder.

This, then, is the prophecy, and thus has he proclaimed it: “By my hypothesis, Action Pictures are sculpture-in-motion, Intimate Pictures are paintings-in-motion, Splendour Pictures are architecture-in-motion.... The rest of the work is a series of after thoughts and speculations not brought forward so dogmatically.”

Now, the Arts are complete in themselves; they contain all. The moving picture has come to be a parasite on them.

Sculpture has become a vital thing to this age because of August Rodin. Meunier has moved us too. Also Monolo and Fagi. Now comes Lindsay: “I desire for the moving picture not the stillness but the majesty of sculpture.... Not the mood of Venus de Milo, but let us turn to that sister of hers—the great Victory of Samothrace”.

... I have seen much of Lindsay’s advice followed word for word since this book of his was published. Tyrone Power in _The Dream of Eugene Aram_. Power’s face and figure were more majestic on the stage than in this picture. There was a “sculpture-group,” as you would call it, in this picture—a farmer and two squires on a hilltop. It was in silhouette, a _sketch_ and not sculpture. The nearest I have seen to the majesty and immobility of sculpture, marble or otherwise, was the head of William S. Hart in _The Aryan_. The picture was shadowed so as to center on his poetic face, the fascination of which none but Forbes Robertson’s has. Hart’s face on the screen, his eyes looking into the eyes of you, at his throat a handkerchief of white—a bust by an artist indeed! But the shadows parted, and the hieroglyphic-crowded background came into view. Hart’s head moved, became part of a _moving picture_ and sculpture was no more. The moment was worth it—but it _moved_.... “Moving pictures are pictures and not sculpture”, says Lorado Taft in a public statement, objecting to Lindsay’s phrase. “To a sculptor the one thing cherished as most essential to his art is its static quality, its look of absolute quiescence. It is the hint of eternity which marks and makes all monumental art”.... Has Lindsay no feeling for sculpture?

Frank Lloyd Wright has models in plaster of some of his buildings—“modern” skyscrapers, hotels, and homes, growing, rising upward, white and beautiful. It was these works of architecture which called forth the phrase “flowers in stone”. He alone, it seems, has made art of architecture in our day. He objects to Lindsay saying his art can be that of moving pictures; its very literalness, its actualness being the very negation of the soul and constitution of art. In _The Dumb Girl of Portici_ the Smalleys, as inspired as any of the producers, used the entire Field Museum in Jackson Park, Chicago, as a background for a pageant of Italian royalty, of the middle ages. Insisting on architecture can spoil pictures. It did this one.

Painting-in-motion—rhythm. Rhythm seems alien to the application of the theory of jerky fade-away close-ups. “Intimate Dutch interior” scenes fading into the close-up and then back into the entire scene again. Intimate, friendly, and moving, but lacking in rhythm and the flow of naturalness. Some think that “moving lines”, made an art in themselves, will be an achievement of the moving film. Have you ever been struck dumb by the lines made by a dancer across the stage, the moving of life across life? I have seen it in the moving-picture only in the flight of gulls (unconscious actors) or in pictures of rivers and trees and the sea; in short—nature. But nature is nature. The painter’s art! Botticelli’s _Spring_, or _The Birth of Venus_—pictures containing the essence of rhythmic natural movement. Never yet have the movies given us this. If Lindsay must prophesy and “take the masses back to art” there _are_ artists living today—who are for today. Lindsay seems to know nothing of them. His knowledge of painting seems to have stopped with his art school days. The later work of Jerome Blum, for example, has this movement, this rhythm, not only in composition and line but in the _color_ as well. Reds and greens and blues that vibrate, paintings that live.

The rest of this might be entitled: “An open letter to Vachel Lindsay”, for it is “not so dogmatically set forth” and is mere man-to-man talk.

I have seen most of your suggestions swallowed whole by moving-picture makers.... Your hieroglyphics idea—well, James Oppenheim was an accomplice in that. “On Coming Forth by Day” or your suggestion to use the Book of the Dead—a Chicago woman, the patient, too-patient, beautifully reverent Lou Wall Moore has been working for years on an adaptation of one of the books which, when it does appear on the stage, will have more rhythm and terrible swiftness than ever your moving picture could, the splendor of color, space, height, distance, and most magical of all, the voice:

Priest: Men pass away since the time of Ra And the youths come in their stead. As Ra reappears every morning And Tum sets in the west, Men are begetting and women conceiving; Each nostril inhales once the breeze of the dawn; But all born of women go down to their places.

As for your “too ruthless a theory” of having silence in the theatre, or rather just the hum of conversation, let me tell you of the “midnight-movies” in our town: Can you imagine a crowd of people standing in line outside a theatre at one or a quarter after in the morning? And inside an audience—or optience?!—which for interest and variety can equal any of the moving-pictures shown or yet to be shown. I wish you could hear the ludicrous, cutting, knowing remarks made by these people about your pictures, when, after twelve-thirty the piano stops, and the oppressive silence outweighs the interest of the picture. (The piano formerly stopped at eleven, but the management decided that the only way to maintain order was to keep the piano going.) Well, the silence never lasts: snoring, wheezing, roaring, shouting and laughing and calls for “Silence”, “Wake up, the rest of us wanna sleep”, “You’re off key”, or “What time shall I call, sir?” These people are here: business men; newsboys, hobos, drunks, who sleep here all night; salesmen; night clerks; telegraphers; bell-boys; hotel and restaurant maids; scrub-women; actors; vaudevillians; cabaret singers; pressmen; newspapermen; chauffeurs, teamsters; traveling men; gentlemen of leisure; painted youths and scented women. They “get” the psychology of the pictures. Helen’s hazards call forth telegraph tappings to each other; close-ups showing jealousy, rage, or overdone emotion get “woof-woofs” and howls and hoots; the murder prevented “just in time” gets its sarcasms; and “immoral situations” their due appreciation. But—this, which seemed on the way to become our most individual phase of night-life, is passing. The jolly manager, who passed up and down the aisle like a hen among her brood, keeping us awake until one o’clock, has been replaced by a uniformed policeman; the council has legislated women out after two o’clock; and a “ride in the wagon” or ejection faces the one who would “get gay”. Now, as a place of interest, it is passing in this day of short-lived gayety and censored originality. The Law, Lindsay, will not allow your plan to work. In the neighborhoods?—the audiences themselves do not know why they are there. Why disturb them?