38
PARTISAN REVIEW
ducing in a decade. But in the meantime you qualify as the sole organ-
ization in America that is dedicated to the hewing out of an authentic
and appropriate cultural expression.
To Charles Demuth, Whitney Museum:
There are many who regret that you are not here to see this exhibi-
tion. You would be surprised yourself, perhaps, at the poise and monu-
mentality that your work retains, even from as far back as 1913. To
many who had previously known your pictures through isolated examples,
the present complete display comes as a revelation. There are inherent
native qualties here, and a structural fabric that can support them. Your
stature increased, while much that was more ambitious has been forgotten
in the meantime.
It may have been for the best that, like Juan Gris, you did not
live through the disturbing depression cycle. For you are free to go down
among recent American painters as the only one who knew to the end
what you were doing. There is no strain, your accent was never forced;
everything in this exhibition holds within its limits to the wall. Perhaps
you knew that it would be like this, but you could hardly have foreseen
that for a long time you would be the only one. It may have been the
disease of your body,-the fact that you always knew when your work
must cease--which creates the sense of completeness.
During your life-time your work was referred to as cold. You were
indeed always aloof. The passion for realism inherent in America never
touched you. Your pictures are not lively, but they live with an internal
vitality that will endure. You were fortunate in your contact with the
European structural renaissance at an early date. By 1912 your aesthetic
accent was already established. The electric line, the very personal mani-
pulation of shape and contour, your peculiar secret of letting the picture
breathe through its unpainted areas, were there before the War. Of
course there were pitfalls. You ran into difficulties when you tried to
fuse abstraction with landscape and house-forms, the only time when
there is a disturbing divergence of spirit. And you did not imbibe the
later teachings of abstraction, your color does not completely absorb
the form. But, on the other hand, you were never impeded by Marin's
impressionist hang-over. You were always an architect within the canvas
boundary, with a passion for exhausting every means whereby the parts
might be welded together. Your gifts are most congenial to still-life;
there, where the shapes are more readily and simply defined the full
emotional gamut lies securely at rest.
Influences are difficult to trace throughout your work; only occa-
sionally will the echo of an early American flower-painting protrude or
(as in "Mme. Delaunois") of Constantin Guys. Neither has your own
influence been wide, but in depth it can be incalculable. To enter these
