PAINTING AND SCULPTURE
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to the painter's conception. As Woffiin pointed out, Bernini re–
moved from stone its "immediately tangible character," as op–
posed to Michael Angelo; who spoke through his outline, in paint–
ing
and sculpture alike. For Michael Angelo chiaroscuro was a
means toward the intensification of plastic values, for Bernini
form vanishes in a wild play of light and shade. In modem times
the Impressionists, followed by Cezanne and Renoir, integrated
the painting technique so firmly into their stylistic procedure that
Rodin the sculptor fell for the painted surface, and his bronzes,
on which the finger-marks appear so delicately, indicate that the
painters were again taking control of art, a short generation after
Courbet had somewhat ponderously worked out a new sculptural
approach.
III.
Through the contemporary period 1t becomes more difficult
for us to assort the definite trends. The Cubists held themselves
within the limits of their own art-form to an extent not readily
appreciated. For Cubism was really an outgrowth of Impres–
sionism, incorporating the impressionist technique into a new
solidity. Pasted papers and lettering suggest tactility and a
"reality" akin to sculpture, yet wherever the Cubists relied on
brush or pencil the marks fairly tingle with the painter's touch.
Picasso is the most painter-like of all, and nowhere is the cham–
eleon-like aspect of his character more apparent than in his recent
sculpture, which is just as completely sculpturesque. Leger, on
the other hand, is quite otherwise, for Leger was never really a
Cubist at all. His world of pipes and mechanical fragments was
conceived as sculpture, and as such, although no match qualita–
tively for Picasso and Braque, seems when exhibited with the
Cubists to be at the same time more "modern" and more primitive.
It is Mondrian, however, who goes farthest toward giving us
sculpture,-although the word "object" might better characterize
one of his canvases. Mondrian's paintings preclude any possibility
of entrance at all; the very frame (set behind the canvas-surface)
pushes the area forward instead of letting the spectator into the
wall. I find highly significant the contention which Mondrian once
put forward verbally, that mural-painting was "wrong." It is
wrong for him indeed because he would not have his pictures a
part
of anything; they are free objects which one can touch and
