Modern Painting and
Secret
the Ill-Kept
JEAN PAULHAN
E VERY DAY
modern painting is subjected to all manner of criticism,
none of which is worthy of the slightest attention. When a great critic
claims that the painters of today leave their canvases unfinished because
they are lazy, he exhibits but one thing, namely the laziness of the great
critic. The gentleman who does not like a picture because it is ugly does
not know that one can love an ugly woman madly-for charms which
transcend those of beauty. As for the other gentleman who feels that one
should not paint green cows or men with crab claws because man has
well-defined hands and because cows are not green, that person does
not even deserve a serious answer. Presently he will criticize Fra Angelico
for having painted angels, and Delacroix for having painted Liberty.
Of course, there are neither angels nor Liberty in nature. No. However
such strange things do come to pass in nature that, if there were no such
thing as Liberty, all hope of understanding anything about nature would
have to be abandoned. (And if there lives a man who has never felt
wings sprouting from his back, so much the worse for him.) Now it is
the very function of painting to remind us of these wings; to enable us
to believe in their existence. I do not know whether there are too many
pictures in the world. I do not believe so. But were there but one, we
would see an angel riding on the back of a green cow, and as we know
the most humble graffiti adorn with wings those things which never
had them.
And yet there is a bit of truth in these absurd reproaches: it is true
that modern painting has its danger or weakness. It certainly has a right
to paint green cows or cubes and crab claws, and to be satisfied with
the result. But perhaps it is a little more complacent than
it
should be.
It is too grossly complacent; with too much indiscretion, one might say.
Fra Angelico made angels as if angels were perfectly natural. Delacroix
portrayed Liberty as
if
he had seen her among men like you and me.
But more than one painter of today has at least this trait in common
with his enemies: he seems to think it is extraordinary to paint green
cows or cubes-that that is the height of daring, and that this alone
entitles him to strut.
One need only listen to them. Their inadequacy is so obvious that it
