GASTON LACHAISE
TO get rid altogether of contemporary "sculpture" is perhaps the surest way of appreciating the achievement of Lachaise. This coup of unadulterated intelligence has already been given by Mr. W. H. Wright in four sentences which I lift from the masterly sixth chapter of Modern Painting—
"After Michelangelo there was no longer any new inspiration for sculpture. After Cézanne there was no longer any excuse for it. He has made us see that painting can present a more solid vision than that of any stone image. Against modern statues we can only bump our heads: in the contemplation of modern painting we can exhaust our intelligences."
I say masterly, because so long as the author keeps one or more eyes on Cézanne it must be admitted by any intelligent person that his analysis is unspeakably correct. Were the entire book devoted to a consideration of Cézanne our own task would be confined to proving that Lachaise does not produce "modern statues." Unfortunately this is not the case. Elsewhere the author remarks that Swinburne brought the rhymed lyric to its highest development. And at one point he mentions that "the aesthetic possibilities of the human form were exhausted by" his old friend Michelangelo, with which it is a trifle difficult to agree. How about the renowned Pablo? Or, to take two far from colossal geniuses: Lembrach, in his lean girl at the Armory Show (1913), and Brancusi, in his Princesse Bonaparte at the Independent of is it three years past, did something more than exciting. In the first case a super-El Greco-like significance was pitilessly extorted from the human form, in the second the human form was beautifully seduced into a sensual geometry. In his feeling for his material, moreover, Brancusi showed for some time genuine originality. But he reached an impasse very soon. Judging from the recent bumps and buttons at the De Zayas Gallery he is at present as dead as a doornail.
It must be admitted that Wright is Johnny on the spot when it
