CUBIST SCHOOL OF PAINTING 



1667 



CUCKOO 



Practical Problems, (a) How many tons of hay 

 are there in a mow 30 feet long, 10 feet high and 

 20 feet wide? 



Solution of (a). 30X10X20 = 6,000, number 

 of cubic feet in the mow. 6,000-^-500 = 12, num- 

 ber of tons. 



(b) A stack is 20 feet long, 10 feet high and 

 15 feet wide. How many tons does it contain? 



(c) How many tons in a circular stack 20 

 yards around and 5 yards high? 



(d) A crib 18 feet long, 18 feet high and 8 

 feet wide is filled with shelled corn. How many 

 bushels does it hold? 



Solution of (d). 18x10x8 = 1,440, number of 

 cubic feet in crib. 1,440X8 = 11,520. Striking 

 off the right-hand figure we have 1,152, num- 

 ber of bushels the crib will hold. B.M.W. 



CUBIST SCHOOL OF PAINTING, a school 

 of modern art, whose adherents prefer symbols 

 to realities. It dates from 1913 and is the 

 aftermath of the Post-Impressionist Movement 

 (see IMPRESSIONIST SCHOOL OF PAINTING). By 

 means of geometric figures, cubes, triangles and 

 parallelograms the Cubist aims to produce an 

 abstract sensation upon the mind of the ob- 

 server of his work. As one critic has said : "He 

 takes the elements of expression from the forms 

 and colors of nature and uses them not to 

 represent objects but to produce an organism 

 which will contain in terms of art what a given 

 subject means to him in terms of sensation." 



The Cubist has shown the possibility of an 

 expression in painting without representation, 

 a process familiar for centuries in music; in 

 fact, the Cubist believes that the painter can 

 do with line and color what the composer does 

 with sound, stating his belief in these words: 

 "If a musician composes a pastoral symphony 

 he does not imitate the mooing of cows, the 

 bleating of sheep and the rippling of brooks. 

 Therefore, if I paint a pastoral symphony, why 

 should people insist upon seeing in my painting 

 that which they cannot hear in the music of 

 Mozart or Beethoven?" His art, therefore, 

 largely makes its appeal to the psychological 

 faculty of man by means of the artist's own 

 particular code of signs and symbols. The 

 Cubist demands an independent right to ex- 

 press himself as he wishes in each canvas and 

 to paint an apparent mood as freely as does the 

 poet or musician. 



Paul Picasso is the founder and leading ex- 

 ponent of Cubism; one of his most famous 

 paintings is The Woman with the Mustard Pot. 

 Other noted followers are Marcel Duchamp, 

 noted for his Nude Descending a Staircase; and 

 Francis Picabia, represented by his The Dance 

 at the Spring. Just what the effect of this 

 new tendency in art will have upon the future 



THE CUCKOO 



it is too early to predict, but it is apparently 

 a transient vagary. R.D.M. 



CUCKOO, kuck'oo, a bird known in Europe 

 as the "darling of the spring." There are 

 nearly 200 known species, common in warm 

 countries. The two commonest in the United 

 States and Eastern Canada are the black- 

 billed and the 

 yellow - billed 

 cuckoos, yet even 

 they are not as 

 familiarly known 

 as many other 

 birds, and their 

 note is a rather 

 harsh kuk kuk, 

 unlike the sweet 

 tones of the 

 European species, 

 which gave the 

 bird its name. 

 The song of the 

 cuckoo has in- 

 spire d many 

 poets. 



The two Amer- 

 ican species of 

 cuckoo are slender, about a foot in length, with 

 long, rounded tails and long, sharp, arched 

 bills. Their toes, two pointing forward and 

 two backward, are especially adapted to cling- 

 ing rather than to climbing. Their feathers 

 are a beautiful olive-brown, with a bronze tint. 

 The chief difference in the two species is in the 

 color of bill; however, the black-billed species 

 has red circles about its eyes and the yellow- 

 billed has white "thumb-nail" marks on its 

 tail. In the Middle, Western and Southern 

 states the yellow-bill is known as the rain-crow, 

 as it is believed when its call is heard it is a 

 sign of rain. Perhaps the reason for this is 

 that "cuckoos delight in damp, cloudy weather. 

 The European cuckoo has ashy-gray plumage, 

 barred with black beneath, and its tail is 

 marked with white. 



The favorite home of the cuckoo is near 

 running water. It eats insects and hairy cater- 

 pillars, and so is of benefit to man. Mulber- 

 ries, too, are eaten greedily by these wood- 

 peckerlike birds. Cuckoos lay from two to 

 five pale green-blue, unpolished eggs. The 

 American species builds a rather untidy nest 

 and hatches its own eggs, but the European 

 cuckoo lays its one small egg on .the ground, 

 then picks it up and deposits it in the nest of 

 another bird, where the unwilling mother cares 



