October i8, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
19 
The New Movement in Art 
By Charles Marriott 
UNDER this title Mr. Roger Fry has arranged a 
representative exhibition of works in painting 
and sculpture in the Mansard Gallery at Messrs. 
Heal and Son's, 195, Tottenham Court Road. 
Movement" instead of " movements" is right and wise, 
because the new tendencies in art are more comprehensible 
if tliey are all regarded as reactions from Realism. That also 
gives the clue to their real origin : the general reaction from 
materialism, in philosophy if not in everyday life, at the 
end of the nineteenth century. 
Most of the difficulties about the new movement, about 
art in general, indeed, are caused by regarding art as an 
isolated phenomenon, beginning in the studio and ending in 
the exhibition, without any very close connection with the 
rest of life. There is, it is true, the conventional saying that 
art is the reflection of life, but this is taken to mean only in 
choice of subject. The truth is that no other human activity 
is more closely con- 
nected with the rest 
of life, or more sensi- 
tive to changes in 
general human deve'- 
opment. Choice, of 
subject has very little 
to do with the matter. 
It is not what a man 
paints, but how he 
paints it that betray- 
the spirit of his time^. 
For the " how " is very 
far from being a pureh 
artistic question. 
No considerabh 
artistic movement was 
ever invented in thi 
studio. Dutch Natu- 
ralism in the seven 
teenth century was the 
artistic response to the 
Reformation ; Pre- 
Raphaelism was 
closely connected with 
the ris(! of Democracy ; 
and Realism, even in 
its rarified form o' 
Impressionism, was an 
article of the same 
creed that nourished 
cruxley and Pasteur. 
What is invented in 
the studio is mere 
machinery ; the tech- 
nical expedient or 
channel to convey the 
new impulse. Thus, 
the distinction between 
Cubism and Futurism 
is an affair of the 
studio ; but the dis- 
tinction between their 
common origin or in- 
spiration and that cl 
Impressionism is an 
affair of human life in 
general. The first dis- 
tinction is compara- 
tively unimportant 
and Mr. Roger Fry has been wise in disregarding it in the title 
and catalogue of his exliibition. 
" Reactions from Realism," however, needs some ex- 
planation. The desire for reality, in art as in philosophy, is 
stiongcr than ever ; but we have learnt to look for it below 
th( surface and with other than our bodily eyes. This is very 
important, because a great deal of the popular misunder- 
>tanding about the new movement in art is due to the belief 
that it represents a new way of seeing— in the optical sense. 
P» ople say with justice that things don't look like that to 
them. Nor did they to the artist — even if he should claim 
that they did. In the optical sense artists see like the n-st 
of us. What the New Movement really represents is a new 
way of feeling ; or. rather, a new recognition of the importance 
of feeling as a guide to reality. The evidence of the eyes, 
which was the basis of Impressionism, is exchanged for the 
larger evidence of the whole organism, with its full comple- 
ment of memory and intuition as well a6 observation. In 
The Policeman's Cottage 
art, as in philosophy, we have discovered that things an not 
what they seem : that reality lies deeper tha.. appearance. 
Not that the discovery is altogether new. Art has always 
been based partly on intuition — using that word to cover all 
the evidence of the sub-conscious mind - -and partly on 
observation. The history of Western art is largely the history 
of conflict between the two. At some periods and in some 
individuals one or the other has got the upper hand. In 
Eastern art there does not seem to have been the same con- 
flict ; but intuition and observation, or inner and outer 
vision, or faith and reason — for they all mean pretty much 
the same thing — -have always worked comfortably together. 
Chinese art is based on conceptions corrected by obser. ation. 
Western artists are comparatively unused to dealing with 
conceptions ; even their designs are applied apologetically, 
as if the facts observed had a special sanctity in themselves ; 
and it is not surprising that when, as now. tl.ey work from 
conceptions that they 
should reject observa- 
tion with rather more 
force than is neces- 
sary. 
The parallel to what 
happens in spiritual 
life is too close to be 
ignored. A person 
of confirmed spiritual 
life has no difficulty 
as between faith and 
works, but if a person 
who has lived by works 
alone is suddenly " con- 
verted," he is apt to 
rely on faith too ex- 
clusively in view of 
the imperfections of 
human nature This 
is exactly what has 
happened in art. I-'or 
several centuries West- 
ern art has lived mainly 
by works ; using that 
word to describi' the 
mastery of external 
appearances. Justifi- 
cation by works in art 
reached its climax with 
Impressionism. In 
the reaction it was in- 
evitable that there 
should be something 
like contempt for 
appearances, and most 
of the defects and ex- 
travagances of the 
new movement can be 
put down to that 
cause. What it amounts 
to is that in the present 
state of human per- 
ception, both Martha 
and Mary are necessar\' 
in the house of art. 
It is by wojks in life 
and by appearances in 
art that one human 
being understands 
another ; and until we shall have reached a degree of sensi- 
bility to pure form and colour in painting that we already enjoy 
to pure sound in music, the broken box of alabaster must be 
supplemented with some care in the performance of common 
tasks. Otherwise the less perceptive will cry : " To what 
purpose was this waste ? " And it is noticeable that in the 
later developments of the neyf movement there is a dis- 
position to regard appearances with a more tolerant eye than 
at the beginning. The war paintings of Mr. C. R. W. Nevinson 
may, be quoted in illustration. 
The works in Mr. Fry's exhibition' might be classifiec'. as 
Ix'longing to several " isms," but they have it in common 
that they are all done from conceptions and not from observa 
tions of reality. The nature of the conception varies with the 
individual artist, and emphasis is laid accordingly upon rhythm 
or pattern or colour or volume as the case may he. It is worth 
remarking that it is only when realistic imitation ot appear 
ances is abandoned that any such emphasis can be niadj 
t. McKnight Kauflei 
