The best American sculpture, even more than American painting, is solidly virile-impressionistic, notably the work of such men as Barnard and Borghlum. Davidson has one foot firmly planted within the confines of Post-Impressionism, but he has by no means cut loose from the past. His “Decorative Panel” in the Exhibition was purely post-impressionistic, a work of the imagination, while his figures were virile-impressionistic. * * * * * It is only by comparing the work of these new men with that of St. Gaudens, French, MacMonies--to mention no others--that one begins to rightly understand what is meant by the “_reaction to nature_.” There is plenty of pure _observation_ and plenty of fine _imagination_ in the work of those three men, but there is also much of the purely classical, and not one of them showed or shows any desire to break with tradition, while the very essence of the modern movement is a disregard, conscious or unconscious, for tradition; in many of the new men there is a violent revolt against the domination of the past. * * * * * It is when we come to the work of Brancusi and Archipanko that we find the most startling examples of the reaction along purely creative lines. Nature is purposely left far behind, as far behind as in Cubist pictures, and for very much the same reasons. Of Brancusi something has been said already. Of all the sculpture in the International Exhibition the two pieces that excited the most ridicule were Brancusi’s egg-shaped portrait of Mlle. Pogany and “Family Life” by Archipanko. Both are _creative_ works, products of the imagination, but in their inspiration they are fundamentally different. * * * * * In his symmetrical oval head with the spiral masses where the neck would be, it is apparent the sculptor’s interest is in the play of line and relation of masses, no profound human problem troubled him. That there is a relation between the strange shape of the head and his theories of life and art no [Illustration: BOCCIONI Spiral Expansion of Muscles in Action] [Illustration: MATISSE Portrait Heads] serious observer of his other work could doubt, but his unusual technic over-shadows other interest. * * * * * In his “Family Life,” the group of man, woman, child, Archipanko deliberately subordinated all thought of beauty of form to an attempt to realize in stone the relation in life that is at the very basis of human and social existence.