The Little Review, March 1915 (Vol. 2, No. 1)Various
General
The Little Review, March 1915 (Vol. 2, No. 1)
Various
Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals
he tried to transcend solids by the process of merely copying solids. He
tried to express the eternal livingness of a tree by painting an
ephemeral tree. This is the meaning underlying the earliest example of
his work. It accounts for the expression of representative forms very
slightly raised above actuality. In the second example the next upward
sweep of the curve is apparent. The pursuit of the maximum intensity of
expression is maintained, with the result that there is a further escape
into fluid motion. And actuality becomes very much exaggerated as by a
hand that feels the stimulating impulse which the steadily increasing
growth of an unknown power brings with it. Perhaps the most noticeable
characteristic of the second example is the attainment of a greater
freedom of expression. There is in consequence an increase of intensity,
and as intensity is the source of rhythm,—rhythm being but the natural
characteristic of what we call intensity—a greater manifestation of
rhythm. This rhythmic ascent, if I may call it so, marking the growth
and development of intense expression, is continued in the third
example. The illusion of volume and solidity to be found in the other
two examples is still noticeable. But the flow is at a far higher
pressure than in actuality, and if the painter is not yet fully afloat
on fluid motion, he is certainly moving in the desired direction. He is
in fact true to his widening curve.
It is too early to predict what degree of intensity of effect Mr. King
will ultimately attain. He is still a young man with an enviable future
before him. And he approximates more and more towards an unconscious
method of expression. He applies the natural law of growth and
progression because he must. A time may come when he will take up his
pencil and trace a picture as in a trance simply at the bidding of the
inner flow called inner necessity. It is certainly hopeful that he has
remained up to the present a fairly pure medium, having escaped the
pollution of conventional art education. He turned to painting at the
urge of inner necessity and expressed himself in intense form and color
because such form and color were in him to express. The technical
characteristics of his work are really a part of himself. He expresses
everything with simplicity and freedom because they are characteristics
of his own nature. It should be said that he does not aim to produce the
so-called automatic work of art. There is nothing automatic in a fluid
force organizing itself by uniting itself to a medium that is really a
part of its own livingness. If the artist’s hands are guided by a
mysterious agency it is not a mechanical process any more than the
guiding of a plant into leaves, blossom, and fruit is one. The artist is
really guided by that which is a part of his higher self. He surrenders
himself to the guidance of a spirit which is his own, the spirit of Art.
And in doing so he achieves his highest destiny. For in the complete
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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