Modern Artists on Art, 2nd Edition

218 Pages·2012·0.97 MB·English

by  Robert L. Herbert

To George Wittenborn
Copyright
Copyright © 1964, 2000 by Robert L. Herbert All rights reserved.

El Lissitzky: “New Russian Art: A Lecture,” (1922). From Lissitzky-Kuppers,
Sophie, ed.: El Lissitzky Life, Letters, Texts. (Copyright © 1968 by Thames and
Hudson Ltd.) Reprinted by permission of Thames and Hudson Ltd.
Ernst, Max: “Beyond Painting,” (1937). Translated by Dorothea Tanning.
Reprinted from Motherwell, Robert, ed.: Max Ernst: Beyond Painting.
(Copyright © Wittenborn, Schultz, 1948.) Reprinted by permission of
Wittenborn Art Books, Inc.
Leger, Fernand: “The Machine Aesthetic: The Manufactured Object, the Artisan,
and the Artist” (1924). Reprinted from Fry, Edward F., ed.: Functions of
Painting by Fernand Léger. (New York: Viking, 1973). Originally published in
French as Fernand Léger, fonctions de la Peinture. (Copyright © 1965 by Les
Editions Gonthier.) Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc.
Schwitters, Kurt: “Merz” (1920). Translated by Ralph Manheim from Der Ararat
2. Reprinted from Motherwell, Robert, ed.: The Dada Painters and Poets.
(Copyright © 1951, 1979 by Wittenborn Art Books, Inc.) Reprinted by
permission of Wittenborn Art Books, Inc.

Bibliographical Note This Dover edition, first published in 2000, is an expanded,
slightly corrected republication of the work originally published in 1964 by
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., under the title and subtitle Modern
Artists on Art: Ten Unabridged Essays. The Dover edition has been expanded by
the addition of a new Preface; four essays (by Schwitters, Lissitzky, Léger, and
Ernst), each with a new introduction by the editor; and a bibliography. Each of
the ten introductions to individual artists’ essays that the editor wrote for the first
edition has been altered slightly, primarily for the purpose of updating.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Modern artists on art /
edited by Robert L. Herbert.—2nd, enl. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
9780486146003
1. Art, Modern—20th century. 2. Art—Philosophy. 3. Art criticism
—History—20th century. I. Herbert, Robert L., 1929— N6490 .H45
2000
709’.04—dc21
00-043166

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation
41191503
www.doverpublications.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Preface to the Dover Edition
Preface
Gleizes and Metzinger - Cubism
Kandinsky - Reminiscences
Boccioni - Futurist Sculpture
Le Corbusier and Ozenfant - Purism
Schwitters - Merz
Lissitzky - New Russian Art
Léger - The Machine Aesthetic
Klee - On Modern Art
Malevich - Suprematism
Ernst - Beyond Painting
Gabo - The Constructive Idea in Art
Mondrian - Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art
Beckmann - On My Painting
Moore - On Sculpture and Primitive Art
For Further Reading
Preface to the Dover Edition
I am grateful to Pearson Education, Inc., acting for Simon & Schuster, for
having returned to me the copyright of the 1964 book, and to Dover Publications
for publishing this new, expanded edition. Introductions to the ten texts of the
first edition have been revised only sufficiently to take account of anachronisms.
In adding essays by Schwitters, Lissitzky, Léger, and Ernst, I have extended the
range of this anthology so that it now includes salient statements of the “machine
esthetic” and of Dada and Surrealism. This furthers my original goal, which was
to put entire essays before the reader instead of the fragments that still
characterize most compendia of artists’ writings. Indeed, as a sign of the times,
the most popular anthology nowadays incorporates far more essays by critics
and historians than by the artists themselves.
The original dedication to George Wittenborn is now a heartfelt memorial to
the man whose bookstore and publications of artists’ writings were a delight to
young students and professionals alike in the decades following the Second
World War.

Robert L. Herbert
South Hadley, 2000
Preface
This book brings together essays by major painters and sculptors of the twentieth
century, selected for their intrinsic quality and documentary value. They are not
abridged or condensed in any manner, but presented in their entirety to permit
the fullest possible expression of their authors’ ideas. Another kind of anthology
may choose to relinquish such completeness for an extended range of interests,
and several excellent gatherings, both in print and in preparation, offer a
rewarding sweep across modern art. By their nature, however, they can include
only short excerpts and are apt to subordinate the individual artist to thematic or
chronological schema. The essays in this collection, since they are left intact,
carry the reader into deeper and more prolonged contact with the artists, one at a
time. For the same reason, they may have a second and new life among those
outside the visual arts, who are apt to be put off by an anthology of short
selections.
The choice of essays was determined quite simply. A list was established,
based upon several admittedly arbitrary criteria: widely recognized historical
significance, classroom use and experience, the quality of thought and
expression (which has helped determine the previous two), and a representative
expression of the different modern attitudes toward art. Then as many of these
were included as the tangled web of copyright permitted.
One essay, Le Corbusier and Ozenfant’s “Purism,” is here given its first
English translation, and four others are revised or retranslated. Matilda
Beckmann supplied corrections to “On My Painting” from her late husband’s
manuscript. My wife, Eugenia W. Herbert, has retranslated Kandinsky’s
“Reminiscences,” and I have revised the 1913 translation of Gleizes and
Metzinger’s “Cubism”; I have more extensively retranslated Boccioni’s
“Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture” and his preface to the 1913
exhibition of his sculpture in Paris, neither of which has been adequately served
by existing translations.
These five translations have consistently maintained the flavor of the original
texts (the other essays were first published in English or else in excellent
translations). Coined words have been given English equivalents whenever it is
certain that the author was seeking special emphasis: in “Cubism,” for example,
“intellective effort” for effort intellectif. Unusual punctuation and spacing is
retained if it is an integral part of the original. In “Purism,” the constant use of
semicolons to subordinate a series of statements to one dominant idea, and the
frequent wide spacing between lines to separate one series from the next, are
stylistic mannerisms which suit perfectly the essay’s hard and geometric clarity.
Brackets are used to enclose all editorial words or phrases, in both the texts and
the footnotes; parentheses and ellipses are the authors’, never the editor’s.
I am very grateful to several of the artists, who authorized the reprinting of
their essays: Naum Gabo, Henry Moore, Amadée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier; to
Mme. Albert Gleizes and Matilda Beckmann for facilitating the inclusion of their
late husbands’ writings ; to Mr. Harry Holtzman and attorney Ralph Colin,
acting for the estates of Piet Mondrian and Curt Valentin, and to Faber and Faber
Limited and Paul Theobald and Company, for their authorizations. My wife
postponed her own scholarly work to retranslate Kandinsky’s “Reminiscences,”
and had the fortitude to help prepare and proofread the manuscripts.

R. L. H.