Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair

by Unknown

  The public only takes up yesterday as a weapon with which to castigate today.

  There are people who are considered quite intelligent, but who do nothing but lean toward good things in art. Their heads get near them, but the rest of their bodies remain rooted.

  A favorite phrase of the public is: “I don’t see what that’s meant to be.” The public wants to understand first and to feel afterwards.

  A fall makes people laugh. The mechanism of falling plays an important part in causing the laughter which greets a new work. The public, not having followed the curve which leads up to this work, stumbles suddenly from where it was standing, down on to the work which it is now seeing or hearing. Consequently a fall takes place—and laughter.

  A short phrase quickly spoken and full of meaning traverses the brain like a surgeon’s lancet. Ten minutes later it is no longer there.

  We have in our keeping an angel whom we are continually shocking. We must be that angel’s guardian.

  One does not blame an epoch; one congratulates oneself on not having belonged to it.

  INSTINCT AND THE ARTIST

  Art is science—in the flesh.

  Genius, in art, consists in knowing how far we may go too far.

  There is a house, a lamp, a plate of soup, a fire, wine and pipes at the back of every important work of art.

  Instinct, in art, needs to be trained by method; but instinct alone helps us to discover a method which will suit us, and thanks to which our instinct may be trained.

  In feeling his way, an artist may open a secret door and never discover that, behind that door, a whole world lies concealed.

  When a work of art appears to be in advance of its period, it is really the period that has lagged behind the work of art.

  There is a moment when every work, in the process of being created, benefits from the glamour attaching to uncompleted work. “Don’t touch it any more!” cries the amateur. It is then that the true artist takes his chance.

  Sculpture, so neglected on account of the current contempt for form and mass, is one of the noblest arts. To begin with, it is the only one which obliges us to move round it.

  “Look,” said a lady to her husband in front of one of Claude Monet’s paintings of a cathedral. “It looks likes melting ice-cream.” In this particular case the lady spoke the truth, but she had not acquired the right to do so.

  The artist must always be partly man and partly woman. Unfortunately the woman part is almost always unbearable.

  Every masterpiece having once been in the fashion goes out of fashion, and, long afterwards, finds an everlasting equilibrium. Generally it is when it is out of fashion that a masterpiece appeals to the public.

  MUSIC—GOOD AND BAD

  The musician opens the cage-door to arithmetic; the draughtsman gives geometry its freedom.

  Beethoven is irksome in his developments, but not Bach, because Beethoven develops the form and Bach the idea.

  The bad music, which superior folk despise, is agreeable enough. What is really intolerable is what they think good music.

  Wagner’s works are long works which are not only long, but long-drawn-out, because this old sorcerer looked upon boredom as a useful drug for the stupefaction of the faithful. It is the same with mesmerists who hypnotise in public. The genuine “pass” which puts the subject to sleep is usually very short and simple, but they accompany it with a score of sham passes which impress the crowd. The crowd is won by lies; it is deceived by the truth, which is too simple, and not sufficiently shocking.

  The public is shocked at the charming absurdity of Erik Satie’s titles and system of notation, but respects the ponderous absurdity of the libretto of “Parsifal.”

  Satie does not pay much attention to painters, and does not read the poets, but he likes to live where life ferments; he has a flair for good inns. Debussy established, once for all, the Debussy atmosphere. Satie evolves. Each of his works, intimately connected with its predecessor, is, nevertheless, distinct and lives a life of its own. They are like a new kind of pudding, a surprise and a deception for those who expect one always to keep on treading the same piece of ground. Satie teaches what, in our age, is the greatest audacity—simplicity.

  Nothing is so enervating as to lie and soak for a long time in a warm bath. Enough of music in which one lies and soaks. Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites, and nocturnal scents; what we need is a music of the earth, every-day music. Enough of hammocks, garlands, and gondolas; I want someone to build me music I can live in, like a house. Music is not all the time a gondola, or a race-horse, or a tight-rope. It is sometimes a chair as well.

  We may soon hope for an orchestra where there will be no caressing strings. Only a rich choir of wood, brass and percussion.

  All good music resembles something. Good music arouses emotion owing to its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which have motivated it.

  Pelléas is an example of music to be listened to with one’s face in one’s hands. All music which has to be listened to through the hands is suspect. Wagner is typically music which is listened to through the hands.

  Too many miracles are expected of us; I consider myself very fortunate if I have been able to make a blind man hear.

  THE HIGH-LOW CONTROVERSY

  RANDOLPH DINWIDDIE

  FROM JANUARY 1923

  The important question of the proper length of dress skirts is again racking the public press and putting a large part of our female population completely off their feed. This particular phase of fashion is the most vital of the many whimsies which are yearly dallied with by the smart modistes and couturières. Pre-eminent in importance among dress questions is the height above see level of the human hem. It affects the men as does no other vagary. It creates more discussion and philosophical comment than any other problem. Compared with it the current location of the waist line, the cut of the neck or the presence or absence of sleeves are minor issues.

  My interest in the matter is purely academic. As one of the sex which merely looks on and admires and wonders at the fickle changes of La Mode I have been tremendously struck by the vehemence with which the most recent edict of Fashion has been received. It was a rather scurvy trick of those mysterious authors of authoritative design, the hidden sources of inspiration in Paris, suddenly to knock the legs out from under the high skirt market. Perhaps it was not a trick at all. I have an idea that fashion is not the wilful arbitrary thing many people suppose it to be, but that it follows definite, immutable laws. We know that Gothic architects built their cathedrals higher and higher until, with Beauvais, came the great collapse. It fell down, and there was an end to it. So it was with skirts. They could go no further. They had nowhere to go but down. Of course, it is unfortunate for the lady who finds herself equipped for a long season with a legacy of shorts. As my friend Willie Aspinwall who is on the Exchange said of his cousin Margaret, “Poor Madge! She bought at the top. Now she is long on shorts and short on longs, and she can’t cover.” I’m not very well up on Wall Street patter but one look at lanky Margaret seemed to bear out Willie’s statement.

  Reading the various newspaper discussions and looking over a few sample exhibits on the Avenue I resolved to conduct a personal investigation. I decided to get the personal testimony of a varied group of people and compare their angles of observation. My first call brought me to the office of Mrs. Arnold Bemis, President of the Woman’s Civic and Social Welfare League.

  Mrs. B. is as formidable as her title. She stands, or sits, four-square to all the winds and it is easy to tell exactly what her opinions are on any subject. “This recent attempt of Paris dressmakers to foist their ridiculous standards on American womanhood will never be tolerated for a second,” said Mrs. Bemis, angrily tearing a page from La Gazette du Bon Ton. “Look at that! Imagine a modern woman trying to cross Fifth Avenue wrapped up in eighteen yard
s of material like that. A few New York Society dames”—Mrs. Bemis’s lip (the one with a slight moustache) curled scornfully—“may stand for it. It is all they can do. They can’t walk. But not the sensible women of our League. Thousands of our members live in the suburbs. Tell me, how can a woman catch a train when she is already tangled up in one?”

  Mrs. Bemis has a pretty epigrammatic talent if nothing else—admiring which I withdrew and sought my next victim, Dr. Eustace Willis, a young practitioner of my acquaintance.

  “I have great hopes for the long skirt,” said Dr. Willis. “My practise has picked up amazingly since our sidewalks have been systematically swept by a million or more ladies every day. Many homeless influenza germs have found permanent shelter in well-to-do establishments. This not only keeps our streets much cleaner but also makes possible an intensive study of colds, catarrhal troubles, sneezes and the insidious theater or concert-cough which has long baffled medical science. During the short skirt era people remained so infernally well that I thought I might have to go out of business. Now I am thinking of buying a new car. Put me down unmistakeably as a ‘long’.”

  My next visit took me into the marts of trade where I found opinion curiously divided. The silk and fabric importers were unanimous in favor of the new style. An interesting contrary view was rendered by Mr. Isadore Klipsch, Strauss and Bendelmayer. “Where do stockings come off?” asked Mr. Klipsch with some heat. “Here ain’t we spent thousands of dollars layin’ in a stock of first class goods, y’ see, an’ what’s gonter happen if a feller can’t see ’em? Who cares about arms and necks an’ waist lines? Such a fuss! Phooey! What the feller in the street wants is legs. Ain’t I right, Strauss? An’ what becomes of the new fency colors we make ’em, the apricots, the plum, the peach? Who’s gonter eat all them fruits? Believe me, the only hope we got is in these here now side-doors they put in sometimes, these portieres they’re wearin’ so a feller can once in a while get a look-in, ain’t it?”

  I felt that there was much in Mr. Klipsch’s point of view.

  A rather pathetic view-point was disclosed by a young lady who must obviously be nameless. Let us call her Louise. Louise is the hat girl in one of our small, smart restaurants. She herself is both small and smart. She is not facially pretty—freckles and a slight cast in one eye prevent her competing in any beauty contests, but in other ways she is superb. “Yes, Monsieur,” she murmured in her charming Gallic way, “eet is ’ard on some girls, ze long skairt. Eet hide sometime zeer only chances to attrac’ ze attention. I myself, you know . . . I have not ze beauté of ze visage, but autrement . . . attendez moi, Monsieur, si vous pouviez voir . . .”

  “Louise,” I said, not wishing to prolong the interview, “what time do you leave here?”

  “A dix heures,” she answered.

  Setting my watch, I departed.

  Through a card from the manager I was fortunate in having a two minute interview with Vera Gilhooly just as she was leaving her dressing room at the Follies to go on to a supper party. She stood in the doorway dressed in a million dollars worth of ermine and delivered her opinion with terse decision.

  “It’s all or nothing with me, Boy. In the first number, the fashion review, of course, I wear skirts. But I don’t have to. Some people think they look better in the short ones but there’s a whole lot oughter be thankful for concealment. Honest, when I walked up Fifth Avenue a year ago I used to wonder where all the barrel hoops came from. But if you seen me in the last number, the Parade of the Perfumes, you’ll know that I don’t have to worry. And write this down in your little book, No matter what the square-toed highbrows say, they’ll all be wearing just exactly what Paree tells ’em to inside of six months. Don’t let ’em kid you about being independent. They’re all hard-shelled conservatives and if there’s anything they hate it’s to be different. By-by!”

  Vera swept off to her taxi leaving me astounded at her wisdom. She attempted no solution, to be sure, but showed such splendid common sense. After all perhaps it is purely idle speculation to attempt an answer to the question of what the well-dressed woman will wear. It would be simpler to say, what won’t she?

  THE EARLY DAYS OF PABLO PICASSO

  MAX JACOB

  FROM MAY 1923

  A whole volume is needed when we try to speak of Picasso, and when he dies—which may God defer as long as possible!—we shall need many. Consider that here is a man who is only forty-one and who has modified the whole of painting. (He was born October 24, 1881, at Malaga.) Yes, all painting! for I defy the most distant to ignore the new demands he has made upon the art. And not painting alone: I have seen during fifteen years, first in the poor attic of Montmartre, 13 rue Ravignan, then in finer studios, 33 boulevard de Chichy, or 5 rue Schölchez, finer but always bare, for Picasso has that mysterious force, the spirit of poverty—I have seen workers in every art of this generation fired and tempered by his discriminating advice.

  PICASSO’S SARCASM

  A pleasantry of Picasso’s would serve as guide-post for a whole life-time. He has a terribly sarcastic mind—his wonderful understanding of realities expresses itself in biting words which attack stupidity and folly in defense of his vast ideals of an entirely new art. I verily believe that he has even influenced the fashions in dress for men and women. On the days of “vernissage”, great days on which all Paris gazed upon his faithful followers who, proud and envied, filled the exhibition rooms, the costumes of the women who surrounded him did more to mold the new spirit than did those of the smart women at the races. His genius is to uncover the first principles of art and to build upon them; thus he has made the fortune of several artists by creating a sculpture without stone, a sculpture which makes use of any material. The day that he applies himself to architecture or to designing furniture he will revolutionize them as he revolutionized the theater with his settings for Parade, the famous synthetic horse and the two cubiste managers; as he revolutionized dancing with the dance of the “Petite Américaine” in the same piece, made up of gestures taken from everyday life.

  Apollinaire, that great exponent of the new poetry, often worked only to please him. Salmon would have torn up a poem, his best, at a joking criticism by Picasso. You perceive what this man was in his youth; today his field of action is enlarged; it is from the stage of the opera that he speaks to the artistic world and the settings which he sometimes consents to make for the Russian ballets are an education for the whole world, thanks to the illustrated papers.

  Upon his first arrival in Paris, Picasso met with success. It was in ’99. He came from Barcelona, where his father was Director of the Royal Academy of Painting. He seemed but a child; his great black eyes which have an expression so tense when he looks at one, so mocking when he speaks, so tender when he is moved, glowed with life under his low, wide, positive forehead; his hair was coarse, thick and smooth; today one or two silver threads shine in its blackness.

  At that time he had a face of ivory, and was as beautiful as a Greek boy; irony, thought and effort have brought slight lines to the waxen countenance of this little Napoleonic man. He is today a dandy, albeit an unaffected one; he was then a Spaniard with wide hat and enveloping cloak. For a long time he wore the caps and sweaters of the sportsman; in fact, it was he who started this fashion in the world of art, as well as that of shaving oneself completely. When he came to Paris, he was accompanied by a manager who arranged for an exhibition at Vollard’s. It was the manager who wrote me, in answer to a word of admiration, to come to the studio in the Place Clichy.

  At that time, Picasso was living the life of the “provincial” in Paris; he wore a high hat and spent his evenings in the music halls. He had won fame there by his portraits of actresses in the public eye. Jeanne Bloch, Otero . . . all the stars of the Exposition. Ah, what changes, since, in him and about him! What an amazing evolution! It was a fortune; this fiery little boy of eighteen made two pictures a day, and the rue Lafitte paid
a hundred francs apiece for them. Just think, two hundred francs a day before the war and for a child! Those paintings are priceless today; the intelligent museums have bought them.

  I arrived, then, at the Place Clichy. I found a band of impoverished Spaniards sitting on the floor in the fine studio, eating white beans—for Picasso is profoundly kind, as he is profoundly honest, sensitive and sincere. There is much that is fatherly in this sarcastic dilettante, in this almost mystical knight. No one will ever know how much money he has given away, how many artists he has provided with success, nor how many have enriched themselves through but a single spark from his great flaming love of Art.

  They kept me for the evening and half through the night—we were friends! That was in ’99—we are friends still, I trust. Picasso, who now speaks French as well as an Academician and better, for his language has a color and a precision that might well be envied by the best French stylist, Picasso in those days spoke only Spanish. And yet we used to talk the whole night through; the manager slept, the Catalonians left—our enthusiastic youth found means of understanding each other. He made an immense portrait of me. Unfortunately, this genius has several times lacked canvases; one impecunious day he was forced to re-cover this masterpiece to create another.

  THE “BLUE” PERIOD

  One day he left Paris, perhaps because he had glimpsed new paths in art and felt the need of solitude to ripen reflection, perhaps because he had troubles which I do not remember. How many times Picasso has abandoned successes which have seemed too easy! Three times at least, to my knowledge.

  All this was before the Exposition. When he returned from Spain he had his first taste of misery; it was in 1902, he brought back those celebrated blue paintings which were often done on wood. No one would buy them. A famous dealer who would be much vexed were I to name him, said to me literally—“Your friend has gone mad.” The same man, one day when I was seeking to interest him in Picasso, who was ill, and in a landscape full of sublime melancholy, said—“The church is crooked.” There are you experts! Very accurate connoisseurs, but prophets, no!—unless they are prompted. Poor child, he lived at the Hôtel du Maroc, in the rue de Seine, in a room whose ceiling sloped so sharply that his iron bed could hardly fit in. This bed was covered with drawings rather reminiscent of Puvis de Chavannes; no one wanted them. The house still stands; I think it is opposite the rue Jacob. How did he eat? The faithful few were as poor as he and Paris ignores those who will not follow her, until she begins to follow them. One day he succeeded in selling a pastel to a dealer for a hundred francs and went back to Spain. This picture represented a woman with a child holding an orange at the edge of the sea.