Negative Reactions

...came to be known as Neo-Impressionism, which swept quickly (with some awful side effects) through Europe, taking root most notably in Belgium, Germany and Italy Fauvism and Futurism derived from it, Van Gogh, Matisse and Mondnan were among the major figures affected by it Signac became Neo-Impressionism's chief proselytizer, and his contentious personality suited him well for the part To those who could take his air of absolute certainty—especially about optics—and his recruiting zeal, he was attractive and stimulating The gentle Pissarro, the single major Impressionist to succumb to the doctrine, greatly admired what he called his "belligerence " Yet the same quality antagonized Emile Bernard, who was experimenting with divisionism but dropped it as soon as Signac "discovered" this and tried to corral him Gaugin, with whom Bernard later allied himself, dismissed the new painters as "little green chemists who pile up tiny dots " The Metropolitan show, comprising the museum's Signac collection, features only four oils Together with the early drawings, however, they are enough to demonstrate the artist's contribution to Seurat's discovery Signac's brand of Neo-Impressionism speaks less of its subject matter than of the special stillness that comes out of constant repetition One thinks ot whirling Sufis and the hypnotic effect ot Islamic tiles The 32 pieces on display—beginning with Passage du Pints, Clichv, an 1886 drawing composed of sepia dots, and ending with watercolor drawings from the 1920s—also suggest that Signac relaxed somewhat after Seurat's premature death in 1891, at the age ot 32, and reverted to a naturalistic style, marked now by Van Gogh's influence Again, though, there is a sense of decor alive compulsiveness in the freely-executed studies of siiccls and harbors from this period—as it the pencil started at one-edge ot the papci and did not slop until it reached the other—giving equal weight to buildings, trees, ships, clouds, and smoke While of course too limited to provide a comprehensive account of the artist's career (he died in 1935), the overall impression one gets from these often lovely pictures is that Signac was by nature a contemplative man who needed a hero to transform him into a hardliner Courtesy of the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the black-and-white 9 x 11s of Chauncey Hare bring news of how the other half lives Hare, 43, was until recently a research engineer for Standard Oil All the more surprising, then, that he describes himself on a wall board at the moma in the emotionally muscle-bound way made fashionable by the counterculture The groping quality of Hare's prose conflicts interestingly with the clarity and competence of The Effects of Technology on the Individual, his studies of interiors, with and without their owners Using both natural and artificial light, he has eschewed dramatic compositions, yet produced sharp and professional, almost journalistic, photographs The word "individual" in the show's title is a kind of euphemism for the poor or nou-veau middle-class, after all, no one talks about the impact of technology on the upper crust But if it was Hare's intention to have his pictures indict industrialism for its effects on the masses, he hasn't really succeeded What they convey, and quite well, are ethnic and class outlooks as manifest in the choice of consumer goods and m general styles of living There is just one "freakish" shot here (naturally, it was chosen for the show's poster), of a woman in a helmet of blonde hair and a short skirt standing beside a music stand in her rather bleak living room, playing the violin The rest are mostly kindly treatments—of families in their parlors and kitchens, of men at work and mothers with children Some of the people are extremely poor, like the young woman and child hemmed in by a refrigerator ('50s bulbous in design), a cluttered sideboard and a cruet-adorned table whose oilcloth cover suggests desperation Others seem rather prosperous, such as the couple in a comfortable but overfurnished and hardly tasteful living room Somewhere in between are families who are clearly doing better than they used to, although their sense of security has not yet shown up either in the choice or the arrangement of possessions Despite a sharp eye for social differences, Hare is rarely cruel And his prints, packed as they are with information, do not force an issue I especially liked his study of a black woman standing in a comfortable, sunny bedroom, very much the hospitable hostess showing off what must be her own needlework She is holding one fine quilt, another covers the bed in back, and an embroidered cushion is on the floor nearby Less at ease and rather less friendly looking is the couple filling the doorway to a well-used kitchen, the wife in toreador pants, the weather-beaten husband in a yachting cap When focusing on rooms alone, Hare displays an affection for the solidity and peace of bourgeois life that the Dutch were the first to depict in painting One of his loveliest photos shows an attic room where a spare bed sits on one side of a dormer window, and a handsome dresser with an oval mirror flanks the other On the chair between rests a framed print of a prince of the church, through the window behind can be seen a lush garden As gracefully composed is Hare's photograph of an Edwardian light fixture consisting of four large frosted glass balls hanging from what appears to be a bronze dish, repeating the curves from below is a well-stuffed armchair A descendant of several generations of Irish miners and steelworkers in the Pittsburgh area (as well as a Columbia alumnus), Hare may bring a special preoccupation to his subject, and perhaps some first-hand experience I suspect, in any event, that he has for some time been mulling over the vexing question of taste and upward mobility—how, for instance, we publicly classify each other according to the number of zeros in annual income, but privately believe that money or, for that matter, a college education are no guarantees of taste and prestige Then there is the matter of exactly what good taste is It does not necessarily have to be informed, but the conscious pleasure of exercising it is surely enhanced by a knowledge of the visual arts In the case of domestic surroundings, taste can, I think, be defined as a regard for space and light equal to that for objects, the ability to choose things as much for their function as for their look, and the achievement of an overall sense of balance and harmony The forces that go into all that are more mysterious It it takes two generations to make a gentleman, taste can be destroyed in a single lifetime Thus some peasants are born to surroundings that certain interior decorators would tear off an arm to create Yet when technology gives them the chance, they go berserk with suites of furniture, china ornaments and plastic Nevertheless, Hare's exhibit offers some hope One of his prints shows an old woman, Italian-born at a guess, sitting in an armchair wearing an apron High on the wall behind her is a wood relief of the Last Supper surmounted by what looks like a group picture of a graduation, on the adjoining wall hangs an ancient photograph, probably of her ancestors Immaculate, light-colored curtains frame a window looking out onto Ohio smokestacks, in front of which stands a small railback chair The scene contains nothing one would choose for oneself, but there is a strong feeling of discrimination at work Perhaps the test of taste is whether an esthetic sense can function in the face of both adversity and temptation...

...On Art NEGATIVE REACTIONS BY VIVIEN RAYNOR The theme this month is disapproval Under review are two small but significant shows—Signac Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Prints (Metropolitan Museum, through November 27) and The Effects of Technology on the Individual Photographs by Chauncey Hare (Museum of Modern Art, through October 25)—that take critical views, respectively, of Impressionism and contemporary society Paul Signac, born in 1863 of middle-class Parisian parents, began painting at the age of 17 without having had any formal training in art Monet was his inspiration, but when he approached the master for guidance, he was rebuffed Monet advised him by letter to keep going as best he could "without being afraid to paint bad pictures," concluding that if things didn't automatically improve, there was nothing more to be done?he certainly wouldn't be able to help Signac thereupon sought out a lesser contemporary of Monet's, Armand Guillaumin, under whose tutelage he produced a number of Impressionist landscapes that showed a sttong feeling I oi coloi Two years later, in 1882, the young painter was included in the Groupe des Artistes Independants This was not in itself a proof of Signac's talent, the jury-less anti-Salon show contained a good deal of mediocrity, despite such entrants as Odilon Redon Nonetheless, it was there that he came upon the work of Georges Seurat, who at 23 had already begun to formulate a technique based on that popular recurring dream, the reconciliation of art with science Codifying the methods the impressionists had arrived at more or less intuitively, Seurat applied to them color laws proposed by scientists much earlier in the century Specifically, he used colors complementarily, but instead of mixing them beforehand, he juxtaposed them dab by dab on the canvas, so that when seen at the correct distance, they mixed themselves optically Seurat's pointillism—or, more accurately, divisionism—resulted in the now familiar pictures that present space, figures, objects, and landscape as components ot equal value, contourless in a glowing mist His purging Impiessiomsm ol movement and accident—ot naturalism, in a word...