Word: abstractions
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Surrealisme" in painting is a revolt against abstraction. With the invention of photography in the last century painters had subconsciously realized that representational art was dead, bested by the camera. And so while many painters insensitive to new influences continued to push painting to the extreme boundaries of realism, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and their followers developed abstract expressions, Purism, Cubism, etc. But their theories were based on the assumption that man possesses a sixth sense, the so-called aesthetic sense, which vibrates in response to pure forms, colors, arrangements, proportions, divorced not only from reality, but also impoverished...
...these new painters, the "Surrealistes" attempt to discover a world that is objective, non-abstract, meaningful, and yet inaccessible to the camera. They depict a world of the subconscious imagination, more real than conventional reality, fantastic in so far that it is opposed to the logic of our every-day life. A pocket watch painted as an object so limp and pliable as to be used for a riding saddle, that is not abstract but it is fantastic. The "Surrealistes" of 1924 adopted Freudian psychology as a key to the subconscious world they wished to explore and depict...
Cram has said of him: "I can honestly say that as an abstract type of genius Wright Goodhue was the most brilliant man I have ever known. His ability in the line of stained glass was remarkable. I think Goodhue ranked next to Aubrey Beardsley in keenness and distinction. Being a great genius he was naturally erratic in certain directions with a profound conviction that he must work along the lines that in his opinion were right. He seemed to me to be a reincarnation in modern times of some spirit out of the Middle Ages. His difficulty was that...
...vivid small canvasses by Lureat and Gaston-Louis Roux, done in a rather abstract and cubistic style are good examples of this branch of modern art. Watercolors by E. F. Noyes '32 and Professor Pope of the Fine Arts department are of particular importance in this exhibit. Etchings, lithographs, and engravings by Rembrandt. Van Dyck, Nanteull, Daumior, and J. S. Plaut '33 among others, are also exhibited...
Famed though Mr. Justice Holmes is for the liberalism of his judicial thought, for his vigorous dissents from majority opinions, for his literary grace and phrasemaking, it is likely that he will be remembered longest as a great abstract thinker, a philosopher who practiced his profession under the guise of the law. Years ago he gave Harvard students his high intellectual creed in these words...