Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/239

Rh sculpture, but it is also true that they are more than this—that they are exceedingly intelligent men, endowed, moreover, with more than the usual allotment of talent. Just now they reach for a very small and very particular audience, one jaded by experience in art, and demanding certain definite shocks, rare expressions, in order to be aroused. Lachaise's figure of a woman is a real contribution to the so slowly growing gallery of portraits of her."

Unless all signs err, Mr. Guy Pène du Bois is due to get—or should we say has already got, since by the time appears the new Bourgeois show will be in full swing— what may without exaggeration be called the surprise of his "critical" life, when he looks over the menu of the latest Lachaise exhibition. For in contrast to the previous show, in which the titles (Rhythme, Anéantissement, etc.) were chosen by Monsieur Bourgeois, the elements of the present show are, as we trust, to be named by Lachaise himself; in which case the "critic" of the Evening Post will find himself confronted by at least two titles which not only knock his "reach for a very small and very particular audience, one jaded by experience in art, and demanding certain definite shocks, rare expressions, in order to be aroused" thesis into a cocked hat, but will, we are confident, give him an attack of goose-flesh into the bargain—id est, Love and Home. And why? because while any one except Lachaise might stand accused of insincerity in applying these stand-bys of morality to work whose inherent—which is to say ultimate—significance 1is purely for aesthetics, Lachaise has never stood and never will stand, apropos either his personality or his work, accused of this particular thing. Were it possible so to accuse him, Mr. Guy Pène du Bois would in our opinion be incurring considerable personal danger in so doing. It looks to us as though the gentleman is in the extraordinarily painful, not to say peculiarly undignified, position of being up a tree. At least we may expect of our "critic" that in this predicament he will comfort himself with the last line of that most popular wartime song, America I Love You, which goes, "And there're a hundred million others like me."

Unless some unforeseen accident occurs, the present exhibition should include a number of drawings (which totally negate the favourite contention of "criticism," to the effect that Lachaise's work constitutes the doing of one thing over and over), the bas-relief Dusk