Page:The Dial (Volume 76).djvu/267

Rh A formidable list. Certainly most of the challenging spirits in the present-day world of art are included, and sometimes by their most challenging performances. I have already hinted that the Lower Manhattan of Mr Marin will test the openness of the minds of many advanced students, and in addition there is La Danse aux Capucines by Henri Matisse. M Matisse seldom deigns to explain to the outside world the genesis of his paintings and not only loves to be loved, like Richard Strauss, for the "absolute" quality of his compositions, but yearns to see the public occasionally charmed against its will. In the present case I think I may take it upon myself to say that this Danse aux Capucines is a painting of a painting and that only a portion of the great mural dance that Matisse painted just before the war for a German enthusiast shows in this arrangement of his studio corner. I have a sort of traitorous shame is thus betraying a "fact" in connexion with an abstract appeal, but since I have overcome it myself I think others may too. Matisse is undoubtedly one of the great painters of modern times and there are scores of his canvases that must seduce all those who succumb to virtuosity in painting, but in the Danse he throws all enticements to the winds and simplifies to an extent that would put even Giotto to shame. I am one of those charmed by it against my will. When I first saw the mural in the studio of the artist I was not precisely bowled over by it, preferring many other things in the studio to it, but now, of all the collection by which this folio has suddenly enriched me, it is this Danse aux Capucines I have chosen for my wall; and it glows there in a vital, relentlessly arresting way through all the day and through all changes of light.