s of indignation because of such silly
utterances. Baudelaire, patterning after Poe and Bertrand, fashioned
poems in prose and created images of beauty; following him Huysmans
added a novel nuance and made the form still more concentrated. But
Signor Marinetti--there are no ideas in his prose and his images are
nil--writes as if he were using a cable code, a crazy one at that. How
far he is responsible for the "aesthetic" of the Futurist art I don't
know. If he is responsible at all then he has worked much mischief,
for several of the five painters are men of unquestionable ability,
skilled brush workers and of an artistic sincerity that is without
suspicion. Mind you, I don't say all of the groups; there are
charlatans who hang on to the coat-tails of every talented man or are
camp-followers in every movement. These five painters: Umberto
Boccioni (Milan); Carlo D. Carra (Milan); Luigi Russolo (Milan);
Giacomo Balla (Rome), and Gino Severini (Paris) do not paint for
money. The pictures in this exhibition are not for sale; indeed, I
doubt if the affair pays expenses, for it has travelled far; from
Turin and Milan and Rome, to Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam. It will
be in New York soon, and then look out for a repetition of the Playboy
of the Western World scandal. Some of the pictures are very
provocative.

Naturally the antithesis of old and new was unescapable the chilly
September afternoon that I entered the "Roos" gallery. Fresh from The
Milk Jug, that miracle in paint by Vermeer (formerly of the Jan Six
Collection); from the Rembrandt Night Watch (which was not much
damaged by the maniac who slashed the right knee of the principal
figure); from the two or three splendid portraits by Frans Hals; from
the Elizabeth Bas and the Stallmeesters by Rembrandt--from all these
masterpieces of great paint, poetry, humour, humanity, I confess the
transition to the wild and whirling kaleidoscopes called pictures by
these ferocious Futurists was too sudden for my eyes and
understanding. It was some time before I could orient myself
optically. If you have ever peered through one of those pasteboard
cylinders dear to childhood, you will catch a tithe of my early
sensations. All that I had read of the canvases was mere colourless
phrase-making. After the first shudder had passed, the magnetism, a
hideous magnetism, drew you to the walls, the lunatic patterns began
to yield up vague meanings; arabesques that threatened one's sani