From the July 4, 1918 issue of the Provincetown Advocate, selected and edited by Kaimi Rose Lum
To write an honest article about a patriotic poster show wants, as our English friends would put it, “a lot of doing.” The patriotism is all there, and all right, but the art and the craft are not all good. But a thing that sets out to be a “show” can scarcely be all good.
There are two Brangwyns — big in intention but “tired” for their size, and lacking in the firm rich line of his decorations. There are two Raleighs — beautiful drawings; one especially, the mother and children, making one think of Steinlen, sending one’s eyes over the walls to see if a Steinlen is not there. Why not? One does not dare ask. Is Steinlen “gone”? In France, a good many men “over age” have given their lives.
There are a lot of Leyendeckers. They are so able, the Leyendeckers; but so hopeless in perfection. If Leyendecker does, as so many artists like to do, his own cooking, I am sure that the pots and pans are germless. He’d serve the food on gleaming crockery, the highlights scrubbed; he’d pile the grapes on fine old pewter, the highlights rubbed. But nothing could, or would dream of, spilling over. There isn’t any more a trace of dream about him. He can paint a picture of a cheese but he doesn’t give himself the time to eat them. A man should care about the taste of a cheese and put the caring into his pictures. The trousers on the two marines are perfectly wonderful—so wonderful that you came away without having as much as looked at the eyes of the boys inside. This will not do. Wilbur Steele, in his story in a recent Atlantic Monthly, says a fine thing about the Dream we have got to build to win this war. These posters are perfection of fact: but where has the dream gone?…
There are five remarkable “Chechoslovak” posters; decorative, intelligent, exquisite. They are produced by the School of Printing and Graphic Arts of the Wentworth Institute at Boston, and they prove in every way that the Chech and the Slav are with us, that the war is making paths by way of the seas all the way to Mars and the Moon. The pale color and the effectiveness of this group of posters prove too, that the carrying quality of a poster is to be gained by tone against tone, by silhouette, rather than by the employment of violence and hot color.
There is a large Albert Sterner, a funny combination of a Fifth Ave. girl, a sailor boy, a flag and an Inferno, all out on the street-car track in a four-cornered wind. … Of course there are Christies, and an Underwood, and several Montgomery Flaggs. Where on earth are there not?…
The French posters are beautiful. Reserved, dignified and arresting. Even in asking help in the death-struggle, they are not forgetful of beauty — and their way of asking is thoughtful, and their way of art is pure. Before them, one’s head lifts with thrill and respect, even as we do before them, in tribute and lifted by them; our splendid and inspiring allies.
Go to see the posters, think about them, realize how all art has rallied to the patriotic call, and help art to build its home. Keeping Art warm is a part of the work behind the lines. It is solid work towards the happiness of this tattered and bruised period’s posterity.
