Life, 1922-04-27 · page 25 of 34
Life — April 27, 1922 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is satirical commentary on modernist art pretension. The piece mocks a fictional French female painter whose work is presented as incomprehensibly abstract. The satire targets: **The subject:** Mademoiselle Intriguerie represents affected modernist artists who justify nonsensical work through pseudo-intellectual language about "inspiration," "the ego-soul," and translating music into color. **The joke:** She "paints" by squeezing pigment onto canvas while speaking of symphonies and profound expression—the paintings appear to be meaningless abstractions. She claims paintings communicate through synesthesia (mixing senses: "g minor in painting is chrome yellow"). **The target audience:** American bourgeois viewers unfamiliar with European avant-garde art, presented as foolish for not understanding pretentious modernism. The author (Roger Burlingame) concludes Americans are "savages" artistically—ironically, since the whole piece suggests the emperor has no clothes. The accompanying sketches appear to show abstract compositional studies labeled as serious artistic expression.
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A Page of New Aisthetics The Painting of Mademoiselle Intriguerie those that ‘com- very- little, aged, our ) are dis- com- Mile. Intriguerie in her studio may ficial Wi \T is it, after all, that raises 5 stay vonne Intriguerie above the 1 the fp ruck | rabble of the modernist est ofp painte Is it that her painting is so subtly ivfime? Is it that it is so raffiné? Is it that it is s6 rare (not rare as we : should say, Anglo-Saxons) ; so of the Ing Ff quality, as she would express it, des ath f fepillows nus qui dansent sur un poéle chaud? Is it that it is so... . What is it that it is, indeed? ING I wandered at random: into Mlle. Intriguerie’s tiny news: f Paris studio in a corner of the rue des Escargots au ort, p Beurre’ There she was, painting, Mon Dieu! x has P Splashing great gules of color on the vast canvas be- the p fore her who “Ah.” [ said in French, and then, feeling that this had somchow been inadequate, I added, “alors ofrain ilo sooner spoken than I regretted my words. r any iat T meant to say was,” I went on haltingly, base: is your method that so intrigues me.” s orf “Ah!” she said, coming very close to me and tap- the p Ping her long thin finger on my shoulder. “You mean base- | ™Y tspiration! It comes to me first in melody.” She swith P humme melodiously an instant. “You see that is g ctures | Minor.” I observed that it was, to be sure. “Now s the | § Minor in painting is chrome yellow.” “Obviously,” I said. She picked up a tube of paint and squeezed an on fit out on the canvas. “Hear that?” To my insen- sleep- ff sitive e: the pigment made no sound, notwithstand- work, 2g the pain she must be inflicting on it. “Now for * any- the accompaniment in ¢ major. A soupcon of burnt veping. ff Sienn: 3urnt as it was it made no murmur. “Voila! n, and A symphony! It sings! There is the finished paint- ime to fing. I call it ‘Form: A Study in Expression of the - Fox |} Ego-soul.’ My soul! My singing soul !” ood: I left her in a confusion of thoughts. In the warm sunlight of the rue des Escargots au Beurre, I thought Pow little we bourgeois Americans know of Art! (Above) Form—a Study in Expression of the Ego-soul “Speces de sauvages! Roger Burlingame. (Below) Truth comicbooks.com