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Mikhail Lifschits "Why Am I Not a Modernist" (Черновик)

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Mikhail Lifshitz

Why am I not a modernist?

Edited by Seletskaya N.V
Translated by Lissov B.K.
Second draft. Unauthorized copying is permitted
due to unfinished state of the translation.
(Второй черновик. Копирование без разрешения запрещено
ввиду незавершенности перевода.)

Having written this title in Bertrand Russell's style, I have to find
a correspondingly short answer. It will not hurt if the answer also
has a paradoxically polemic nature. The laws of genre should be
followed.

So, why am I not a modernist, why does any tinge of such ideas
in Arts and philosophy call my inner protest?

I am because, to my mind, modernism is connected with the
darkest psychological facts of our time. Those are cult of
force, carving for insouciant life and blind submission.

I may have forgotten something important in this list of the
deadly sins of the twentieth century, but my answer has become
longer than the question itself. It seems to me that modernism is
the greatest treason of the wardens of the spiritual departement,
the mandarins of culture - la trahison des clercs,
according to the well-known expression of one French
writer. Philistine opportunism of professors, writers and
journalists in reactionary politics of imperialistic countries -
all these are nothing in comparison with this gospel of the new
barbarity, contained in the sincerest and the most naive strivings
of modernists. For the first is, as thought, an official church,
based on following traditional customs, while the second one is a
social movement, voluntary obscurantism, modern kind of
mysticism. There cannot be two ideas about what is more dangerous
for people.

The author who has an impudence to write about this subject with
such straightforwardness, must be prepared for the sharpest
objections.

- How! You have depicted us a portrait of a German SA-man or an
Italian Blackshirt, and now do you want to assure us that he is the
closest relative of the bright Mattisse, the tender Modigliane, the
dismal Picasso?

Of course, not. I have nothing up to the moral reputation of
these persons. But, nevertheless, do not take away from us a
chance to judge about historical phenomena in no dependence on
the estimation of this or that person. Bakunin was a man of a
great revolutionary heart, but, however, anarchism, according to
Lenin's statement, is the bourgeoisity turned inside out.

- But Hitler prosecuted so called modern art, he declared it
as infection and degeneration. Is not it known to you, that the
bearers of fine aesthetic culture of avant-grade had to escape
from Nazis to the West?

Of course, it is known to me. But nevertheless let me calm down
your agitation by a little parable, taken from the life. In
1932, the National-Socialist government of Duchy of Anhalt
closed Bauhaus in Dessau, the well-known centre of "new spirit"
in art. This act was quite a glaring symptom of forthcoming
policy of the Third Empire. At the same time the Paris journal
"Cahiers d'art",published by Christian Zervos - the influential
supporter of cubism and posterior movements, answered this act
by the following note (nos. 6,7): "The National-Socialist party,
for reasons unclear to us, demonstrates hostility toward
genuinely modern art. This position seems to be paradoxical
since this party wants, first of all, to attract the youth. It
seems hardly acceptable to take all of those young, full of
enthusiasm, vital energy and creativity and push them into
outdated traditions."[1]

- Ah, you don't get it, swine? Hey, Heinz, Fritz, explain 'im!

And they explained.

Here is a real picture of the European morals on the eve of
Hitler's Walpurgis Night. How deeply this note shows the
grovelling of its authors, and how correctly it depicts the
admiration for forged youth of the young barbarians, which led
to the spiritual Munich of the 30s. Deeply in their hearts, the
supporters of "genuinely modern art" were possessed by the same
cult of vitality, spontaneous power and the same wind carried
them away from the shores of the "Liberal-and-Marxist nineteenth
century".

I understand that the publishers of this Paris journal were
people of fine inner culture who were far from a coarse demagogy
which required lessons of primitive Heimatkunst. They
might be imagining the youth of the world, that is free from
canons and norms, in a completely different way. And, indeed,
they didn't expect such a turn from the little demons of
literary Bohemia, these dime novel writers who came to power
expounding the myth of the twentieth century in the language of
Nietzsche and Spengler diluted by slobber of a rabid dog.

Nietzsche himself had an aversion for plebeian bad taste of
beer-house politicians, and he, undoubtedly, would have
repudiated from his spiritual children, while Spengler managed
to do it from the position of more respectable bourgeois
caesarism… But the logic of things acts by itself. And there
is a terrible revenge called by Marx and Engels, following
Hegel, the irony of history.

Did you want a vital power? Did you satiate with the
civilisation? Did you despise the people in their striving to
elementary fundamentals of culture? Did you require a blind
submission to irrational call of the Übermensh?

- Well then, get everything you deserved in full.

Here is another odd story. In the 1940 the aged Henri Bergson,
accompanied by a nurse, went to the German commandant's office
in Paris to be registered as a Jew. It is said that it was his
last going out - the world-famous thinker died without having
been sent to Aushwitz. Who can say that this man man was not
talented and honest in his own manner? His honesty has been
proved, by the way, by the fact he decided to share the destiny
of his compatriots, despite the fact he had gone away of the
Jewry a long time ago.

Yet there is one indisputable fact. Henri Bergson was a leader
of a new philosophic movement which gave a far-reaching
re-evaluation of principles at the beginning of the century. He
was the first to declare check to the king - that is, he raised
a question about demising the reason from its inherited
rights. Since that time everything has changed in the world of
ideas. Overlords of vital power and activity has come to the
foreground. Suffering devaluated, cruelty has become a symbol of
generosity. Countless admirers of Bergson and James had matured
for the ideals of violence as back as before World War I. And
another types already were seen on the horizon. The hero of one
of Monthrelant's novels ("Le Songe", 1922) in search of
"negation of mind and heart" shoots to the first surrendered
German's face.

Undoubtedly, that all these were not solely French phenomena. On
the contrary, on the other side of the Rhein a much more violent
evolution was taking its place. No one expected the sickly "will
to power" of decadent thinkers to be able to lead to such an
actuality like Nuremberg racial laws of the Third Reich. What
devildom intruded into this game?

- This is none of our concern. It is enough that it took place.

Of course, facts are not made by philosophers; on the
contrary, facts make philosophers. Otherwise the fault of the
latter would be too immense. Nevertheless, this fault
exists. Ancient Greeks called the state of tragic blindness
after particular goddess - the formidable Aite. Philosophy
should not make complains about the world when it makes its
principle blindness, instead of vision, when it seeks after a
union with the dark powers of the night. You have accepted a
situation of a problem and the solution does not depend on you
any longer. That is why the last days of Henri Bergson were a
cruel joke of the History.

It would be possible to give many other examples, but the
destiny of the German thinker Theodore Lessing, who was killed
by Nazis in August 1933, is the closest one to our historical
subject. Personally, Lessing was far from Nazism. But his
philosophy of the world history, his idea of meaningless flow of
facts and powers, his war with "spirituality" of the modern
culture, his call to avowal myth-making - all these went down to
the pre-history of Nazi Germany in their own way. It was you who
wanted it, poor George Dandin.

It may be said that there is no direct interconnection between
the teaching of Theodore Lessing and his tragic death.
Undoubtedly, there is not. Nowadays no one believes in the wise
providence leading us to the higher purpose by means of rewards
and punishments. Providence is a tale for children. In the world
of facts everything goes on by laws of natural and historical
necessity. But, nevertheless, religious fantasy has its own
motives. It is a bad copy of actual relations. So there is no
providence, but there is a natural connection of things having
some moral sense. And when this connection suddenly intrudes
into destinies of peoples and individuals, we are present at the
birth of a tragedy or, more often, a tragic comedy.

I may be told, that there is a great difference between a
sophisticated and sometimes reasonable polemics of a cabinet
thinker against the unlimited power of mind and the famous phase
of Jost's Shlageter "When I hear the word "culture" […], I
release the safety on my Browning". Indeed, there is a
difference. Everything is very tangled in the most tangled of
all possible worlds. Some of the creators of the new spirit in
arts and philosophy sympathised fascism in its different aspects
- their names are quite well-known starting with Marinetti. The
other part of these artists experienced a heavy hand of fascism
by the will of fate. We also know that the national development
of backward nations is often accompanied with "Storm and Urge"
of new art movements. These obvious facts cannot be
ignored. There are people of exceptional inner purity, martyrs
and even heroes among modernists. In brief, there might be good
modernists, but there might not be good modernism. The situation
here is similar to that one in the field of religion. Catholic
monks from the Basque Country who supported the Republic were
fighting against Franco. In the days of falling of Mussolini's
regime in Italy, some priests were performing "The
Internationale" on their bell-towers. Those people are our
brothers, and they are closer to our Marxist beliefs that those
intriguers who parrot Marxist phrases for the sake of their
career. There are also a lot of people who are worth respecting
among the believers. But there is no good religion, since the
religion is always connected by invisible bonds with the
centuries of serfdom.

So do not hurry to abolish the heritage of the Renaissance and
of the free thought of the nineteenth century. Do not repeat
with the crowd of these modern philistines, that this heritage
is will-o'-the-wisp in the dark night of centuries and not
summer lightings showing a way to the future. Do not put your
mind back to the new Dark Ages, as prophets of any regress do,
or do not make complains if you are forced to believe in absurd
and told what bust be considered a beauty by you to evade a lash
or even something worse. Because it is the very world of the
spiritual primitive.

I may be objected that my examples are applied to the masters of
speculative thought, and these people are nowadays less
respected category than people of Arts. All right then - let us
take an artist as an example.

Picasso was dissatisfied that in the revolutionary countries a
great importance was put to the museums and, in general, to
education of masses in the spirit of classical heritage. He said
in 1935 to Christian Zervos: "Our museums are just a lot of
lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly
impostors. I cant' understand why revolutionary countries should
have more prejudices about art than our out-of-date countries!
We have infected the pictures in museums with all our stupidity,
all our mistakes, all our poverty of spirit. We have turned them
into petty and ridiculous things. We have been tied up to a
fiction, instead of trying to sense what inner life there was in
the men who painted them. There ought to be an absolute
dictatorship […] a dictatorship of painter […]
dictatorship of one painter […] to suppress all those who
have betrayed us, to suppress the cheaters, to suppress the
tricks, to suppress mannerisms, to suppress charms, to suppress
history, to suppress heap of other things. But common sense
always get away with it. Above all, let's have a revolution
against that! The true dictator will always be conquered by the
dictatorship of common sense […] and may be not!"[2]

It is sad to read those words, especially if to remember, that
in 1935 there was already a total dictator. He was a
dictator-painter, or a failed painter, it comes to the same
thing. I mean Hitler because his biography was just of this
type. For some reason, all dictators beginning since Nero fancy
themselves to be very good at art.

I will be told that Picasso wanted completely different
"dictatorship". Of course, who will doubt? Be sure that I
respect his political views and the generosity of his
intentions. As for his world view, Picasso is at least careless
in his thoughts. Any appeal to the power which is able to
whipping up dim masses of people to the realm of the new beauty
(thought, for their own sake) with an iron hand is a dangerous
manoeuver. There is no such thing as an enlightened despotism,
despotism is always obscurant. Moreover, it must not be
forgotten that the sword has two edges. If under the name of
"revolutionary countries" Picasso meant the Soviet Union, then
thank goodness for his dream about "total dictatorship" in the
world of Arts was not accepted by our society. And for some
occurrences of this type are known in the past, they do not bear
any relation to the principles of the socialist order and are,
like other lawless actions, results of abuse of power.

In the years of my youth modernists were very powerful in the
revolutionary Russia. And they were using their fists readily,
without being aware of consequences of their actions for
them. People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky was deterring
the pressure of ultra-leftists with a great difficulty. He was
following Lenin's order but nevertheless was reproached by Lenin
for the lack of rigidity. Ilya Ehrenburg once had a disagreement
with Meyerhold, the famous leftist director who headed the
Theatre Division of the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment
and Education at the beginning of the 20-s. Meyerhold, being
dissatisfied with Ehrenburg's political attitude, without any
thought called in the commandant and ordered the latter to
arrest his interlocutor. The commandant refused as he had no
permission to do it. Ilya Ehrenburg recalls this episode in his
memoirs as a nice incident covered with haze of the past, but it
makes me feel terrified. I remember Meyerhold in his later
years, when the sword was already set upon his head. I deeply
and sincerely feel sorry for this person and artist.

How many tragedies there are, and how much bitter sense there is
in them! "Wisdom comes through suffering", as says chorus in the
"Oresteia" by Aeschylus.

The cult of power and the flavour to destruction, which are
peculiar to any kind of modernism, were embodied by the same
Ehrenburg in the person of Julio Jurenito, who was dreaming
about a naked human being on the naked earth. War and revolution
for Julio Jurenito are just steps to his long-cherished goal, in
the logic of "the worse the better". This "great provoker"
created by the writer's imagination was dissatisfied by the
moderateness of the Russian communists, especially in the field
of culture, but Lenin liked this Ehrenburg's novel. The power
which was embodied in the figure of Julio Jurenito and all the
atmosphere surrounding him was comprehended by Lenin very well
and he considered it as the most dangerous enemy of communism
although it played an important role in the destruction of the
tsarist Russia. The name of this force is a petite-bourgeois
element which is capable of destroying and utterly annihilating
the very fundamentals of culture. This is the element bearing in
itself the great Nothing, the breath of the desert.

This force is inconstant and many-sided. If Julio Jurenito
hadn't killed himself being disappointed with the fact that
Lenin wanted to preserve the heritage of the past by developing
its positive valuables \emph{in the same direction}, if this
"great provoker" had lived up to later times, he might have
become the right hand of Ezov or Beria, who knows. I can also
imagine him as a patron of arts, supporting pompous style of
pseudo-realistic works to depict banquets, formal parties and
other celebrations. Why not? Isn't crude poor painting
appreciated nowadays under the name of "modern primitive" around
the world? Did not Henri Rousseau take out onto the public the
wildness of the philistine soul, and is not he known as a
classic of modernism? Do not surrealist draw details of their
works with such a care, that could be envied by any academical
painter? There might be still an unknown modernism based on the
Victorian style and retaining all the signs of genre painting of
the nineteenth century.

When it is said that Hitler supported real forms in art, let me
argue that it is not true. First, there was a lot deal of common
modernist approach in the official art of the Third Empire. This
false restoration of real forms often reminds of Munich "New
Objectivity". This pompous pathetic element, this striving for
the monumental - all these things are saturated with the idea
of a contractual lie. There is no need to say about Italy, where
the futurism of Marinetti and fraudulent neo-classicism (which
come from the same decay) were taking an official position in
arts.

Second, the social demagogy of the reactionary forces always
adopts its external evidences from its arch-enemy. It is
required to attract the crowd, the "man of the street". It i
enough to remember the very name of Hitler's party. There a lot
of "socialisms", having nothing in common with actual concept of
this idea. Should we reject the socialism because of this
demagogy? An old legend says that Christ and Antichrist are
alike each other. Indeed, in decisively important moments of the
history such optical illusions are not uncommon. But woe is one
who is not able to distinguish between the living and the dead!
First of all the external analogues, which are willingly used by
the enemies of socialism by mixing the infantile disorders of
the new society with purulent ulcers of the new world, must be
taken away.

Third, the art of the future comes up in throes. "Wisdom comes
through suffering", and the person who thinks that ascent of art
from the pit where it has found itself (according to the
admission of many competent witnesses in different fields of
Arts and Sciences) can go in a different way, is just a very
nervous one. Literature is, of course, more fortunate than
painting, its prime time is not so far away from us. The
tradition of classical realism in the literature of our century
is still alive. Many works of contemporary western authors,
which have great success in the Soviet Union (often greater than
they were in their motherlands), testify this fact in their own
way.

But let us go back to Picasso. To prove our loyalty let us
compare him with Balzac. The great French writer created a
utopia of social bonapartism in one of his novels. Sooner when
he died that Napoleon III appeared and the utopia become
implemented in the form of a horrible burlesque. As an excuse
for Picasso and Balzac we can adduce the circumstance that even
deeper and righter ideas are often implemented in a very ugly
way. Actual history wants what it wants, it has its own
ways. The only derivation that can be made is the initial idea
requires more concrete development which allows to maximize the
use of unexpected turns of the history. As for the ideas like
that one of a total dictator-painter, which is destroying the
history to state cubism, abstract art or other modern nonsense
everywhere by means of force, it would be better not to have
such ideas at all.

Picasso's conversation with Zervos was published in "Cahiers
d'art" nos. 7-10, 1935. When Zervos wanted to show his notes to
the artist, the latter answered: "You have no need to show them
to me. In our ugly time creating enthusiasm is of the highest
importance. Did many people read Homer? Nevertheless all world
is talking about him. In this way the superstition of Homer was
created. And this superstition calls precious
excitation. Enthusiasm - this is just what we and young people
need."

I have no intention to accuse Picasso of anything. Moreover, he
had to listen to much ruder words from his modernist rivals than
those of mine. For me it is important just to stress the key
features of the world outlook, which is proposed to us as a
guiding star of forthcoming Arts. These are: giving up the real
image (considered by Picasso as a shallow illusion i.e. as a
fraud), and maintaining the premeditated fiction
(i.e. myth-making). Due to lack of space let us leave aside
social premises causing these strange and inwardly contradictory
phantasmata as well as the development of the latter in the
stream of images produced by the "genuinely modern art".

Just to say that the main intrinsic goal of this art is to
suppress the conscientiousness of the mind. Retreating to
superstition is here a minimal goal to be achieved. Much better
is (in this logic) to escape into the unthinking world. As a
result we have continuous endeavours to break the mirror of a
real life or, at least, to make it dull and unreflecting. Every
image here must be imprinted with features of something being
"different". Hence the figurativeness is diminishing. And in
this way we have something free of all possible associations
with a real life.

Andre Breton, the founder of the surrealism, complained once
that the daimon of the real imagination is very strong. Before
it was enough to paint a few geometrical figures on the canvas
to eliminate any associations. Nowadays this is not enough. The
mind has excelled in self-defence so much that even abstract
forms remind it of something real. It means that even a greater
aloofness is required. And here comes pop-art - the anti-art
which is namely a demonstration of invisibly framed real
things. In the sense, pop-art is the result of a long evolution
from the realistic image to the reality of the bare fact.

The initial goal seems to have been achieved at this point -
the worm of the mind has been squashed, the intellectual life is
dead. But this is a shallow illusion. Attempts of the crippled
spirit to go out of its own skin are both hopeless and
senseless. The gyration of the reflection around itself produced
only "tiresome infinity" and an unappeasable thirst for
something else. And if any phenomenon must be considered
according to its own laws, "contemporary art" can be understood
only by the mind initiated into this mystery. Any other approach
is either a philistine accommodation to the latest fashion or a
malevolent phrase-mongering reasoning of the people who want to
transport their cargo under a false flag.

Yes, this "contemporary art" is more philosophy than art. This
is philosophy that expresses the dominion of power and fact over
a clear thought and poetical contemplation of the world. Harsh
breaking of real forms means a rush of a blind embittered
will. This is a revenge of a slave, his would-be liberation from
the yoke of necessity, a mere safety-valve. And if only a
safety-valve! There is fatal link between the slavish form of
protest and oppression itself. According to all the modern
aesthetics the art effects hypnotically, traumatising or, vice
versa, stultifying and calming down the mind which is barren of
its own life. Briefly, this is the art of a crowd governed by
means of suggestion, being able to run following Cæsar's
chariot. Being confronted with this scheme I vote for the most
mediocre and most imitative academism because it is a lesser
evil. But, beyond all peradventure, my ideal is different, as
the reader can see.

People, rapturously accepting aforesaid revelations in their
interpretation by Zervos, have no right to make complains about
the theory of "big lie" in politics, about the mythology being
made by means of radio, press and cinematography, about the
"mind-manipulation" by the mighty of this world, about the
"conformism" and suchlike. Modernists were never against these
methods. On the contrary, their idea is a mass hypnosis,
"suggestive impact", a upsurge of vastly dark enthusiasm instead
of a reasonable thinking and a light feeling of the
truth. Modernism is a contemporary and not quite a sincere
superstition which is very similar to that one which was giving
rise to the belief in the miracles of Appolonius of Tyana in the
late times of the Roman Empire.

However, to maintain this superstition quite modern means are
put into action. It this connection Leo Tolstoy's words about
"epidemic suggestions", being made by means of printing-press,
come to my mind.

"With the development of the press, it has now come to pass that
so soon as any event, owing to casual circumstances, receives an
especially prominent significance, immediately the organs of the
press announce this significance. As soon as the press has
brought forward the significance of the event, the public
devotes more and more attention to it. The attention of the
public prompts the press to examine the event with greater
attention and in greater detail. The interest of the public
further increases, and the organs of the press, competing with
oneanother, satisfy the public demand.

The public is still more interested; the press attributes yet
more significance to the event. Sothat the importance of the
event, continually growing, like a lump of snow, receives an
appreciation utterly inappropriate to its real significance, and
this appreciation, often exaggerated to insanity, is retained so
long as the conception of life of the leaders of the press and
of the public remains the same. There are innumerable examples
of such an inappropriate estimation which, in our time, owing to
the mutual influence of press and public on one another, is
attached to the most insignificant subjects." [3]

And you should take the coefficient of "epidemic suggestion"
into consideration when the matter involves miracles of
modernism. What has been seen by Tolstoy was exceeded by the
modern type of advertisement a long time ago. In the old art
affectionate and conscientious depiction of the real word was of
importance. The personality of an artist himself was receded
more or less, compared to his creation, and thereby was ascended
over his own level. In the modern art the situation is just
opposite, everything that the artist does is gradually reducing
to a pure symbol, to the moment of his individuality.
"Everything I will spit out will be the art, -
said Kurt Schwitters, the well-known German Dadaist - because I
am an artist." Briefly saying, what is done is not important at
all. Important is only the gesture of the artist, his
reputation, his priestly dance in front of the lens of
cinematographer, his miraculous deeds which are trumpeted all
over the world. Ultimately he can heal by laying-on hands.

And this new mythology is least of all similar to that one in
the depth of which the art was born. Yes, the art of true
primitives is excellent. Everything in it is full of the charm
of an awakening life of heart and mind. One can learn a lot from
the old masters of our old Europe, from Africans, from folk
painters of pre-Columbian America. But the main question is -
what will you want to learn? "You can not return back to the
mother's womb", - Goethe once said. As much fascinating the
childhood is as much preposterous is the wish of an adult to lay
down his burden of thought and to pretend to be a child. That is
why if you do not consider a falling night as a fatal feature of
the modern world you have to be against the Arts taking this
dark abstraction of primordiality this happy absence of personal
though, this "sobornost" - as the Russian decadents were saying
- in a word this heaven of educated soul satiated with their
intellectuality, their hateful freedom - from the Dark Ages,
from the Ancient Egypt or from Mexico.

The language of forms is a language of the spirit and, if you
wish, is also a philosophy. When you see e.g. unvarying bowed
heads, obedient eyes and hieratic gestures of the people dressed
in working suits or peasant's jackets it is clear to you what
the artist wanted to say. He tempts you by dilution of
individual self-conscientiousness in a blind collective will, by
the absence of inner torments, by the happy thoughtlessness -
briefly by a utopia that is closer to that one depicted by
Orwell in his caricature on communism than to the ideal of Marx
and Lenin. I feel pity for this artist. What a simple soul! Pray
your god for your highest mathematics not to find a real
implementation in the actual world! At the other hand, I
foreknow your disappointment when the man in a jacket who woke
up after his century-long dream (as one can hope) will not want
to pose in a role of an Ancient Egypt slave submitted to a
monumental rhythm and the law of frontality. Although, for most
of the people, the museums are not "just a lot of lies" (on
Picasso's phrase) because these people are far from
satiation. They want to be individual persons.

The Cæsar is touched seeing the ceremonial crowd, the communist
does not need a crowd blinded by a myth. Emancipation for every
person is the condition for emancipation of everybody, as it is
written in "The Communist Manifesto". That is why I am against
so called new aesthetics, which carries a lot of old and cruel
ideas under the exterior of novelty.

Let the teaching of Lenin be always our standard. This doctrine
is about a historical initiative of masses, and any kind of
caesarism along with the atmosphere of miracle and superstition
peculiar to it is extraneous and hostile towards our idea. We
are for the union of the real enthusiasm of people with a lucid
light of science and the understanding of reality comprehensible
for any educated person and all the elements of artistically
developed culture, which has been raised by humanity since the
personality came off the blind obedience to hereditary forms of
life.

So do not let them tell us stories about the happy land of
Archaea and about the new primitive of the twentieth
century. The modern primitive, saying in Hobbes' words is
"robust but malevolent lad". I do not recommend you argue with
him in a dark alley. Let Kafka - a smart although morbid artist
- rise from the grave to write an allegorically audacious
novella about modern admirers of the obscurity, including his
own one. I would like to read \v{C}apek's story about the
salamander which rejects all the cliche and traditions. As for
me, I am fed up with this primitive of the twentieth century.

That is why I am not a modernist.


Translator's notes

[1] Vladimir Paperny, "Ruins of Modernity", 2010, Duke
University Press (p. 58)

[2] Cahiers d'Art, Nos. 7-10, Paris, 1935, pp. 173-8; English
translation published in A. H. Barr Jr, "Picasso: Fifty Years of
his Art", New York, 1946

[3] "Tolstoy on Shakespeare. A critical Essay on Shakespeare By
LEO TOLSTOY Translated by V. Tchertkoff and I. F. M.", New York,
1906 (pp. 99-100)


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