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  • Text beginning with ‘En vue de sauver l’art’

Jacques Lipchitz

Text beginning with ‘En vue de sauver l’art’

[1938–40]

Page 1

Created by
Jacques Lipchitz 1891–1973
Date
[1938–40]
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Created by
Jacques Lipchitz 1891–1973
Title
Text beginning with ‘En vue de sauver l’art’
Date
[1938–40]
Format
Document - writings
Collection
Tate Archive
Acquisition
Presented to Tate Archive by Rubin Lipchitz, March 1989; the cataloguing and selective digitisation of this archive collection was supported by Mr Timm Bergold, 2023
Reference
TGA 897/5/1/3

Description

Contains a typescript of a manifesto by Jacques Lipchitz. Probably, the text is linked to the story with the Exposition Internationale Paris 1937 because it was kept with related correspondence.

Full translation:
'1. In light of saving art from liquefaction, our generation is considerably pre-occupied with plastic [art]. Isn?t it the time to incorporate depth into the form, following the example of science, which has widened the concept of the world by integrating scientific experience into thoughts?
2. Under the influence of new social conditions, we continue to say that art should be as clear as liquid to allow the gaze of the multitude. Is it possible to allow the artist to condition his effort based on the emotional and spiritual capacity of this multitude or, to the contrary, share thoughts to the extreme, making it multiple, so that it can exercise its powerful attraction, and elevate it, depending on its meaning, to a deeper level of understanding?
3. Have we forgotten the surrounding world to be able to stay isolated in one formula?
4. Is there a danger of surrendering to the requirements of the public, who are more and more convinced about their intelligence, and want to understand the works and follow its process from the design to the creation?
5. Shouldn't the youth work with force, almost with rudeness, following the example of Cezanne, Matisse and the Cubists, instead of making 'pretty things' and reduce Art to some likeable combinations?
6. Are the new young generation of artists right to follow a schedule prepared by or for them, like the candidates at the Roma price?
7. Does it justify the return of some youth to the past, trying to be reborn as a fraud: Neo-impressionism, neo-hedonism, neo-classism, neo-realism, neo-humanist etc.?
8. Is it not absurd to diminish and annihilate the current research to achieve easy simplification? Would it not be advantageous for the youth to start on the problems left by their elders, keeping what they like, refusing what they don?t and completing the lesson given?
9. Is it not a grave mistake of the youth to neglect the universality of the art, to divide it into thousand arteries, with each of them closing off their emotions.
10. Isn?t art today more treated by the young artists, under false modernist masks, with the help of pretentious Greek language, re-instating in the heart of the art the most abject academism, rather than the professional detractor?
NOTE:
'I would like you to get back to me with the most freedom of spirit, I'm only doing this survey in the hope that it will be useful.
I removed the photograph mother and child. It's really too repetitive. I've requested large prints of the photographs you had on that same page. '

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Archive context

  • Personal and professional papers of Jacques Lipchitz TGA 897 (451)
    • Writings TGA 897/5 (12)
      • Writings by Jacques Lipchitz TGA 897/5/1 (9)
        • Text beginning with ‘En vue de sauver l’art’ TGA 897/5/1/3
Artwork
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