Quartet

The familiar plight of painters and writers in seeking recognition is traditionally surpassed only by poets and sculptors, those artists who perpetually face the problem of addressing an extremely limited audience. And so, Aristide Maillol, Ernst Barlach and Gerhard Marcks, all noted for their sculpture, have translated their sculptural conception of form and line into two dimensions via the highly communicable medium of graphic art.

This exhibition of lithographs and woodcuts is especially interesting in its implicit commentary on each artist as creator and technician over and above whatever medium he may exploit at a given moment.

Barlach, for instance, represented both by woodcuts and lithos, proves far more convincing in the former category. The woodcut, rarely a delicate medium, is one challenging to subtlety; Barlach capitalizes upon its bold, vigorous hardness, converting a linear element to sculptural, determined shape, substituting candid and forceful areas for greater refinement of expression. In dealing directly with problems of drawing, via lithography, Barlach's result becomes highly tenuous, unsure, and often completely confused. The same attempt at vitality employed to convey vignettes brutal in subject falters and emerges much weaker in its substitution of the crayon for the chisel or cutter. Faced with a flexibility and opportunity for nuance far greater than that offered in the woodcut process, Barlach's "expressionism" becomes less expressive.

Marcks, seen here through his woodcuts alone, utilizes an almost completely linear approach. The Orpheus and Eurydice series seeks sculptural monumentality through the use of freer, more flexible line than is commonly found in woodcuts. Paradoxically, the "freer" the line attempts to become, the more it appears as the slave of an unconquered medium. Caught between an oddly Germanic type of flowing grace and a more indigenous forcefulness of expression, the product is unresolved. At times, especially in the matter of such problems as the portrayal of facial expressions, Marcks' drawing becomes trivial, often being nothing short of silly. Ironically enough, this brings to mind Maillol's observation that "grimaces come too easily."

Maillol's lithographs of nudes are completely unassuming figure studies, making no attempt at emotion. Nevertheless, they are--another irony--by far the most expressive. Maillol, who admired Egyptian sculpture enormously, used to speak of finding the most significant motion in the greatest stillness. "Immobility of the body," as he himself put it, "does not mean immobility of the flesh."

These lithographs are only vignettes, yet they are wonderfully complete. Each one has its own poetic raison d'etre, each one functions perfectly as an entity. Maillol has translated the grace and fluid volume of his sculpture to the lithographer's stone with such success because he is equally as fine a draughtsman as a sculptor.

Only two of the Maillol woodcuts are shown, but these bear out the observation. They are the most graceful, the simplest and the most convincing of any woodcuts here.

Concurrently, Jane Stouffer, daughter of Professor Samuel Stouffer, has her first exhibition in this country after having shown last year in Florence. Her casein paintings and color woodcuts of Venetian, Florentine and other motifs make their debut in high company at the Gropper, exhibiting considerable control and a highly personal use of the media.

Miss Stouffer's forte lies in color especially, which she handles in a varied yet subtle and consistent manner. Her brisk, incisive drawing seems equally personal, although there are instances in which the idiom becomes conventionalized, overwhelming rather than serving the fundamental idea. In any event, her paintings and woodcuts are all fresh, lyric and full of spirit.