Evening Star Newspaper, October 4, 1931, Page 96

- Mad, Bad, Sad, Happy, Montparnasse You May Travel the Wide World Over, but “You’ll Never Meet More Freaks Nor Geniuses Than You’ll Find Today in the Dizzy Art Centers of Paris. ' Abraham Lincoln Gillespie writes Eng- ULish words, but few readers understand what they mean. BY C. FRANCIS DICKIE. T is 2 o'clock in th» morning on the Boule- vard Montparnassc. This quarter, which for years has been th2 home of all manner of artistic workers, has now also become the center of right lif2, and robbed Mont- martre of much of its form-r glory. . In the Cafe Sclect, on tall stools before what the French call with an amusing mis- conception of the rcal article, the Bar Ameri- cain, are seated fcur mecn from the United States. Their foreia‘hers made too much money in the land of onportunity, and now these children play at art, but work overtime only in cafes. - Queerly enough, Americans are the wildest of all the inhabitants of this mad section. They are the most freakish dressers. At the bar sits one man, who in his home town of Kansas City was undoubicdly clean shaven and wore at least well fitted ready-to-wears. Now he sports a beard ro Frenchman of today would dare, and a suit of corduroy that smacks of the days of Trilby. In a far corner of the room seated alone at a table before one franc beer is a Russian sur- realist painter, all the mournfulness of his tragic land in his heavy brooding eyes. “Starving as usual,” he remarks with a tired whimsical smile. And yet this painter Michonze seems to have a touch of genius. For five years he painted before he sold a picture, a record even for Paris, where it is said there are 40,000 artists, What strange images he conveys to canvas, They grip you. They give you strange emo- tions. His men, women and animals are of an unreal world, the earth of the sur-realists, most modern of schools in painting. Men with- out heads. Trees uncanny like in a nether world. One of his paintings in particular, shows a long road leading up a hill between unearthy trees. In the middle of it two gigantic eggs seem moving up the hill. “But those are not eggs. Those are men— but expressed sur-realistically,” he tells you, speaking in all seriousness. Growing animated, he proceeds to expound the theory of this new school. “Life,” he cries with flashing eyes, “is too terrible, or it is too banal to contemplate as it is. So I and my brother artists paint - gomething out of space and time.” LITTLE apart for the moment, lost in con- templation the while he munches.on & Inrge piece of Swiss cheese, sits Abraham Lin- ooln Gillespie, in whom is epitomized all the modern group of writers who are treating tne written word in the same fashion that the cubists and the sur-realists have treated paint- ing. He belongs to the school of word jugglers whose high priests are Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, the writings of both of whom are unintelligible to the average reader. If it is possible, Abraham Lincoln Gillespie, more briefly known as “Linkers” to all the Shining lights of Montparnasse’s literary firma- ment, is more obscure than either Stein or Joyce. An example of his work is quoted, as indicative of the working of the modern mind. It is titled: “A Love Episode,” and is given exactly as printed, capitals and all: " “She Howsanay—Sweetmoist-mome-delaying clouds away libido-see percepscient Homag- complish OpenBeauty’s love-committing EERie Voke Bloom Reason Push.” N the terrace of the Cafe du Dome you may hear the now celebrated painter Foujita relate his receiving a commision of a half million francs to paint a fresco m home of a French industrialist. This Je, painter, just past middle age, is one of the ekceptions to the generally true rule that most painters die without getting their just mone- tary rewards. In a brief time he has leaped into inter- national fame. His rise is exceptional. It is only a matter of a decade that he sat pen- miless and unknown on the terrace of the Cafe Rotonde. The son of a Japanese ade- miral, be had his allowance cut off when he refused to returr to Japan after finishing his art course. The day after receiving this news he sat upon the cafe terrace and related his situation to a chance-met buxom young French woman, & painter like himself. “But, mon vieux, haven’t you any work you can sell?” &y Foujita admitted he had plenty of drawings, but expressed his doubts of thelr bringing any- thing. However, Fernande, with that keen practicability of the French woman, insis’2d on seeing his output. She carted it all away and went from art dealer to art dealer talking of the work and prophesying a brilliant future for Foujita. In a few days Fernande hunted him up. She had sold all his work at from 20 francs to 200. This gave him courage to continue, He was tremendously grateful and wished her to share the money. She refused. - * “Then what can I do to repay you for all your trouble?” “Marry me,” was the unusual response. A few days later Foujita's diary recorded: “Epouse une femme apache” (married an apache lady). T is afternoon on the Boulevard Montparnasse. Yet what incredible sight is this you see? Down this busy Paris thoroughfare comes riding upon a bicycle a man in full cowboy dress, Hanging over the handlebar of the ma- chine is a lasso neatly coiled. Of all the ~ The strangest sight in Paris is to see Granovsky, the Russian painter of cowboys, riding his bicycle through the streets, lasso coiled on handlebars, spurs jangling at pedals, 10-gallon hat flapping in the breeze, six-shooter always at his belt. re strange sights of sad, bad, mad Montparnasse this is the queerest, presenting a triumphaat conquest of frustrated dreams. The rider of the bicycle is Granovsky, a Russian painter, etcher, sculptor of no mean talent, but before all things a cowboy in imagination. As a child of 10, even in far-away Russia, he had heard of the Western American cow- boy. The first motion pictures were largely de- voted to their doings. He was filled with an incurable longing to go to the far prairies of America and live the imagined romantic and delightful existence of the range riders. But the years slipped on, and his apprenticeship to art was slow and marked by a depth of pov- erty which made a trip to America impossible. Now with passing time and coming middle age and the fact that his paintings are selling fairly well, helped perhaps not a little by his ectentricity, he remains in Paris, yet preserv- ing his dream by going continually dressed as one of his lifelong heroes. What makes the “Starving-as-usual”’ Gregory Michonze, seated before his famous canvas of twe eggs rolling up l}’ill. Only they’re not eggs, he tells you, but men, “surrealiss r expressed. Kiki, Queen of Montparnasse. .Borm Alice Prin, she rose from a 50-cent-a- week baker’s helper to becgme the most famous woman of Paris. man really interesting is his absolute sincerity , in the role. He is not playing the part for mere commercial ends, of attracting attention; but like a boy denied reality, he takes it out in dreams. For 12 years he has appeared al- ways in the identical costume. He is always dressed the same. This rope that hangs from his bicycle, perhaps more than anything, strikes you as proof of the actuality to him for his dream world. 8o nowadays he bicycles around Montpare nasse. He has completed this real life picture. ‘The far plains of the West will never know him; but he will die happy no doubt, and is living happier and perhaps painting better pice tures because of this partial fulfillment. ADEMOISELLE PRIN, of all the folks in this queer mad quarter, is the most adorable of all the women. In Alice Prin is summed up all the finest attributes of that personality to which the ‘world has given the name “Bohemian.” Mille. Prin sips her coffee slowly. Author, actress, painter, ex-model, the friend of every great artistic figure in this quarter, the mos¢ photographed woman in all Montparnasse, she is known to thousands. Yet if you were ta mention Alice Prin to them the name would convey nothing. For to Paris in general her name is Kiki—Kiki, the soul of Montparnasse, a flaming gorgeous creature. Even her 14-year-old long cruelty of struggle upward from a 50-cents-a-week baker's maid, to recognition in every field of art has still left a kindly personality. And though there is a lurking hint of tragedy now in her eyes, like a big child battered by life and suddenly surprised at this, her sympathy, her unfailing helpfulness to others still has withstood too many disappointments in her far-ranging friendships. = She deserves a whole volume, rather than this brief recital. She has, indeed, written her own life in French; but there is no magic in the English translation to give the true spirit of the writer. Thus the unimaginative cus- toms inspectors in the United States at least have barred the book for its too Latin frank- ness, an open reference to certain phases of life not being welcomed on these shores. T 14, just shortly before the war, Kiki came to Paris to take up life’s battle. She went to work in a book bindery, then a boot factory, then making ammunitions. From this to & bakery where she ran errands, cleaned houSe, made beds, handled flour. But the baker's lady fired her because she blackened her eyee brows with a burnt match. While looking for work she met a sculptor who, charmed with her fresh country air, asked her to pose. At first she was terribly embare rassed. But gradually she became used to it, The studio was near where she lived. Some one told her mother her daughter stood naked in front of a man. The mother arrived unex- pectedly at the studio and discovered her. Without a home, Kiki became an out-ande out Bohemian. The rest of the artistic quare ter, little richer than she, took her te their heart. A man’s hat, a cape, shoes too large for her she wore with a jaunty air, for her heart was light and her health was good. From posing in many studios she felt stir withe in her a desire to paint. Men whose names are now becoming well known around the world gave her lessons. i And so step by step she progressed until, 14 years after she had come to Paris as a little Burgundian peasant without education or any knowledge of life, she is known as Kiki—queen of Montparnasse, and her friends are legion. Heliotropism Described HE tendency of flowers to bend or incline _ the direction of the sun is known scientife leally as heliotropism. In the case of plants with flat leaves, such as the geranium, this turning toward the light is accomplished by means of a different rate of growth of the stalk. Sides away from the light grow at & more rapid pace, bringing about the curvature of the stalk. In other types of plants with radial leaves, the turning toward the light cone sists of directing the points of the leaves, and this method requires but little change in the growth of either side of the stalk,