As I stood in awe of the diverse artwork at the Armory Show I overheard a couple discussing the art pieces; the husband pointed to a Cubist painting and dismissed it saying, “A five-year old could draw this!” then he turned his wife’s attention to a European traditional piece and exclaimed, “Now that’s a painting!”.  This dismissal of modern art brings to mind the kind of reactions that plagued the Armory Show when it first opened in 1913.  At that time New York had not yet experienced the European experimental types of art like Cubism for example.  This show had both traditional and experimental pieces and that became a heavily debated issue.  Some critics like Kenyon Cox, an American painter and writer among other things, said that the art was “heartrending and sickening”.  Others like Stuart Davis, an early American modernist painter, thought that The Armory Show was “an experience of freedom”.

Many paintings caught my eye while I gazed at the numerous paintings and sculptures displayed.  One that was especially interesting was Vincent Van Gogh’s Mountains at Saint-Remy.

Mountains at Saint-Remy

This painting was done by Van Gogh during the late 1800’s as Paris began to industrialize heavily.  Van Gogh, like his good friend Paul Gauguin, sought to move away from the unhealthy, polluted theme of industrialized cities and urban environments, and embraced rural landscapes.  The paint strokes flow through the painting and make it alive.  Not only did the painting move away from the norms of Impressionist painters of the time, but it also represented the experimental painting style that would shock New Yorkers at the Armory Show a few decades later.  Maybe not one of the most “Modern” pieces of artwork at the armory show, yet it still was far from the realistic and traditional artwork associated with European Art.  A better example of the type of art that received much criticism is The Young Girl by Jacques Villon.  Fun Fact: Marcel Duchamp’s brother, Gaston Duchamp, changed his name to Jacques Villon in honor of the medieval French poet Francois Villon.

The Young Girl

This piece also captured my attention because of how different it looked from European paintings that focus on detail.  Jacques Villon explored Cubism since he discovered it in 1910.  His attention to the space and shapes in this particular painting enraptured me when I saw it.  Unlike other Cubist art, that sometimes leave something to be desired in terms of color, The Young Girl is an explosion of color.  Not only do its variety of colors give life to the painting, but it helps the the viewer distinguish between the “girl” and the background behind her.  All in all, it was artworks like this that drove New York critics like Arthur B. Davies, an avant-garde American artist and advocate of modern art in the United States, to proclaim that “New York will never be the same again.”  Art would now change in America, as a result of the experimental European art being showcased at the Armory Show.  As American painters began to see the new art styles they helped make Modern Art a popular thing and ushered the world into a new age of art.