NOTHING, it seems, can stop the slow westward drift of Western art. Its center has passed inexorably, though with innumerable minor eddies, from Athens to Rome to Paris. Now it is shifting westward once again, to Manhattan.
Externally, Manhattan is still far from deserving its new dignity. Its lofty skyline, magically beautiful from a distance, is made up mostly of architectural eyesores. The city's die-straight thoroughfares have unparalleled sweep and grandeur, but—save for Central Park—they lack sufficient stopping places for eye and feet, the attractive squares found everywhere in Paris. Finally, Manhattan can boast no artist thought great around the world (in all the U.S. there is only one of such stature: midwestern Architect Frank Lloyd Wright).
Fever and Imagination
But these arguments against Manhattan's pre-eminence as an art center mean little. The world's most admired contemporary artists are all old and mostly French. Before World War I, the geniuses of the "School of Paris"—Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Dufy, Rouault—mainly admired each other. Paris liked them not.
If a "New York School" is now in the making, as partisans claim, it grows in an artistic climate similar to that of Paris in the 1900s. As Paris was then, Manhattan is host to thousands upon thousands of young artists from near and far, fired with enthusiasm for themselves and for each other. Many scorn the art schools, and find their instruction and inspiration in a vast weekly banquet of important and exciting art shows. Their feverish eclecticism, their penchant for picking at random among the established schools and philosophies, lends the whole a chaotic effect. But the fact remains that good art seen in such quantity and variety stretches the imaginations, and therefore the possibilities, of men.
Blue Chips and Strong Futures
The art museums of the metropolitan area boast over 3,500,000 visitors a year —more than the combined yearly attendance at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds. Many thousands more visit Manhattan's 150 art galleries, where Superman, if so inclined, might see 1,500 exhibitions in a single season. The city's galleries and art auction houses did a total business last year as great as that of any other capital. And, say gallery men, business will be even bigger this year.
Granting that snobbery can play a large part in art collecting, the Manhattan market, caters increasingly to middle-income buyers who collect little-known artists for sheer, not sneer, enjoyment. Since a layman's taste is apt to be better than he imagines, such independent collectors may find themselves possessing the blue-chip pictures of a future market. The blue chips of the School of Paris have now climbed sky-high in price, may or may not go higher. Last month Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art paid $20,500 for a Soutine landscape that sold at only $2,500 nine years ago.