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Page 2 THE MAROON TIGER f' ' i : CExhibition, ^Design, c Woodcut j By Wilmer Jennings, ’34 THE RECENT HARMON EXHIBITION This exhibition is held annually by the Harmon Foun dation. The foundation supposedly invites artists of some repute in art circles. In the recent exhibition, 57 Negro artists contributed 107 exhibits from all over the country. Prizes we e awarded by a jury. Such men contributed as Paln.er C. Hayden of New York City, James L. Wells of Howard University, Hale Woodruff of Atlanta University, Sargent C. Johnson of Berkeley, California, and William E. Artist of New York City. Such an aggregation of Pollen stuff and such a dis tribution of prizes reflects very clearly the misguided trend of Negro paintings. I wish to extend my apolo gies to those who contributed good exhibits, for there were some rather good pieces hung. I heard a man call the present-day trend of Negro paintings, “Negro pho bia” art. I.e meant the forming of a reflection of him self in his painting. This is of course impossible be cause he has nothing to reflect; the American Negro has not. He cannot understand African Art because a gap of nearly 50C years leaves no vestige of the art of his forefathers. he spiritual is another thing, however, because a per: an may sing even while enslaved. The tenth man was to start at the bottom because the arts of a people represent years of progress. How can the American Negro produce an art that will survive when he himself is losing his identity. I’m saying this to criticize the Harmon jury for encouraging “Negro pho bia art” by pinning prizes to such contributions. Oh well, “forgive them for they know not what they do, anyway.” I don’t know when I have seen such a list of mediocre jurors. A man who can’t do himself is the judge of whether somebody else can or cannot. It’s not amusing, it’s pitiful! We can probably forgive them this time because ac cording to the Time magazine, the winners happened to be the most needy; we will forgive them whether this was intentional or not. But we cannot forgive them for, shall we say, demanding that there be a Negro strain in the prize-winning contribution. I’m not saying that a painting with Negroid subject-matter is not good, but I do say that because it has for its subject something that is Negroid, it is not necessarily good ari or good Negro art. DESIGN AM) COMPOSITION In my use of the word art, I do not mean the art of making pictures but the art of making anything. Suc cess in art necessitates a fruitful imagination along with a knowledge of design and composition. It is these two things that I am most concerned about, because :e average person never seems to recognize them as t. h when looking at pictures or at anything that is the product of some one’s imagination. People fail to recognize their important places in a social order. Now, is there any wonder that people denounce the efforts of the modern painter to elevate his art from the limited and debauched strata to which realism has descended, up to a higher and more spacious region where he may get a breath of cool fresh air? In this higher region the artist is free to use design and composition to his heart’s content. With these two things we have a good that has proven its ability to stand the test of the ages without them we have probably the flimsy aesthetical sort of thi ng we see on magazine covers as a color edition of photographer’s genius. Can you not see the limita tion of perfection in copying nature as the ultimate goal of art. Pardon me, dear readers, if I have underestimat ed your appreciation for good art. THE WOODCUT Wood block cutting is the ari of cutting a picture on a slab of wood so that many prints may be made from the original cut. The wood block may even be used in the power press. Some artists specialize in this medium and many very fine works have been done. Many of our most powerful illustrations are woodcuts and are easily distinguished because of the singularity of the woodcutter’s technique. At one time etching and wood cutting were the only methods by which the press was able to illustrate its information; that is one of the reasons why the art has advanced to such a degree of perfection. The cutting of the wood block is done with special tools—sharp cutting instruments with blades that re mind one of the shoemaker’s awl. These tools are some times called gouges. There is another kind of block that is used very frequently; it is called the linoleum block. A layer of soft linoleum is used for the cut ting surface of the block; that makes the cutting much easier. This soft linoleum, how'ever, will not allow the cutter’s technique to be as fine and intricate as the hard wood surface. The method is very simple. The drawing is first made on sketch paper and the values are worked out at this stage. The drawing may then be traced on the block by means of carbon paper. The light masses are cut out v/ith the tools and the black masses are left. The inter mediate values are achieved with various kinds of tech nique. The drawing, of course, must be backwards. This is how the covers for The Maroon Tiger are made. This is the first year that this process has been used by this publication. The first blocks that were used were not so good, but as the technique of the two art editors improve, likewise will the covers of The Maroon Tiger more closely approach the works of Art. Not all of the covers have been wood blocks, however; some have been zinc cuts made by photo-engraving processes. The last two issues, however, have been done by hand and are valuable if for no other reason than that. Even though linoleum has made the pro cess much easier, it is still a hard task and too many toiling hours have been spent cutting these cover de signs to have them thrown listlessly around after a care less glance. The cover design for this issue is a woodcut and is nothing mysterious with subtlely thought out artistic characteristics but merely a representation of a medley of March events.