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“Melancholy”
The Weird Drawings
of a German Artist
Who Strives to Portray
the Hiddden Storms
of the Spirit
“The
Dancing
Soul.”
Conscience
shown for the
the very essence of melancholy.
In "Care" he gives that curious sen*
of a brooding “something over us” fron
which it seems impossible to escape, am
in “Conscience,” grotesque as it is, he
seizes upon the panic of the erring soul
when the tongues of conscience have
awakened it. “Look, there may be dan
ger here”—“Look there may be danger
there”—each head seems to be saying
while the harassed spirit rushes blindly
onward.
In “Our Sins” there is the overpower
Ing suggestion of the fear that the guilty
feels. Geiger shows the soul as a
creature in its bed with a little candle
beside it. Outside the door is a figure
half man and half beast that has the ma
terialization of the sins feared.
“I knock, I am coming in,” growls the
beast without. And the soul, trembling,
ligbt3 the little night lamp to assure it
self that the wall still stands betweet
itself and the wrongs it has done.
The “Dance" is frankly a grotesque.
Yet it conveys at a glance the Spirit’s
frantic effort to drown foreboding in a
mechanism of gayety.
In the last picture of “The End of All"
the inherent pessimism of Geiger finds
its apotheosis. It shows a skeleton sit
ting on the world while its head rolls
from its shoulders off into nothingness.
It is the logical conclusion of all pessi
mism. It Is grim and ugly with the for
biddingness of the utterly lost—and it is
meant to be. It is the climax—or anti
climax—o^ the soul when it becomes soul
less!
Dark, almost insane, these “soul -con
ceptions” undoubtedly are. But they ar«
at the same time full of power and of a
mysticism that is compelling.
O N this page are
first time in America some of the
weird drawings by Willi Geiger,
a German artist who, even in this time
of war, has created an enormous sensa
tion in art by his “soul” pictures.
Geiger has taken the place left vacant
by the famous Spanish artist Goya and
the Frenchman, Felicien Rops. He
aspires to be a symbolist of the moods,
the storms and stresses of the struggling
spirit of man. These moods and emo
tional disturbances he personified in fig
ures terrible, grotesque and sometimes
hideous. He takes the abstract and en
deavors to personify it—just as in an*
0»her way the dramatist who writes a
miracle or morality play personifies the
abstract.
Not everyone passes through the soul
phases which Geiger depicts, but all of
us have seen souls passing through these
struggles, and to everyone a study of
these curious pictures is well worth
while—whether one agrees that the soul
phase has been truthfully pictured or not.
In his “suicide” the -loneliness, the
futility and the horror that must sweep
the soul at the moment of soul destruc
tion is symbolized by the gigantic Death
which plays upon a harp of hu-
t manity and the little figure dang-
JA ling from the end of the snapped
v\ string.
In his "Melancholy” the sad flg-
JA, ure sitting upon
-the coffin-shaped
ji fhrone looking
through the lonely
avenue whose tree
trunks are like
bones is strongly
I-? typical. It carries
Suicide
Making Clothes Lighter and Cheaper
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tage is felt even when one wears an
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The warmth produced Is also said to
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a woolen garment, because the fabric
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origin and because of the air it con
tains.
The scientific explanation of the
heat-preserving power of Kapock Is
that thero is a layer of air between
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This abundance of air, an extreme
ly hygienic quality, gives Kapock the
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Jean Mondamert de Saint Rene, of
France, show that in fresh water Ka
pock supports a hundred and seventy-
five times its weight. A man provided
with a coat of this material floats
like a cork. This Is a very valuable
feature for soldiers who are frequent
ly called upon to cross rivers, and
also for all -persons wiffi may be
^object, to ghiprexack, JYhen the
T HE authorities of the French
army in searching for a suit
able material for campaign
uniforms have discovered a vege
table fabric which it is said is much
cheaper and more satisfactory than
woollen cloth. It is warmer and
much lighter than wool. It is com
monly used for linings, but may be
made Into whole cloth.
This fabric Is called “Kapock.” It
has been used for overcoats, capes
and underclothes for soldiers, and it
has already become quite popular
as a material -for overcoat linings
for civilians. Many of the mat
tresses furnished to the soldiers are
stuffed with Kapock, and it Is proph
esied that this new material will
soon be used for every purpose *or
which wool is now employed.
Kapock. which is also called vege
table eiderdown and tropical down,
i« a silky and downy material similar
to cotton, but having many great ad
vantages 6ver it. Kapock in its nat
ural state Is a kind of padding which
surrounds and protects the fruit of
various trees of southwestern Asia.
Malaysia and other parts of the
tropics. This downy material is not
produced by the seed- itself, as Is the
case with cotton, hut by the internal
walls of the fruit. It is a felty mass
in its original state in which axe
lodged the bare seeds.
wearer comes out of the
water, moreover, the coat is
usually dry, and even if the
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The material has marked health-
preserving qualities for several rea
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to microbes and insects, whether
they be moths or other vermin.
The Kapock trees grow naturally
in nearly all tropical regions. They
may be also cultivated artificially,
and it is said that their cultivation
will prove a very Important source of
wealth in tropical countries. They
begin to yield about the fifth year or
sooner and produce about two pouii^
of fibre per tree. At tne season SsU
maturity the five sections of the fruit
open and the fibres scattqy every
where, covering the surrounding
ground with a yellowish white layer
of an incredible thickness, some-
would break the fibres, which are
very fragile, but they are “parallel
ized” by a process invented by M. de
Saint Rene. The Kapock thus ob
tained may he used in mattresses,
cushions, cloth, etc., in any fabric, in
fact, from muslin to silk. The fibres
are inserted in various directions
forming a downy lining It can be
applied to garments of all kinds and
also to bandages for dressing
wounds, sleeping sacks and the
In some cases the na-
__ _ the fruit themselves,
throw away the shells and the seed
and spread the down in the sun to
dry. After drying they make bales
of It' which are then forwarded to
the factory.
At the factory the down is carded,
but not the cotton, for that process
Copyright, ISIS, by the gtax Company, Great Britain Rights Reserved.
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