Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

f 'V “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 Than Wool, Out of a Vegetable Kapock is of extraordinary light ness, for a bale of it, a cubic yard in size and very tightly packed, only weighs thirty pounds. Perhaps its greatest quality is thatit is a remark ably preservative of heat, so that it makes the wearer warmer than he would be in a woollen suit, while it weighs six times lees. This advan tage is felt even when one wears an overcoat merely lined with Kapock. The warmth produced Is also said to be much more agreeable than that of a woolen garment, because the fabric is of vegetable and not of animal 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 the fibres of the material and also in the interior of each fibre. This abundance of air, an extreme ly hygienic quality, gives Kapock the valuable property of floating in the water and of supporting the wearer in the water. Experiments by M. 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 material lias been soaked through it would receive no damage, for it does not decompose. The material has marked health- preserving qualities for several rea sons. The fibres composing It are deprived of their protoplasm and reduced to a membrane of cellulose with a slightly polished surface, a substance which offers no nutrition 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. mb S' t at* \ ' j T g s £ m f /Jr*: ■ SS V v- s m f:%L