College News, 1932-04-20, Vol. 18, No. 18

              The College News
VOL. XVIII, No. 18
WAYNE AND BRYN MAWR,, PA, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 1932
Price, 10 Centt
Dr. Gray Has Valuable Order Will Gradually
-Old Chinese Vases    Evolve Out of Russia
Main   Artistic    Factors    Are Countess Skariatina, Author of
Shape
Color and Surface
Texture
Two Books, Says Crisis
Was Inevitable
VASES   EDUCATE    TASTE BARELY   ESCAPED   ALIVE
(Specially Contributed By Dr.
* Howard Gray)
�A Chinese pot is an object to be
looked' at rather than written about.
Nonetheless, it is possible to note the
aspects of it which' are naturally in
Q.ne's mind when looking at it. From
the artist's point of view these are
primarily three. The first is the
shape of the pot. Through being in
the round it shares  with sculptured,
objects   generally   the   advantage   of
changing its line and mass as the eye
moves round about it.    The possibili-1
ties   of   differing   combinations   are
therefore numerous.    The line of the
top of  a  bowl varies  from  being  a
circle  to  being  ellipses  of  different
widths, while the supporting lines of
the sides are elongated or shortened
at will.    Perhaps the diversion to be.
got from these shifting combinations
of line  are  the  subtlest ones  which
many pieces of pottery give us; andl
it is the distinction of the Tang per-|
iod (seventh to ninth centuries)  that
it created the best shapes.
A second aspect of a pot is its color.
In this it is more akin to a painting,
especially to an abstract one. Al-
though earlier Chinese pots are usu-
ally in one or two colors, the grada-
tions and hence the refinements are
considerable. Age and burial have
often given delicacy. The rather com-
monplace grten of a Han jar may have
changed into irridescent silver. There
are three such in Wanamaker's at the
moment. Later centuries experiment-
ed extensively in colors, the Sung,
Yuan and Ming periods (tenth to six-
teenth centuries), devloping many
which were rich, many splendid. Ming
and still later centuries turned to
blue-and-white, in which again every-
thing depended in the qualities of
these tones. There were never the
raw blues of modern wares. From
Sung days there was painting on pots
and to this technique blues-on-white
particularly lent itself.
The third aspect of a pot is more
peculiar to it, although here the im-
mediate relationship is with ivories
and silks. This aspect is surface tex-
ture. Three elements go to the mak-
ing of the surface of a pot�the body
of the clay, which sometimes show
through and in porcelain adds trans-
lurency, the slip or color pigment, and
the glaze. The excellence of each of
the three and of the combination var-
ies greatly. In Han and in most
Tang pots it is not great. In the
Sung period it reaches what many
think its height; but the older col-
lectors, preferred the sumptuous por-
celains of the sixteenth and later cen-
turies. Many of the collections in our
museums (perhaps for this reason)
are rich in these and a collection to be
sold in New York this week seems to
have many of them. Any taste can
thus be met by the great diversity in
Chinese pots. And�what is more im-
portant�any taste can be educated
by carefully looking at them. From
the hierarchic forms of the bronzes of
Han days to the boudoir dainties of
Chieng Lung, all are there.
Registration
Mrs. Manning hopes that all stu-
dents will give considerable thought
to their registration for courses for
next year, as classes were held up for
ten days this fall due to numerous
changes. If a student is hesitant
about the selection of her major
course, she should discuss the vari-
ous possibilities with the heads of the
departments in question, and get all
the advice she can' before making her
decision. Changes in schedule will be
heavily penaihted next fall, if the
Dean's office has not been notified of
these changes by letter before Septem-
ber fifteenth.
"The world must go on. It is a
pity aboufthe lovely things that are
destroyed, but their destruction is in-
evitable." With this astonishing phil-
osophy, the Countess Irina Skaria-
tina, heiress of a thousand years of
Imperialist tradition, summed up the
cataclysm of the Russian revolution.
The courage needed to take a liberal
view of the Soviet, admitting that
good has come to the Russian people
along with the necessary evil "that
they killed us all off," has been mas-
tered by this exile, who admits "that
the old regime had become an ana-
chronism in the twentieth century.�
They (the aristocrats) make the mis-
take of thinking that all good in Rus-
sia was their class, but serfs, have
the right of free speech and educa-
tion."
Education for the masses is, one of
the best points of Soviet rule, she
said, and when asked whether this
education, almost pure propaganda,
were not stunting, answered, "Yes,
but when the students grow up, they
will realize the falsity of what they
have learned, and this education will
act as a boomerang against the head
Bolsheviks." She, herself, during the
War, came under the influence of Lib-
eral ideas, first as a War nurse and
then as a medical student. "I must
seem slightly 'Red' to my friends, but
contact with another world enabled
me to see the defects of Imperialism."
Her feeling is that if Communism
spreads, it will travel by means of the
student class, in which it originated
in Russian, not as Communism, but as
a. movement against a rigid despot-
ism.
But since the Communist leaders
have carried their revolution of cus-
toms and religion so far, the pendu-
lum is certain to swing back. "They
bring up children without religion,
but later the emptiness will become
apparent, and the children, as men and
women, will need religion and turn
back to it. There will be an economic
reaction also, as the peasant cannot
bear standardization, but "likes to
have his horse, and his plot, and cow."
The new eduaction itself has to cling
to old standards to a certain extent,
especially in art. Countess Skaria-
tina praised the music as being "on
quite a high plane," and said that
many found the new art interesting,
also.
Her liberality, however, was appar-
ently not the result of any'kind treat'
ment she received at the hands of the
Communists, who imprisoned and sen-
tenced her to death, from which she
was saved by the American^ Relief
Administration, in October, 1922,
when she was grudgingly allowed to
| leave the country. This was a small
[concession, as she was practically
| dead, "not having missed a trick" in
the whole upheaval, as she lightly put
it. The nerve-wracking periods from
the setting up of the Soviet govern-
ment until her release in 1922 was
filled with wild scares. One awful
! day it was rumored that Trotsky,
"who wanted to guillotine us all" had
prevailed over Lenin, and that guillo-
tines were being brought into the city.
"Sure enough, when we looked out
the window into Nevsky Prospect,
we saw carts bearing long black boxes
entering the square. We were more
curious than scared, however, and
when it turned out that the boxes did
not contain guillotines it didn't make
much difference."
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Calendar
Thurs., April 21, 8.40 A. M.:
President Park will speak in
Chapel.
Sat., April 23, 9.00 A. M.:
French Language Examination.
Cornelia Otis Skinner as Sacrapant
Cornelia Otis Skinner, who is shown above as she appeared in
the presentation of Old Wives Tale on May Day eight, years ago. will,
as Queen Elizabeth, apain participate in the May Day festivities at
Bryn  Mawr.
Under the auspices of the Cosmopolitan Club, Miss Skinner is
now appearing before Philadelphia audiences in her dramatic sketch.
The Wives of Henry VIII, which attracted so much attention in New
York this season. The News highly recommends her performance
and will publisn a review in the next issue.
The role of Sacrapant is traditionally considered to demand the
most striking exhibition of acting ability. Miss Margaret Barker,
who is now connected with the Group Theatre, took the part in 1928.
This year it will be played by Miss Betty Young, '32, who directed
the production of Berkeley Square this fall.
K. Hepburn Playing in
The Warrior's Husband
The Warrior's Husband, a comedy
in which Katharine Hepburn, Bryn
Mawr, 1928, is now appearing, has
brought to Broadway an entirely new
comic theme. The plot is based on the
ninth labor of Hercules, which is to
gain the girdle of Hippolyta. The land
of the Amazons is ruled by women;
the men spend their time in riding
side-saddle and flirting hopefully
with every young warrior that comes
their way. Hippolyta, ably and force-
fully played by Irby Marshall, spends
her time digging up wata to amuse
her army, and hunting with her sis-
ter, Antiope, played by Katharine
Hepburn. Sapiens Pomposius, a young
lad, who appears in a curled Assyrian
beard and a silk robe,- which he is
"dying to wash to see If the color is'
fast," becomes, through the machina-
tions of his mother, the husband of
Hippolyta, a unqiue position in Pon-
tus. Then comes the invasion of the
Greeks, which provokes much mirth
because the army is made up of men.
Hercules turns out to be a tremendous
creature who prefers to be called
"Here," and who runs screaming from
Antiope when she frowns at him;
Theseus is the bravest of the Greeks
and devotes himself seriously to the
acquisition of Antiope, who is much
baffled at being the pursued instead of
the pursuer; there is also Homer, who
is covering the expedition for a news-
paper syndicate and who writes the
herald's speeches for him, enquiring
nervously if his "iambic pentameters
knocked 'em cold?"
The Warrior's Hutband is unique
in that it combines action with its
comic lines instead of relying for its
effect on lines spoken in a static posi-
tion. The plot is amusing in itself,
and the stage is never quiet; an army
marches across it or a herald comes
panting in on the average of once
every five minutes. The humor of the
sitaution is apparent and is empha-
sized by having all the Amazon men
at least four inches shorter than the
women. The honors of the production
go to Romney Brent for his Sapiens.
He plays always very close to the
line, but never once does he allow bis
(Continued on Page Three)
Geology of Western Shore
Studied by Field Trip
Eight geology students and the en-
tire geology staff motored last week-
end to the little town of Prince Fred-
erick, Md., on the first long field trip
which the department has offered. Al-
though stops were made along the
way, a study of the cliffs along the
western shore of the Cheaspeake Bay
was the most important feature of
the journey. Fair weather and novel
surroundings contributed to its suc-
cess.
The face of the cliffs exposes ma-
rine and fossil on which Dr. Dryden
is an authority. Under his direction,
the beaches were combed for ray plat-
ed, sharks' teeth, bits of coral and
vertebrate bone, all relics of a time
when the shore was an ocean bottom,
teeming with life. The hope of dis-
covering another whale, such as D,r.
Dryden unearthed several years ago,
was unfortunately disappointed, in
spite of several false alarms.
An appreciation of the ardours of
scientific research was obtained dur-
ing the course of a half-mile wading
expedition along in the bay, alternate-
(Continued  on   Page   Four)
Johnson Lectures on
Modern Architecture
International Style Shown to be
Influenced by Last
Two Centuries
NEW STYLE IN AMERICA
Elections"
The Bryn Mawr League an-
nounces the election of the
Board for 1932-1933:
President�Ellinor Collins.
Secretary-Treasurer � Helen
Leidy.
Sunday services � Josephine
Rothermel.
Bates House�Marjorie Lee.
Assistant, Bates House�Jane
Parsons.
Summer School�Silvia Bow-
ditch.
Social Work � Susan Tor-
rance.
Maids�Emmaline Snyder.
Maids' Vespers � Marjorie
Trent.
Industrial group discussion�
Ruth Bertolet.
Americanization, Bryn Mawr
�To be elected.
Blind School�To  be elected.
Haverford Community Center
�Carmen Duany.
Mr. Philip Johnson traced the de-
velopment of the architectural schools
of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries which influenced the pres-
ent International School of 1981-32,
in his lectures before the Modern Art
class, Tuesday and Friday of last
week.
A Romantic movement, a revival of
Classical Romanique, and Gothic ten-
dencies swept over Europe in the nine-
tenth' century, following the decline
of Baroque. This school evinced a
longing t'nr the distjnt in time and in
place, and laid its emphasis on the un-
usual. As the age progressed, eclec-
ticism of style, the rejuvenating of an
old accepted design by the architect's
personality, resulted in eclecticism of
taste, the feeling that the more like
a forgery a building was, the better
it was. This movement ushered in,
at the same time, a spirit of. freedom,
which accomplished two important
things. It encouraged simplicity in
decoration, and blazed the trail for
the advent of rationalism in structure.
In France this movement resulted
iu a formalized Academism, unpre-
tentious and restrained. In England,
a Gothic revival flourished, of which
the House of Parliament, designed
by Sir John Soane, with their florid
richness of detail, are by-products. In
Germany the movement reached its
greatest development. Schinkel (1781-
1841), Germany's finest Romantic
architcet. practically designed the
Berlin of the thirties. He exercised
discipline in the use of "sprayed-on"
ornament, and was a firm adherent
of rationalism, which is "the ten-
dency to base the architectural plan
of the house upon its functional lines,
considered from an engineering point
of view." It provides that the facade
should reveal all these basic lines and
abandons the axial type of design so
commonly used in Baroque buildings.
In America the Romantic feeling took
form in a strict Greek revival. To
the inherited spirit of classicism was
added a sense of scale and a desire
to create big and effective structures.
Richardson (1838-1886), America's
greatest architect at this period, fol-
lowed Schinkel's theories of function-
alists
In the early nineteen hundreds,
there were a number of somewhat un-
related movements which eventually
came to be, fused into International
Style. The use of steel in the con-
struction of buildings was regarded
at first as a tour-de-force, and stone
vaulting and piers were considered
for a long time indispensable sup-
ports for steel itself. Now, however,
with the advent of metal in place of
masonry, strict engineering forms
are made the basis of architectural
design. Wagner, of Vienna, was the
first to adopt this principle and as
such he was the founder of the New
or Independent Style (1895-1927). A
second movement (1903), known as
the Viennese, was unimportant except
for the achievement of a new type of
facade decoration, good but "finicky,"
which used tilts almost exclusively.
The Paris Exposition of 1925 creat-
ed a zig-zag design, fantastic, mod-
ernistic, and of no continuity or dis-
cipline, which has been used to great
continued  on'Pane  Three)
Overwork
The Curriculum Committee has in-
vestigated the complaints of bver-
work, and discovered a rather unani-
mous criticism of some courses, and
no vigorous opposition to the amount
of work in others. The results of the
inquiry will be referred to the faculty.
If the desired adjustments are not
made, any further complaints should
be brought to the attention of mem-
bers of the student committee.