The American Scene and the American Theme
AMERICA AT DORLAND HALL
ON April and there was opened in London an exhibition that has had great success in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The original exhibition was to illustrate the main theme of American history, the conquest of the empty continent from the buffalo and the Indian. But it became also an exposition of the American way of life, imperilled by the Axis, and of the American reaction to Pearl Harbour. The photographs chosen by Mr. Edward Steichen, the text by Mr. Steichen's brother-in-law, Mr. Carl Sandburg, do more than tell the story of the creation of the American people— they illustrate, dramatically, their response to the challenge issued by the Axis in December, 1941.
From that point of view, the most important—certainly the most dramatic—conjunction of photographs is that which shows the Japanese bombs falling on the destroyer ' Shaw ' at Pearl Harbour, and below the merriment of Admiral Nomura and Mr. Kurusu in Washington when they were achieving their object all sublime of lulling the watchfulness of the American people and the Americap army and navy if not asleep, at least dozing. On the other side, tlfe Texas farmer declaring, "War—they asked for it—now, by the living God, they'll get it," reminds us (of what we too easily forget), that for millions of Americans the war against Japan is emotionally more compelling than the war against Germany. The insult to American pride, and the contempt for American intelligence, resolu- tion and effective power revealed on December 7th, 1941, still rankle. The American people may know that the war in Europe is strateg;- cally more important than the war in the Pacific, but emotionally, for millions of Americans, the war in Europe and Africa is a curtain- raiser to the war that will wipe out the memory of that hum iliaticn.
Other illustrations, other texts, underline the formidable character of the enemy willingly taken-on by Berlin and Tokyo. The great wheat fields are the achievement of men as much as Bolder Dam or the great battleship shown before its launching. The Indian faces in the first panels are no more American than the (aces of the Connecticut farmers (probably of Polish origin) shown later on. Oil and ore, precision instruments and mammoth coffer dams, myriads of marching men, the myriads of myriads of units of power, make an impressive illustration of Mr. Sandburg's prose evocation of power and purpose. The (New York) Daily Worker was right when it wrote on May 24th, 1942: " It is the most sensational exhibit of photographs that was ever shown in these parts. What a country to fight for." It could not have been said more truthfully of the U.S.S.R.
U.S.A. is visually very familiar to the people of this country, but the movies do not illustrate adequately all the best aspects of American life. Some of them are adequately illustrated at this exhibition at Dorland Hall. And Mr. Sandburg and Mr. Steichen have married two arts with great success and produced a lively
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