« 
IV 
The 
equally 
different 
means must also be so, and the resuit 
the oublie, which will be the conséquence of the 
only a question of éducation of the latter. 
tant has been found in art. 
means, nothmg more impôt 
the 
Our period is the time when the équivalent of these marvellous means has 
been found. As perspective is the means to represent objects after their visual 
appearance, there exist in cubism the means to construct the picture in paying 
attention to the objects only as éléments and not on behalf of the anecdotic 
point of view. 
It now becomes necessary toascertain the différence which exists between 
the object and the subject. The latter is the resuit of the gained means of 
création ; itis the picture itself. Objects being taken only as éléments, it will 
be understood that the question is not to express their appearance but to clear, 
for the use of the picture, ail what is eternal and constant (for instance 
round form of a glass, etc.) and to exclude the rest. 
The explanation of the deformation of objects, explanation which was 
never made known before to people, is there ! The deformation is a consé 
quence and ought not to be considered as an arbitrary fancy of the painter. 
O therwise we would never get rid ofthe caricatural deformations excused by 
this out-of-date expression « the way of seeing ». After this, it willbe unders 
tood that we do not admit that a cubist painter makes a portrait. No confusion 
ought to be made here. The matter is to create a work, a picture as a matter 
of fact, and not a head or an object, constructed according to new rules which 
would notjustify enough the appearance by which they end. 
It is this création, of which I will speak also later, about poetry, which 
will mark out our time. Welivein a period of artistic création in the course 
of which no more stories are told, more or less agreeably, but during which 
Works are created which, breaking off with life, corne in again because they 
hâve their own existence, outside évocation or reproduction of things of life. 
After this, the art of to-day is an art of great reality. But it must be unders 
tood artistic reality and not realism ; the latter is the genre wich is the most 
opposed to us. 
It canthen be said that cubism is painting itself as well as to-day’s poetry 
is poetry itself. Never mind, after this, the objects which are used, never 
mind their novelty if they are used with means not burn with th.em or for 
them. There only, in this entire appropriation of means, is the birth of the 
« style » wich characterises a period. 
In the domain of art it is never the créations of another kind which served 
as stepping-stones, and when we speak of period we mean artistic period 
as I am nota motor-car driver. 
Pierre Reverdy 
Traduct. par Léonce Alexandre-Rosenberg, 
Interprète militaire. 
Signais Company, 3 rd Army H. Q 
B. E. F.