HUMANITIES, John & Ruth Vassos, 1935

First Edition:

Title Page:

The title page for this volume comprises a double page spread.

JOHN VASSOS / ILLUSTRATES - WITH THE TEXT BY RUTH VASSOS / HUMANITIES / [definition of human, humane, humanity from Funk & Wagnalls Company] / [horizontal rule] / NEW YORK E P DUTTON & CO INC 1935

310 X 235mm. Bound in full pastel green cloth; plain paper endleaves; title stamped in black on front cover and spine; spine reads "HUMANITIES VASSOS DUTTON [horizontal]; text set in Vogue type by Composing Room, Inc. and printed by National Process Co.; book arranged and designed by John Vassos. Collections PDV and SUL.

i blank ii list of other titles by Vassos iii half-title iv-1 title page spread 2 copyright notice 3 quote by Robert Burns about man's inhumanity to man 4 blank 5-6 preface 7-8 contents 9 half-title 10 blank 11-12 13-14 15-16 17-18 19-20 21-22 23-24 25-26 27-28 29-30 31-32 33-34 35-36 37-38 39-40 41-42 43-44 45-46 47-48 49-50 51-52 53-54 55-56 57-58 59-60 61-62 63-64 65-66 67-68 69-70 71-72 73-74 75-76 77-78 79-80 81-82 83-84 85-86 87-88 89-90 91-92 93-94 95-96 97-98 99-100 101-102 103-104 105-108 = 56 leaves

Index of illustrations:

First Edition - Variant 1

Binding same as described above but covered in light pastel-blue cloth. Collation identical. Collection of URL.

First Edition - Variant 2

Binding same as described above but covered in ¼ blue-green cloth on the spine and reddish-brown cloth boards. Stamping identical to other variants. Collation identical. Collection of PDV.

Dust-jacket:

Front:

Type set at 90 angles to each other, first at upward angle, second at downward:

HUMANITIES / BY JOHN AND RUTH / VASSOS

WITH WORDS / AND PICTURES

Spine:

HUMANITIES VASSOS DUTTON

Rear:

Photo of Vassos by Gertrude Sheffield with short "essay" entitled "THE ARTIST AND HIS WORK."

The essay describes Vassos as "the most versatile of American artists." Contains brief biography and discussion of his advertising, design work, and illustration. This title is summed up as "the fruition and coalescence of his genius. Outside of the intellectual content of this book, the illustrations are superb examples of the handling of material and of a mastery of design and line that is unsurpassed. The vitality and force of their majestic conception embodies a mural quality that sweeps the reader to an emotional experience far beyond the actual physical limitations of the page itself."

Below are listed his other publications including Phobia which was published by Covici Friede.

Blurbs:

Front: Advertisement for Humanities. Vassos described as employing "his startling, symbolic technique to say the final word on the avoidable ills of today's crises... This book summarizes and makes clear the attitude and protest of the new America." Price of book is shown as $5.00.

Rear: Lists comments and reviews for other works illustrated and/or authored by Vassos.

The Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art report holding the manuscript of this title among others in their "collection file." As the collection is unprocessed and quite large, 19 linear feet it is difficult to ascertain with certainty ⁽¹⁾

For this text we are fortunate to have copies of some of the original reviews sought prior to publication. All the reviewers are unnamed, save for their initials. In general, these are condemning of the text by Ruth Vassos, and the feeling that Vassos' illustrations are not up to their usual standards. Vassos' style here is markedly different from that of his earlier works with their flowing lines and abstractions. Humanities seems to be very much influenced by the "prop-art" style usually associated with socialism, communism, or fascism. This theme is something which most of the reviews commented on. It is generally believed that Vassos was quite influenced by socialist thought, or, at a minimum, anti-establishment leanings.

In a review dated 2 May, 1935, L.T.N. writes , "This is a black and bitter book, weakened by poor and stodgy writing (we know from her other book that Mrs. Vassos cannot write) and by statements so vague and sweeping in their denunciation as to be obviously without authority and without effect.

The pictures are a great disappointment to me. From John Vassos we do always expect striking, symbolic pictorial art. Here, in subject and treatment both, he has come down from artist to cartoonist; in fact, these aren't even good cartoons, for cartoons have imagination, symbolism, humor and point, and these pictures have not. The thing which would make his denunciations great and terrible and lofty, is not there. Having seen the pictures after reading Mr. Vassos' Preface, I understand the Preface better. For that Preface sounded apologetic, as if justifying to his audience if not to himself, a far less fine set of pictures than usual. He speaks in this Preface of artists now having to compete with radio and film for immediate impressions; of their responsibility to be concerned with the present chaos of the world, etc. He says he has used "a combined realism of ideas and actualities of the present scene." The whole Preface is a preparation for something less than his usual work; and the pictures bear it out. There is only one picture, I think, which has even the slightest symbolism in it – the mother holding a boy, and boys of different ages until the oldest is being shoved into a machine gun... And my feelings, after reading and seeing the take of this age's evils, is that the worst evil of all will be if artists themselves are degraded by it too."

L.T.N. reacted extremely harshly to Ruth Vassos' writing, "as for the text proper, there is little use in speaking of the language, the English, which is so painfully heavy and unalive; I am sure Mrs. Vassos can not improve it." It is not just the quality of her writing, but also the fact that in her sweeping generalizations or "blasting editorials" that there is no substantiation of any definite sort. "She reviles the Church as people usually do who know little about the Church. She says unhesitatingly that all education is used for the vile ends of nationalism, suppressing facts and prohibiting opinion. She is wildly furious with people who have money, who have time and taste for literature, theatre, etc. She hates the old, who are thought to be wiser than the young. Also all the lawyers and doctors lose their idealism and become unethical in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Is there anyone she doesn't hate? An in the end she has nothing to offer.

This book really sounds to me like the outburst of someone on the verge of hysteria against everything and everybody, and maddened by it. The text could be rather ignored if the pictures were Vassos' best. But with text and pictures both uninspired, what can we do?

The book is hopelessly poor, and nothing can be done to make it publishable." ⁽²⁾ On 12 June 1935, L.T.N. comments on the book again after it was resubmitted by the Vassoses reiterating on his original comments again with the remark that "change is hardly what this book needs; it just isn't any good and it can't be changed very much." ⁽³⁾

S.M. in his review approaches the work more objectively than L.T.N., though many of his criticisms are the same. What he does for much of his review is to put Vassos' work into the context of the period in which they were all living, that of the 1920's and 30's. He also offers suggestions for improving on the text, though in the end he too is not certain as to whether it should be published.

"In theme and content this book will most nearly resemble his Contempo, which was a satirical comment on the America of the twenties, That book expressed the mood of "The American Mercury," we might say, and this new one expresses that of the "The American Masses." For now Vassos is drawing either as an ardent socialist or a communist, underscoring the familiar "contradictions of capitalism" – nationalism, waste of food, unemployment and the attacks on the working class, slums, the idle rich, the misuse of science for mass slaughter, etc.

I think that it is a permissible and even laudable thing to do – artistically speaking. For if we are to have socialism in this country, or throughout the world, then socialistic and communistic art will be as common as religious art in the Middle Ages, and some of it, I hope may be as good. These are already many other artists working on the themes that Vassos has chosen to illustrate, and there will be many more. Most of them are not putting them into books; they are placing them on placards, in theatre posters, stage sets, murals, etc. Most eminent in the public eye is Rivera, whose murals were bought and destroyed at Rockefeller Center, and who can be seen at the Workers' School in this city."

To illustrate, S.M. dissects the illustration entitled "Food," pointing out the "great deal of abstraction in his work and symbolism, and the running together of things ordinarily separated in space but belong to a certain cluster of ideas... In a traditional painting this conglomerate of images would be felt as an outrage on commonsense, but obviously what we have here is a picture of ideas in the artists mind – I believe it is technically called "expressionism." I feel myself that this technique is apt to be over-intellectualized for immediate appeal." S.M. did have a favorable opinion of the image for "The Leaders" attributing it with a more obvious unity and "quickening tension." From comments he makes, it appears that Vassos had not completed all the illustrations to this work at the time of the review. Summing up, "the half-dozen pictures we already have, I feel that they are not completely successful, that they hardly advance over Contempo – which is quite too bad. For Vassos' style is now well known, and people will look for advance and expect to find it. If they don't they may turn sour." He continues by questioning the value of expressionism as "a technique for a social message" especially as he sees it as essentially esoteric and "rather shutting off of the emotions rather than releasing them."

Turning to the text for "The Leaders," S.M. remarks that "here she is apparently against them all. She mixes slogans from socialism with those of fascism and those of plain unreason. And she ends with a colorless paragraph that might have been spoken by Thomas Nixon Carver, warning us that progress is infinitely slow and passion very dangerous. Hebert Hoover would agree with is this text – but should Vassos permit himself to fall into such confusion?" He considers her texts too long and as presenting the impression that the images cannot stand on their own, especially since the most "trenchant cartoons" are those which require no more than a phrase to convey their meaning."

He concludes with a question: "Would we publish Ruth Vassos' text if it were submitted to us as a purely literary effort? Of course we would not. Then the shorter it is the better – or else it will seem that the pictures illustrate the text, not the text the pictures. That a text is necessary to illustrate the pictures at all is an evil, I think.." ⁽⁴⁾ S.M. in a review of the revised text notes that the only difference between this draft and the first is that it is shorter. "Naturally this is a gain. The less text we have in such a book the better. But I still feel that the text is too long, that the Introduction by John V. is as clumsy as ever, and that it will be impossible to make Ruth Vassos epigrammatic and memorable." John Macrae, in a hand written note below writes on June 19, " I think we will pass it as it is here" .⁽⁵⁾

A third reviewer, M.S.Y. wrote that "I would not publish this book. The text is black, bitter and poisonous. The illustrations are diffuse, unimaginative, propagandist. The book as a whole is a savage diatribe against everything in modern life. Neither Ruth Vassos nor John Vassos has one good thing to say about the present age. Everything is bad, and there is no hope."

Continuing M.S.Y attacks the unsubstantiated nature of the Vassoses, especially Ruth's, accusations in which they "launch attacks upon everybody and everything without even bothering to ascertain whether her attacks are justifiable. He also attacks her for what he considers tasteless and foolish statements. "To read the this text and to look at the pictures is to treat yourself to a fine dose of melancholy, hopelessness and disbelief in everything. Humanities is a book in which Ruth and John Vassos tell what they do not believe in and what they hate. No reader is interested in what an author or artist does not believe in. On the contrary, he demands in a book that the author and illustrator set forth what they believe in. The hearts of Ruth and John Vassos are filled with hatred and their minds are filled with darkness. How can they hope to make a successful book?

He concludes by stating that "true literature and painting have no business attacking social and political questions, if by doing so the literature and painting agre going to descend below the level of a propagandist idea. Unless literature and painting as arts can remain uppermost so that the propagandist idea is secondary, the book remains merely a form of electioneering. Humanities with its scurrilous lines and its sensational pictures reminds me of a radical parade in which the marchers hold aloft signs with blackguard statements and weird sketches. A few little harmless political fire- eaters may think this book is grand. But mature people will not take it seriously and many will laugh at it. As a publishing proposition it has little or no value." John Macrae add a note stating that "we have accepted this book, certain changes may be made" ⁽⁶⁾

This was Vassos' last true original "artists book," although he did return to his classic style with Synthesis No.1: Poems by Dorothy Randolph Byard.

Back to Contents

1. Letter from Judith Throm to PV, February 1, 1995.

2. Review of Humanities by L.T.N., 2 May 1935. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.

3. Review of Humanities by L.T.N., 12 June 1935. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.

4. Review of Humanities by S.N., May 7 1935. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.

5. Review of Humanities by S.N., June 11 1935. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.

6. Review of Humanities by M.S.Y., May 9, 1935. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth Correspondence.