The Cubies' ABC

In Short

This whimsical book is an illustrated alphabet of satire, written in response to the radical shift in art styles introduced at the 1913 Armory Show. Through A-to-Z rhymes, the text lampoons the burgeoning Cubist and Futurist movements, mocking artists like Picasso, Duchamp, and Matisse. By adopting the persona of a bewildered, tradition-bound observer, the author captures the confusion and humor of a public confronted with "emerald hair" and "eyes red as rubies." It remains a sharp, lighthearted historical artifact of the moment modern art first truly shocked the American establishment.

The Story

The narrative arc begins with the introduction of the "Cubies," a fictionalized collective of modern artists who have abandoned the "Art of the Ancients" for something entirely new. From the very first letter, the author establishes a clear boundary: there are the "sane" observers, who value recognizable beauty, and the "mad" Cubies, who seek to deconstruct reality through color and abstraction.

As the alphabet progresses, the reader is taken on a tour of the new artistic landscape. We encounter the "Deep-Dyed Deceiver" Marcel Duchamp, whose stairs and accordions cause the narrator genuine anxiety, and we witness the Cubies’ disdain for the "Still Life," which they treat with such cruelty that the objects themselves seem to suffer. The middle section of the book dwells on the perceived pretension of these movements, highlighting the Cubies' devotion to Gertrude Stein’s "limpid lucidity"—which the narrator struggles to decipher—and their worship of "improvisations" by Kandinsky.

The story moves through a series of increasingly absurd vignettes. We see the Cubies interacting with the world around them, such as their attempt to lasso the branches of a tree painted by Chabaud using their own hair, or their reaction to the Woolworth Building, which they distort into a tumbling Tower of Babel. Throughout these encounters, the narrator remains a skeptical bystander, poking fun at the jargon of the movement—its "Objective and Optical" theories and the "Cube Root" of personality—while maintaining a polite, if exasperated, distance.

As the alphabet reaches its conclusion, the tone shifts from sharp critique to a weary, playful fatigue. The Cubies, having spent their energy rejecting the past and embracing their colorful, fragmented vision of the future, begin to grow tired. Their enthusiasm for their own "Xquisite" art starts to wane, and they succumb to a collective yawn at the sight of any painting that dares to use fewer than a full spectrum of colors.

The journey ends with a final, sleepy note. After reviewing the composition of the artist Zak, the Cubies—and by extension, the reader—have reached the end of their patience for this "reformation" of art. The book concludes with the narrator offering to "tuck them in snugly" and bid them goodnight, effectively putting the chaotic, colorful, and confusing movement to bed, at least for the moment.

How It Unfolds

The emergence of the new The book opens by defining the Cubies as a group that rejects anatomical accuracy in favor of a bold, bizarre new aesthetic. This establishes the central conflict: the old world of realistic art versus the new world of the "mad" avant-garde.

The deconstruction of the object The middle chapters focus on how the Cubies manipulate their subjects, turning stairs into abstractions and "still" life into something dead. The narrator highlights how these artists "seize all that’s plain to the eye, then lose it" in search of a deeper, often frustrating, soul.

The mockery of the theory A significant portion of the alphabet is dedicated to ridiculing the intellectual framework of the movement, specifically the influence of Gertrude Stein and the jargon-heavy explanations offered by Picasso and his cohort. The narrator questions whether there is any genuine meaning behind the "Kryptic Kreations."

The exhaustion of the avant-garde As the alphabet nears the end, the Cubies become increasingly insular and dogmatic, yawning at any art that doesn't fit their narrow definition of progress. This suggests that the movement’s initial revolutionary fire is burning out into a predictable, self-satisfied routine.

The final rest The concluding verses bring the reader to a point of closure, where the chaos of the exhibition is softened by the fatigue of the artists themselves. The book ends not with a victory for either side, but with the narrator essentially ushering the movement into bed.

The People

The characters in this book are divided into two distinct camps: the "Stand-patters" and the "Cubies." The narrator acts as the voice of the Stand-patters—the audience that values tradition, recognizable form, and the art of the past. Their desire is simple: they want art to reflect the world as they see it, and they stand in the way of the Cubies by questioning the logic and beauty of the new styles.

The Cubies, meanwhile, are presented as a singular, collective entity defined by their allegiance to figures like Archipenko, Brancusi, and Matisse. They are driven by a need to "set free the Soul" and replace reality with their own subjective interpretations. They are characterized by their "Immense Intuition" and their aggressive insistence that traditional painting is "rank deformation."

While individual artists like Picasso, Duchamp, and Kandinsky are named, they serve more as archetypes of the movement's different facets—Duchamp the trickster, Kandinsky the cryptographer, and Matisse the object of the Cubies' misplaced affection. By the end of the book, these characters remain locked in their own world, largely unchanged by the narrator's critique. They are ultimately "tucked in," safely contained within the pages of the book, leaving the reader to decide whether the Cubies are truly revolutionary visionaries or merely participants in a passing, "Xquisite" fad.

In Its Own Voice

Archipenko’s their guide, Anatomics their bane; / They’re the joy of the mad, the despair of the sane, (With their emerald hair and their eyes red as rubies.)

The author introduces the central cast of characters, the "Cubies," by highlighting their rejection of biological accuracy and their embrace of a garish, surreal physical appearance.

“Throw them all on your boards,” Cubies say, “then exhibit ’em!” / There’ll be no colors left, if we don’t soon prohibit ’em!

The narrator critiques the Cubist approach to color, suggesting that their method is less about intentionality and more about a chaotic, indiscriminate application of paint.

“Painting things as you see them is rank deformation!”

The narrator captures the inverted logic of the modernists, who claim that the traditional act of representing reality is, in fact, a corruption of the true artistic spirit.

What It's Really About

At its core, this book explores the fundamental tension between the establishment and the avant-garde. It asks a timeless question: when art stops mirroring reality, does it become a deeper expression of the soul, or does it lose its connection to the human experience? The author argues that modernism is defined by a self-imposed isolation, where the artist’s "personality" and "intuition" override the viewer's ability to participate in the work. It is a satire of the intellectualization of art, questioning whether the complexity of the "Cubic" theory is a profound evolution or merely a mask for a lack of genuine substance. Ultimately, it serves as a defense of the "sane" and the "objective" against an increasingly abstract, subjective, and exclusionary art world.

Why Read It Today

Today, the book serves as a fascinating window into the "culture shock" that modern art once provoked. Readers who are interested in the history of the 1913 Armory Show—or who simply enjoy the playfulness of turn-of-the-century light verse—will find much to appreciate here. It is a bright, rhythmic, and accessible read that captures the spirit of a moment when the definition of "art" was being irrevocably rewritten.

However, a reader should approach it with the understanding that it is a product of its time. The humor relies on a shared, conventional understanding of art that has long since been dismantled; much of what the author describes as shocking or "queer" is now considered standard in galleries worldwide. While the verse is witty and the tone is charmingly acerbic, the casual reader might find the rapid-fire references to minor early 20th-century artists a bit opaque without a basic knowledge of the art history of the period. Nevertheless, the book succeeds as a piece of period satire. It stays with you as a reminder that every generation’s "radical" new movement eventually becomes the subject of a history book, often losing its initial ability to alarm and finding its final home in the quiet pages of the past.