Bread Line BY REGINALD MARSH
MARSH, whose chief deficiency is composition, here reaches a compromise
between his natural tendency to put down his facts without eliminating
anything and a pull towards establishing a satisfactory relationship between forms.
Bread Line is a sure-fire way of making the compromise, and if it
lacks formal imagination of the highest kind,
it has tremendous concentration. Bread Line was etched in 1932,
which is almost all one need know about it.
There is a rare assortment of faces in it, from downright mugs,
chronic down-andouters, and panhandlers to at least one man who has seen better days.
While Marsh rejoices in an equable temperament,
there is a latent anger in Bread Line that gives it more
eloquence than many of the artist’s more elaborate compositions.
