Art: Custom House Esthetes

Rumanian Sculptor Constantin Brancusi had to pay $4,000 to bring his Bird in Flight into the U. S. (TIME, March 7, 1927). Works of art are duty free. But Sculptor Brancusi’s bird had neither head, feet nor feathers. It was four and a half feet of bronze which swooped up from its base like a slender jet of flame. Customs Inspector Kracke said it was not art; merely “a manufacture of metal . . . held dutiable at 40% ad valorem.” The press bantered, jibed. Indignant modernists wrote abstruse, defensive paragraphs. Sculptor Brancusi complained to the Customs Court.

Last week Sculptor Brancusi won his case. In its decision the Customs Court dogmatically defined art: “It is a work of art by reason of its symmetrical shape, artistic outlines and beauty of finish.” Even the most wretched of logicians knows enough not to repeat the same term in both subject and definition (“art” —”artistic outline”). But Sculptor Brancusi had his money refunded.