made with great care, with passionate conviction, but also in a state of great anxiety." It was from that moment on that the word Cubism began to be widely used. [...] Never had the critics been so violent as they were at that time. From which it became clear that these paintings - and I specify the names of the painters who were, alone, the reluctant causes of all this frenzy: Jean Metzinger, Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and myself - appeared as a threat to an order that everyone thought had been established forever. In nearly all the papers, all composure was lost. The critics would begin by saying: there is no need to devote much space to the Cubists, who are utterly without importance and then they furiously gave them seven columns out of the ten that were taken up, at that time, by the Salon. (Gleizes, 1925) Reviewing the Salon d'Automne of 1911, Huntly Carter in The New Age writes that "art is not an accessory to life; it is life itself carried to the greatest heights of personal expression." Carter continues: It was at the Salon d'Automne, amid the Rhythmists, I found the desired sensation. The exuberant eagerness and vitality of their region, consisting of two rooms remotely situated, was a complete contrast to the morgue I was compelled to pass through in order to reach it. Though marked by extremes, it was clearly the starting point of a new movement in painting, perhaps the most remarkable in modern times, It revealed not only that artists are beginning to recognise the unity of art and life, but that some of them have discovered life is based on rhythmic vitality, and underlying all things is the perfect rhythm that continues and unites them. Consciously, or unconsciously, many are seeking for the perfect rhythm, and in so doing are attaining a liberty or wideness of expression unattained through several centuries of painting. (Huntly Carter, 1911)Huntly Carter, The new spirit in drama & art, The New Spirit in Painting, New York, London: M. Kennerley, 1913 1912, political ramifications The Salon d'Automne of 1912 was held in Paris at the Grand Palais from 1 October to 8 November. The Cubists (a group of artists now recognized as such) were regrouped into the same room, XI. The 1912 polemic leveled against both the French and non-French avant-garde artists originated in