The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-08


stimulating the lazy artistiS sentiments
of the people into real productive
force. We may look for some worthy sue
cessors Of Titan, Raphael, and Michael An
gelo, now that Italy is no longer gallery of
painting and sculpture, but country in
which constitutional government is going
through the most fiery of all ordeals, in
which the immediate practical needs of in
dustry absorb the attention of statistical
statesmen, and in which the opening of
petroleum we'll is considered of more i'm
portance than the unearthing of some statue
which formerly grsced the palace of Nero, or
the detection ia some obscure corner of q
little masterpiece of Raphael.
Now our country is the exact opposite of
Italy. The Italian peasants and workmen
have an instructive appreciation of art which
often shames our wealthy and cultivated
amateurs by its delicacy and certainty. The
artistic sense is in the blood as well as in the
brain of the people What we by laborious
study strive to attain is theirs by inheritance.
The immense energy of the American people
has been disproportionately directed to in
dustrial, as distinguished from artistic crea-
ton. The miracles wrought by eur industry
may outvalue all the miracles wrought by the
Italian painters and sculptors of the sixteenth
century; but still we find that nature convicts
us of most humiliating non sequitUr. "You
boNS, bAOoaJo1 C1SdlSu WSdAJn III u LLOSI sur
prising way. Never before were such great
fortunes amassed by the leaders of industry.
Without wasting word on your Vanderbilts,
Drews, Goulds, and Fisks, admit that your
real, your honest creators of wealth, are to be
honored. But what is the reward of their
labors? Simply this, to live in ugly expensive
houses, decorated with ugly expensive furni-
ture, and to find no compensation for their
creative work but in wines, dogs, and
-. Il
in, at this point in the rich mans experience,
to extend his pleasures. 1t proffers architec-
ture, sculpture, and painting as q compile
ment, if not as a substitute. for wines, dogs,
and horses.
1t must also be said that the success of our
industry now depends on the union of the
artisan with the artist In England, Ger
many, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy,
the artist has appeared as the ally of the
workman. In this country he has hereto
fore been separated from his natural brother.
The result is that our industry, the field in
which we have expended our whole produc-
tive energies has received palpable check.
The kitchen as we'll as the parlor recognizes
the fact that we are behind Europe in
the 'beauty'-in the artistic excellence
of our goods. By neglecting art we are
thus in danger of lowering the value of
our industry. If we take the hint which
foreign competition furnishes, we shall ele-
vate the laborer and at the same time elevate
the capitalist. By introducing art into our
work we shall double its value; and the val
garity which now clings to the rough able
man who has rapidly made fortune, but who
has neither manners nor culture, will disap-
pear when to make fortune it becomes iR-
dispensable that the element of beauty shall
| enter into all the products of his enterprise,
| of his sagacity, of his business talent, of his
| power to direct hundreds of skilled laborers
| to definite end. AS far as he makes money,
be will use it to promote purposes essentially
artistic; and the laborer will be enriched by
| the constant reaction of art on industry.
The wonderful rapidity with which the
wealth of Boston has responded to the call
for liberal subscription to q Museum of the
Fine Arts shows that shrewd business men
are all alive to the necessity Of uniting the
artist to the artisan, in order that the indus
try of the United States shall compete with
that of foreign countries. The old prejudice
against art, as something divorced from in
dustry, has melted away before the palpable
fact that in Europe they are blended. The
manufacturer has come to the conclusion that
it would be better for him and his workmen,
that a higher standard of workmanship
should be at once established. This can only
be done by what we may call ''the education
of the public eye."
1t is hopeless to dream that this ''Educa.
ton of the Public Eye" is possible except by
establishing a sort of Kindergarten School
of the Fine Arts. Workmen must have some
place where they can loaf in and OUT
some place where copies of the masterpieces
of architecture, sculpture, and painting
are freely displayed-some place as oper
to them as the Boston Common-befort
they can hope to catch the inspiration of art
The object of thes Museum of the Fine
Arts is to furnish them with a magnificent
school, where they will insensibly be trained
into perception of the beauty of forms sn(
colors which genius has made immortal
The art of Greece, Rome, Italy, France, Ger
many, England, will be there in miniature
The Trustees are not SO mad as to suppos,
that they can transport to the United State
the artistic treasures of the Vatican or of tn
Louvre. They do not pretend to have an,
power to buy the Dresden Madonna, or th
Descent from the Cross, or the Transfgura
ton; but they think that, by copies, by en-
cravings, by photographs by plaster busts
they can give a clear idea of the principle
and history of art, at a comparatively smal
expense. The New York Museum is starter
on the same essential principles. That bot
may succeed is tho prayer of all persons WIN
have an intelligent perception of the interest
both of art and industry. y.-ECerg Saturday.
SPECIAL NOTICES,