Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-05-15
THE DIFFUSION OF A TASTE FOR ART.
Among the MANY evidences of advaucir

Among the many evidences of advancing
civilization which claim the attention of
the philosophical student, the diffusion
among the people of a taste for art is at
once one of the least recognized yet most
significant. We are prone to accept the
conditions which subsist around us as
though they had always been the same, so
fully do we become harmonized with our
environment. But reflection will show
that the taste for art which is now so gen.
eral is really very remarkable and quite
new phenomenon, and that it implies
growth IN the public intelligence of high
lv encouraging nature. It. true that the
art tendencies of the age are considerably
obscured and warped by the demoralizing
influence of that stupidest and most per-
nicious of all barbarous survivals, Fashion,
but when due allowance has been made
for the senseless and aimless mimicries
which the foolish squander their time upon
in obedience to the DEGREES of that blind
and acephalous goddess, there will be
found great and important residuum of
solid requirement, which must be accepted
as marking real advance in the apprecia-
ton of and desire for beauty and grace and
harmony in the familiar accessories of
everyday life. The progress of the popu-
larization of art has been helped and hast
ened by many agencies, such as the i'm
provement of manufacturing processes, the
cheapenipg of reproductive methods, the
dissemination through an easily accessible
literature of higher views upon the gov
eminent of life, the immense increase in
the facilities for travel, and so forth. And
through these and other influences it
has come to pass that an amount
of real artistic beauty and sat
isfaction is to-day within the reach of a
very humble class which twenty years ago
was prescribed to all but the wealthy.
Everyone who has lived forty years can
look back to a period when there was no
thought or understanding of Art among the
masses. At that time false ideas of reli-
gion assisted in maintaining the notion
that Beauty and Sin were somehow insep-
cradle, and that due generation for the
Moloch Deity Of the Hebrews required
every true Christian to surround himself or
herself with as much ugliness and sordid-
ness as possible. There was no idea of
introducing grace of form into everyday
life in any way. Even ornaments were as
void of artistic beauty as could well be,
and furniture and household ware was as
uncompromisingly and grimly utilitarian
as could be. 1t is no wonder that our
Yankee ancestors acquired reputation
for sour looks and joyless behavior
generally, for they lived in a world from
which all the sweetness and light had been
pitilessly and purposely excluded. They
were no doubt an earnest people, but they
were very narrow, very dyspeptic, very
much addicted to professional unhappiness,
which they indeed erected into a religion.
Modern skepticism has done great deal
for the world. It has broken down the
barriers which this stupid old Puritanism
had built. 1t has let in the bright and
splendid sunlight upon the human mind,
and has taught it to admire and appreciate
all the exquisite charms which Nature en-
riches her favorite work withal, and all
the subtle and elevating influences of
those Arts which seek to translate and trans
mute Nature for the improvement OF Man.
1t has thrown open this vast treasure
house of loneliness and harmony of form
and colors to the common people, and has
made them participants in the esthetic edu
cation which is thus placed within the
reach of all the world. And the mystery
which so long shrouded Art is in fair
way to removal. The Alterations, the
impel tinences, with which it was sought
to create monopoly of esthetic culture,
belong rightly to the thin and weak his
tory of Fashion. With the popularization
of Art a guarantee was of necessity given
for the sincerity of its adoption. The
common people are not to be deluded by
the caprice of cliques and lotteries. No
fantastic folly can be palmed off upon
them for beauty. 1t is only the products
of true Art which appeal to their simple
but wholesome tastes, and though they
may know little or nothing about art his
tory, they are quite capable of preferring
the nobleness Of the Grecian antique, or the
quaint realism of japanese ceramic art,
to the hideous inventions of barbarie
schools, which certain modern art maniacs
insist upon publishing.