The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-01-12
A Defenss of Hstheticism.

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The question is, are not all these people
really and unconsciously doing great deal OF
harm? In pretending to laugh down myself,
Cimabue Brown, the aesthetic ladies, and half
dozen more of us by name, are they not IN
fact, though not in intention, trying their best
to crush genuine and important.artistic move
ment in the bud? So far as VIC ourselves are
concerned, am quite sure not one of us cares
single jot about it. We are prepared to laugh
heartily at Patience" to look as good humor-
edly at Mr.. Du Maurier's clever oaricatures in
Punch as any Philistine among them all. Nay,
more than that the plays and the pictures are
really meant for us to enjoy, and. not for the
''many-headed beasts" which only knows us
from these amusing burlesques. Mr.. Du Maur-
Ter likes to draw an aesthetic interior, so he
draws my friend Browns. Mr.. Gilbert likes
to fall in with prevailing taste, SO he puts me
upon the stage in Patience" 1t is useless to
deny it; the man who designs the dragons
dresses in the lily scene-Mr. Gilbert himself,
according to the play bill-need not pretend
that he is not one of us. That is all good nat
ured chaff of playfnl kind; it hurts none Of
us in our personal susceptibilities; and If we
alone, with select body of friends, were ad-
mitted to see it by private view ticket.no harm
at all would be done in the long run.
But is not harm being done half unintention-
ally by always holding us up to a sort of mild
ridicule before the eyes of the general public in
Gath and Askelon? You and know that
there are no dolorous ladies in real life, who
dress exclusively in sage-green and peacock
blue and sing doleful songs to the solitary ac-
compartment of a huge double bass; no young
gentlemen in the velvet jackets who devote
their entire affections to vegetable amour.
We know that there is areal aesthetic revolution
now in pros ress; that years of slow artistic edu-
cation have at last just began to bear fruit;
that the taste of our people, at least among the
more cultivated classes, was of late gradually
rising out of its primeval crudity, and strug-
ling upward towards higher and more intelli-
gent style of art and ornament. We know that
This revolution was filtering down from the ar
tistic few to the masses OF Phiistia, who were
ready enough, il left to themselves, 70 accept
the better designs and more harmonious COM
binations of colors which a small knot OF ex-
ouiste decorative artists were pressing upon
their attention. just at this point, however
a number of clever caricaturists, who really
sympathized at bottom with ali our aims and
Intentions, began to see that they could make
attractive material out of the real or supposed
extravagancies of our movement. We all
laughed, everybody laughed; the pictures and
plays just hit the fancy OF the moment, and
those of us who were most "@5thetic," as they
call it, enioyed them the most. Still, the ques-
ton arises, is not all this playful ridicule, this
gentle bandinage, this Joking about lilies and
the hue of our garments, sure to dlsparage the
artistic revolution in the long runY we VINO
are behind the scenes know indeed that there Is
no real sting in the satire, just as we recognize
that those clever anti-Rsthetic leaders which
appear from time to time IN the Daily News
owe all their point to the obvious fact, which
they bear on their very faces, that their author
il himself an aesthetic Of the aesthetics. But
there is a public which will never lind this
out; and in the eyes of that public the artis-
tic revolution as whole is sure to suffer ac-
cordIngly.
that the things we have been teaching him to
admire are made the butt OF some very clever
ridicule: if he takes up Punch, and sees them
invariable associated with the vagaries OF I'M
possibly ladies and gentlemen in ultra-classical
or ultra-Florentine costumes-he naturally
comes to the conclusion that the cultivated
world only laughs at his would-be teachers.
We have been trying to make him understand
the place of the early italian masters IN the
history of art. and now he finds that an admir-
alton for Botticelli or Fra Angelica is appar
emily considered synonymous with harmless
form of extreme lunacy. We have been try
ing to teach him that red, orange and sky-blue
in large contrasted patches are not the best as
sorted colors for the internal decoration OF his
drawing room; and now he learns that taste
for subdued and harmonious tints Is gloomy,
| and that the persistent use of Mr.. Morris wall
papers may be confidently expected to termin-
ate in an early suicide. We have been I'M
pressing upon him the good points OF Oriental
art-handicraft, and now he discovers that we
| want ultimately to dress him up IN blue coat
bespangled with japanese fans, and to crowd
| his mantlepiece with hideous images OF Indian
| Juggernauts. All this must really tend to re-
| tard the progress of a s4lutary change, if not
actually to turn the tide of public opinion. A
little ridicule outweighs months of preaching.
/ know myself that there are several excellent
people who on my recommendation furnished
their rooms as though they were meant for
rational beings to live in, and bought little
good pottery and harmless bric-a-brac of really
pretty and unpretentious sorts to adorn them.
But now, when they meet me they shake their
| heads and say: "Ah, Bunthorne, you athletes
| are getting dreadfully laughed at nowadays.
| Been to see Patience eh?" And when / go to
| their houses, / notice that the old blue and the
| Benares ware is pushed into the corner, while
| the great orInolu monstrosity under glass
| case is replaced in the centre OF the mantle
| shelf, and the big vases with the wriggly green
handles are set up once more to mount guard
over it on either side. 1t is no use telling these
| good people that Mr.. Du Maurier and Mr.. Gill
| bert are only joking good-natured way; they
| say, "No, no; this estheticlsm OF yours ID GET
ting played out" To their simple minds, ridl-
| cule is ridicule, and nothing else. II 1t only
| crushed out the extravagances which must nee
essarilly accompany every great movement, one
wouldn't really mind suppose these are ex-
travagances, though confess 1 myself don't
come across them.) But it is also IN part
| crushing out what is truly good and vital IN
the movement, at least with large section OF
the people; and therefore it seems to me real
| pity. we were in hopes that we were at last
| getting the thin end Of the wedge into the
compact mass Of Phiistinism; II we are iauga IN
| ed down now. the result must be that the diff
erence in culture between the different strata
ofiour population will be even greater than 1t Is
| al present. And that surely would be an un-
mitigated evil, not to be compensated for even
| bv the pleasure OF laughing at q clever carica-
| t1re of my humble personality for couple OF
| hours to The lively accompaniment OF Mr.. Sui
| livan's animated music