River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1882-10-05
Art Models.

The main question under agitation
in Cincinnati art circles now is whether
men shall study from naked women
and women seize the artistic atflatus
by gazing on the pude forms of men;
whether male and female artists of the
brush and pencil shall sit side by side
looking in artistic rapture on models
of both sexes, Invested of petticoats
and bifurcations; or whether art teach
ers AND art students shall be required
to be commonly decent, like other peo-
pie. A young woman was lately
elbowed cut of the school of design
because she had gone with men into a
life class. This is about the only COM
mendable thing l have heard
about the school of design. 1t
doesn't make artists, but if it shall
cultivate decency and respectability
it will not be without power for good.
But there is but little hope of that 1t
will probably have to give up the ghost
or give up the demands OF the nude
advocates and become posing place
of prostitutes and pimps who will be
willing to make a profession of expos
ing themselves. Already a howl has
been raised against the prudes, So
called, who oppose vulgar exhibitions
for young and innocent students OF
art. A life class has been established
of course in the interest of the very
highest purity in art-by a man who
travelled about the country few years
ago exhibiting naked harlots in public
halls and theaters in towns who're tbs
police system was lax enough to lei
him snow-not for the promotion o.
art, but to make money out of the
lechery of weak humanity. / may be
written down an Old fogy on account OF
my views, but if that is the penalty fol
holding that nude art schools are vul-
gar and indecent, accept the gage OF
battle and will fight it out on that
line. If the study of the nude is
necessary to any department OF
art, it should be by private enterprise,
and if it is necessary for them to be-
come artists, for young ladies of re-
spectacle kinship and associations to
study, in the company of men, people
who take off their clothes to facilitate
close inspection, then respectable
young ladies should be barred from
the profession of art as effectually as
they are barred from pudding" in q
roller mill, where the men wear no
shirts and have their lower limbs en-
cased in airy pantaloons. Why ID it
that the "cub" artist IS bowling for a
naked woman as soor as he can draw
two lines parallel or distinguish in col
ors between red and yellow? Do the
green trees, the running brooks, frown-
ing mountains, the beautiful valleys
and the myrid combinations of the
clouds count for nothing in the eye OF
art? Is all the broad expanse of nature
failure, and the human form divine
the only object--or if not the only, the
main object-of study? And, il
go. must the form be garment
less? Is there nothing beautiful
in women till she drops her petit
coats to the floor and uncorsets her
self? Has the male artist reached the
highest pinnacle of his profession
when his chief delight is to gaze at a
woman who prostitutes herself for a
price? The novelty and virtue of the
art models is sll in the stories written
to hoodwink the "prudes." The wo-
men who stand for Greek slaves,
Ariodnes, etc, are the women lower in
the scale of debauchery than those
who make their homes in the bordel-
los with which every large city
abounds. The "snide and "bum 3"
artists of Cincinnati, who are yelling
for naked school, where men and
women together can study the un-
dressed peculiarities of either sex,
would do we'll to wait till they can
make drawing of a lamp post cor
rectly or paint a screen for beer ga