Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-06-20
THE QUESTION OF TASTE AGAIN

Referring to our exception to the .ludg-
ment of the Los Angeles committee in
rejecting a picture on the ground that the
nude has no high place in art, the San
Francisco .4ha says:
Assuming that the purpose of art exhibitions
are esthetic merely, and lot in the line OF moral
education. is not local committee the best
judge OF local ideas of propriety?
To which we reply affrmatively for the
sake Of the argument. But the committee
did not base its decision upon local ideas
of propriety as We understand it. 1t as
sumed to occupy plane Of art criticism
and to declare a precept in art. The
Alto says:
If we subordinate our art judgment to that of
Dresden and Florence, it is enough, without
being forced to also accept the standards of
morals prevailing in those cities. 1t is really
not so much question OF morals as one OF
habit. 1t would be too much to say that a
thing could be moral in Florence which
would be immoral in San Francisco; but if
the conventional standards of morals are
different in the two places, 1t is not the bust
ness of persons getting up art exhibitions TO
undertake to equalize those standards, By
doing so they only make trouble for themselves
and defeat the main purpose OF their efforts
/ pTptflStN Il
not so much the nature of the painting itself as
the minds OF those who gaze on 1t, must have
struck discerning observers who witnessed the
behavior of the mass Of visitors to the Mechan-
les Fair when the famous step-ladGer painting
was on exhibition.
If committeeman pass upon picture as
art critics, they will not consult local pre-
JUDGES if they are competent for the office
they fill To say that the art judgment of
Los Angeles or San Francisco is subordi-
mated to that of Dresden or Florence, is
equivalent to saying that the public of the
first places are appreciative Of art culture
and have risen to an exalted plane Of judg-
ment. If the test Of judgment is to be, not
the merit of the picture, but the mental
habit of the beholder, then there is an end
to all progression in art tastes. If COM
mittee on hanging pictures Is 10 hang only
such as will meet the present tastes of
community, then that community must be
excluded from contemplation OF all exam
pies of art, save such concerning which 1t
has preconceiyed notions. Art exhibitions
are given not to cater to local tastes, but
to advance, enlarge and cultivate art
ideas and this can never be done by cir
cumscribing art exhibits by the bounds of
local preiudices or preconceptlons OF what
the place in art is of this or that style. The
standard of morals must be one of exceed
ing sensitiveness that will make that i'm
moral to exhibit in California which is
proper enough for Californians to gaze
upon when in Dresden or Florence. 1t is
very true that it it not the business of per-
sons managing art exhibitions to equalize
the differing tastes of communities, neither
is It their business to judge art works upon
an assumption OF what the people will
like. We repeat that the committee in
question, had they based their rejection
upon the sensitiveness Of the people OF
Los Angeles and fears that the modesty
of that community might be shocked by
exhibition of the rejected picture, the only
criticism to make would relate to art morals.
But when a committee declares that the
nude has no place in art sufficient to merit
the exhibition of an example of it, 1t ar
rogates to itself functions that it is not
competent to sustain, and pronounces a
Judgment it is incompetent to form. We
are not discussing the morality of the
picture in question so much as theprudery
of the committee, and its timidity in
announcing the reasons for the rejection.