The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-10-11
INDIANAPOLIS AND ART.
a Supercilious Eastern Connossieur Affects
to Air First Principles.

A Superciiious Eastern Connossieur Affects
to Air First Principles.
New York Commercial Advertiser
The indianapolis Journal is an admirable
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, progressive and intelli
gent 1t is handsomely printed. its correspond
dence is interesting, its poetry unexceptionable
and its politics faultlessly correct With these
qualifications the Journal is fitted to stand as
representative expondent Of the opinions and the
cultivation of the community to which it is adj
dressed. That such paper should inculcate the
value of art a civilizing agent is not. there
fore, surprising, and its publication of bold and
unfaltering plea for the beautiful is welcome
and encouraging sign.
1t is of the privileges of an art critic to ac
quaint himself with some of the principles upon
which art is founded and another to make such
use OF illustrations will not produce an effect
directly contrary to that for which he is contend
ing. From perusa of the following descrip-
ton of a statue in the capitol at Washington, it
is only plain that the journal possesses ore
writer who has not availed himself of all his
privileges to the fullest extent.
ut is of spotless marble, yet is Robert Fulton
in his good old leather cushioned, leather-fringed
and brass nailed armchair Under the chair
is block OF wood ingenious support
OF the statue) from which he
has cut his steamboat model. and
near his feet lies block of pattern makers
wood-you can see the layers of criss-crcss wood
and the glue between them beautifully depicted
in the marble. Under the chair are old books
on mechanics--dog cared, soft, thumbed smooth
with age and much using-whch he has studied,
and beside them are divers carelessly- folded
half-open mechanical drawings of soft, crumply,
worn paper; you cannot enough admire the art
with which they were put in marble.
He is in his shirt sleeves, of full ample, soft,
heavy old-fashioned muslin. He wears a velvet
Powered waistcoat-that waistcoati marble, yet
old velvet-and he wears knee-breeches and
homemade knit stockings you can see the
slight irregularities of the stitches 1t is mar
vel of work" 81
1t is hard to believe that this critic supposes
that the function of sculpture is to reproduce in
marble or metal an exact image of the subject
and that the artifice with which the difficulties
of the material are overcome is the art that pro-
duces thing of beauty. Yet he processes to
see beauty in marble-glue, and soft-thumbed
paper, and velvet-fowered waistcoats The
wonder is not that such work is well done, as
DIR. johnson said of dogs walking
on two legs, but that it is done at all. The
eyebrows of the dying gladiator barely
indicated on the surface by few bold
lines; in modern Italian mortuary statues
the weeping wife has eyelashes of marble
and tears. and handkerchief perhaps with a
washerwoman's mark on it. In Frederick the
Greats park, at Potsdam, is a marble Diana with
a sponge in one hand and towel in the other.
You cannot, however, admire the art with which
they are made in marble.
These observations are made necessary by the
fact that not only in Indianapolis but all over the
country there Ia very deep and reverent sense
of the benefcent influences of the fine arts to-
gether with extremely erroneous ideas of the
eternal principles on which they rest One of
the causes of such error. which is at the same
time very grave impediment to artistic progress
in this country. is to be found in the unneces-
sary and homogeneous restrictions of the tariff
which the impending Congress should be urgent
ly implored to remove