The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1888-09-29
ART AND HUMANITY.
Man the Grand Ideal IN the GrandesN
Works OF Painters and Poets.

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Works OF Painters and Poets.
As with pictures, 80 with poems.
The poets office is to be voice, not OF
one crying In the wilderness to knot
OF already magnetized acolytes, but
singing amid the throng OF men and
lifting their common aspirations and
sympathies ESQ first clearly revealed
to themselves) on the wings OF his
song to purer ether and wider
reach of vision. In the great poets
there is an exquisite sensibility both of
soul and sense that sympathizes like
gossamer sea moss with every move-
ment OF the element in which 1t floats,
but which is rooted on the solid rock
OF our common sympathies. Paint us
an angel, II you can, with floating
violet robe, and face paled by the
celestial light; paint us yet oftener
Madonna, turning her mild face upward
and opening her arms to welcome
the divine glory; but do not impose
on us any aesthetic rules which shall
Danish from the region of art those
old women scraping carrots with
their work-worn hands, those heavy
clowns taking holiday in dingy pot
house, those rounded backs and stupid,
Seather beaten faces that have bent
over the spade and done the rough
work OF the world, those homes with
their tin pans, their brown pitchers,
their rough ours and their clusters of
onions. In this world there are SO
many OF these common, coarse people,
who have no picturesque sentimental
wretchedness! It is so needful we
should remember their existence, else
we may happen to leave them quite out
OF our religion and philosophy, and
frame lofty theories which only fit a
world Of extremes. Therefore let art
always remind us Of them; therefore,
let us always have men ready to give
the loving pains of life to the faithful
representing of common things-men
who see beauty in these commonplace
things and delight in showing how
kindly the light OF Heaven falls on
them. And such men will always rep
resent the higher art of their day. It
is In vain that we look for genius to
reiterate its miracles in the old
arts; it is its instinct to find beauty
and holiness in new and necessary
facts, in the field and roadside, in the
shop and mill. Proceeding from a
religious heart it will raise to a divine
use the railroad, the insurance office,
the joint stock company, our law, our
primary assemblies, our commerce,
the galvanic battery, the electric Jar,
the prism and the chemists retort, in
which we seek now only an economical
use. What a more than regal mystery
enclrcles the poorest of souls for us!
Well said ST. John Chrysostom, with
his lips of gold: "The true Shekinah
is Man" There is but one temple in
the world, and that is the body of man.
Bending before man is a reverence
done to this revelation in the flesh.
We touch Heaven when we Law our
hands on human being. The great
est of the works OF man is a less thing
than the meanest man, for the meanest
man has within him passions and emo
tions, and high longings and strivings
which no art can fitly interpret. The
real value of the Iliad or the Trans
figuration is as signs Of power; pillows
or ripples they are of the stream of
tendency; tokens of the everlasting
effort to produce, which even in its
worst estate the soul betrays. Lip
pt7,cOttS Magazine,