Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-01-20
PRACTICAL SIDE OF FREE ART.
How Fashion Affects tho Price of Pain

aoN Ehshfon Auects inc Price OF rant
ings.
The principal reason given for main
tanning the present tariff upon works Of
art Is contained in the statement that re-
ducing the number of foreign pictures
imported will increase the probability Of
sales Of American pictures, and that the
great number of French works in the
market pushes out the American. Now,
this Is one of those half truths seemingly
plausible, but easily answered II consid-
cred.
To begin with, works of art appeal to
the aesthetic sense, the educated taste and
intellect; they are not, in the ordinary,
material sense, necessary. Eminently
necessary TO any complete or even mod
erately advanced civilization, they yet
are not essential TO life; they are not
good TO eat or to wear. and they would
be expensive rs fuel.
Consequently, we cannot legislate the
pictures of any especial nationality into
the market. BY putting an exorbitant
duty upon foreign breadstuffs, textiles,
leather, you might in any civilized
country force native bread, clothes,
shoes, upon the most enthusiastic advo-
cate of foreign manufactures, because
food and wearing apparel must be had.
Nature and climate have settled that
question; Il Is not left to taste. But let
X be foreign painter, Y an American
painter, A, B, C, ID, ETC., picture buyers.
They admire the works Of X and want
them; you put upon them so high duty
that A, b, c, d cannot afford them. Will
they go and buy Us pictures7 Not at
all; they do not require them. They will
say, 1--WE will wait while till we can
afford to pay the premium on KS pic
lures" Meanwhile, as far as A, b, Q, ID
are concerned, the market lies idle until
eventually the foreign seller profits by a
still higher price.
Again, by n commercial law, sales OF
pictures breed other sales. Perhaps the
question may be raised, Then would not
multiplied sales of foreign works of art
increase the passion for foreign pictures
alone, TO the prejudice of native ones?
This is unlikely; picture buying is largely
n fashion. There are true lovers of art
who appreciate as well as admire, buy
ing the best, because they know the best
and IL gives them most pleasure. 1t is
such buyers who make the continued
creation of good art possible; but the
mass buy because il is the fashion, A
purchasing one of KS pictures because
b, G and ID have them, and he wishes tc
be correct as n collector.
Fashion is, in part at least. fictitious
thing, and by keeping up the duty or
foreign pictures we deliberately increase
this fashion by enhancing their prestige
A very simple illustration may be use
full; go into hatter's and price two ar
ticles. They look equally good, but ar,
expensive than the other2 the buyel
asks, and is answered that it is foreign
hat. Immediately, and without realizing
that the duty is quite enough to max,
the difference, he begins to examine tn,
hat to find out why it is the better. II,
feels as IL it must have some hidden in
trinsic value, because it costs more. TIL,
fashion for buying French pictures hal
its excellent origin in the fact that tn,
splendid contemporaneous French schoo
has produced most of the great modern
masters. But fashion naturally exag
gerates and sees good only in its owl
particular direction, and we aid it b,
keeping the duty up.
Take of the handicap and you en-
nance the prestige of native work, ant
prestige at home is what it needs NOR
than anything else. Abroad its excel
lence is handsomely recognized. Tn
foreign artist can live and produce NOR
cheapiy than the American, but work
Of art cannot be treated upon the basi
Of simple manufactures - the create
must include the less, and the genera
prestige and furtherance of native art i
far more important than any considera
ton OF the proportionate scale of daily
expenses in Europe and America.
The second reason given for keeping
up duty is that otherwise cheap rub
bish would flood our market. This il
easily answered: first, no real arts
completes with rubbish. and secondly, n,
duty will keep out cheap rubbish. Sucl
work can float any duty, except an abso
lutely prohibitive one, and prohibitiv,
duty cannot he legislated because. in jus
tice, no one can draw the line between
pictures which shall be admitted or ex
cluded. It is probable that for some tim
after the abolition OF tariff on works o
art great numbers of foreign picture
will be imported, including many baC
ones; but rubbish, hoated in, will find il
level. The strength Of the purchaser o
foreign pictures is in his buying goo,
ones; his weakness is in buying bat
ones. The more bad ones are bought tn
sooner will mere average foreign work.
depreciate, the sooner will the buye
weed out his collection. and the goot
American and good foreign pictures
meet upon a common ground of sensibl,
commercial appreciation.