Huntsville gazette., 1891-12-05

granting absolute genius, CONNER
cial prosperity does not necessarily
accompany it The highest prices
rarely fall to the best painters:
we might say, during their lives, never,
were it not that fortunately few in
stances to the contrary have existed
and still exist. Therefore, it will be
wise for her to study the marketable
everyday branches of art, that an in
come may be always in herpower, even
if her best pictures fail to sell. The inn
portance of this can hardly be overesti-
mated. To become teacher is the en-
forced alternative of almost every fall
ure as an artist. Yet to teach well re-
quires as much talent as to paint well.
Not that every good instructor must be
able to paint as well as she teaches; but
she must have the appreciation Of good
work, and the unerring certainty of
critical insight that is at least half the
qualification for good artist Apart
from the question whether it is honest
to be paid for imparting knowledge to
others that the so-called teacher lacks
herself: it is certain that an incapable
instructor is not likely to turn out cap
able pupils.
But if the art of design be studied
thoroughly, and one of the many tech
nical crafts that belong to the art mas
tered at the same time, then, with a
permanent source of livelihood secured,
the chances of the future may be faced.
Every day sees a wider market for in
dustrial art; girls who can paint flow
ers or sketch a more or less common
place landscape, are here in thousands.
Nobody wants such work. The prices
paid by wholesale dealers for "hand-
painted" trifles are an insult to those
who are compelled to accept them or
starve. But the capable designers are
few; the girls who can invent a work
ing pattern for a carpet or wall paper,
who can create bold and striking de-
sign for bill poster, who can master
the technicalities of etching or lithog-
raphy, or make effective illustrations
for trade catalogue or an advertising
circular, are not likely to become bur-
dens on their friends.
High art is a noble aim; but the true
artist is less degraded by accepting pay
ment for pattern for floor cloth or
the hand bill for a patent medicine
seller, than by receiving aims from
friends who buy, otherwise unsaleable
pictures out of pure charity. 1t may
be that the art student has no feeling
for design and is incapable of produc-
ing the simplest original pattern. Then
let her essay portraiture and try if she
can catch speaking likeness" here,
even if commissions fail, her skill will
make her valuable to photogra-
pliers to finish their engagements in
crayons or colors In short, the
tence be practical! The world does
not want more than a limited number
of pictures, but for patterns, illustra-
tions and such things, the demand is
unlimited. The rapid growth of pho
tographic processes may have injured
fatally the art of wood-cutting, steel
engraving and many of the finer arts;
but it has increased the need for pic
lures. Every day sees more use of IL
Illustrations, more effort to produce new
decorations and new shapes in all man
ufactured articles. The art student
who aspires to paint masterpieces the
world shall accept with acclamatiop,
should determine at the same time that
if her well-meant ambition fail, she
will at least have trade to fall back
upon; art would not suffer thereby. and
the artist would escape the degradation
of failure that sours the aging years of
SO many who set out SO gaily to con-
quer its supreme heights. Above all,
let her eschew the sC-called art-work
of the amateur. More or less idle
people may decorate tambourines,
milking g-stools and bric-a-brac general
ly, with more or less well-painted stud
les of flowers; but between such things
and real art of the humblest sort, an
impossible gulf is fixed; that once the
! true mission of the artist is undertaken,
may never be retraced without peril -
| Gleeson White, in Ladies' Home Jour
nal