The morning call., 1892-09-25
OUR ART ATMOSPHERE.
What California Has Given
to the World.
INTENSE MENTAL ACTIVITY.
JOAQUIN Miller Says the Shutdown World Is
the Modern Greeoe-The Old World Is
Barren and Threadbare.
Written for THE MORNING CALL

house which overlooks Lake Como, o mas
ter carpenter" cried Plny as he set out for
his winter residence at Naples, and left the
carpenters to complete his Como villa.
"Ah," sighed the carpenters, and all the
people round about. THAT is genius and
he speaks In parallels. This sort of people
do not say what they want, il indeed they
ever really know what they want. Now. of
course he wants all his windows overlook
ing the beautiful lake. like other people.
Poor genius that he iS!'
And so they built the villa accordingly,
and when Pllny came back next summer he
cried out in despair of his work, Now
shall never be able to write any more. for
| shall spend all my time looking out upon
Lake Como"
1t has always been the fate Of prophets,
seers, all sorts of people who would walk
the higher ways of mental ascent and toll,
to be misunderstood from the first. The
wise man is generally thought to be half
witted ard helpless, and so the smart young
people of his time take all sorts of liberty
with him and his. They call him a fool fire.
Quently, or knave; and having said that
he is one or the other. or both, they arc
bound in self-defense 10 spend the best of
their time and strength in trying to make
their saying appear TO be true. Like the
heather, we must either burn or butcher
what We do not understand. Though once
in rare while we may fall on our knees be-
fore some loud and mOnstrous man, the
meek and lowly Christ we surely cruelty.
| put in plea, my fellow-scrlbes, for toll
GRAFTON OF the prophets-of our own
prophets. if you please - whether they
speak by the pen or the brush, by melody or
measured song. The time has come to de-
stroy, to let die, the old tradition about the
prophet at home l think.
In the first place, then, l assert that this
shutdown world is the new Greece. And l
think as &C forward | can make 1t clear to
you that we live here in an atmosphere of
intense mental activty-an art atmosphere.
And If this is so, and it surely is, then let
us see TO it that We do not quite cruelty this
new singer, or this new painter, poet,
prophet or what not. We have done enough
of that sort of thing right here in our midst.
heaven knows, TO down the whole lot OF us
for ages TO come.
True, newspaper paragraph don't really
hurt anybody but the writer of it and the
editor of it and the paper itself. Nobody
as a rule believes il, even though 1t find
Judgment In every coarse column in the
world; but that 10 not the point. 1t is the
dirt the dog in the manger the snarlng,
the bad blood, the coarseness, the cruelty.
the bad atmosphere. Alb, the pity of il !
When one man cannot write as we'll as an
other, to hear MIN howl from some editorial
manger at his fellowsl
Now and then some smart California or
Nevada or Oregon girl gathers up her skirts
and trips out and away toward the Old
World and takes Albert Hall by storm and
lays bold siege 10 Windsor. Then we sit
down and say: "Oh! that butchers girl;
why, she used to climb trees In Colorado"
And maybe she did. / hope she did and
hope she climbed clean to the top, as she
has done in London.
But TO return to the text. Justice Field
CT California, for whom ali the world has
great respect, l think, is the first man
whom | heard positively assert that this
land of ours is the new Greece, and he
knows Greece well; was educated az
Athens and came direct from Greece to
California in 1919. Under my oaks by my
cabin door in Washington a few years ago
he counted up more distinguished men in
art from California than could be found
in any other part of the world. Pause here
moment, lay down your paper and try to
think of the name OF the poet, painter.
singer, composer, musician, sculptor from
Texas. Take Kansas, a wonderfully civil
lied place, settled by the best and brayest
men from either side OF the main; rail-
roads there till you can't rest; more
railroads in Kansas than in any other part
Of the world of like population. But their
line is the railroad line. 1t is not the art
line. Like Texas, it is literally blank up
to date as an art center. Take Chicago,
stupendons Chicago, the modern Babylon,
where every other man, IL would seem, is
trying 10 build his own private tower up to
heaven, and where are her magazines,
her poets, her landscape painters, her
composers? Why. she once offered us ten
thousand year for Bret Harte to edit her
Lakeside" Still it is to be conceded that
Chicago is doing vast deal for art, more
than New York. and better than New York
in results. She Is rich, populous power
En1- q hQ. pf N in
terial advantage. But is she really ahead
of us in results?
Outside of the Boston school the noyelists
OF to- day, good, bad aud Indifferent. as you
please to nominate DECENTRALIZATION, Bierce,
Gunther, Harte-are all Cslfornians. Now,
mind l am not disparagirg any part OF the
republic. Ii they have an art atmosphere
in New York all the better. Ii they have
an art center and sympathy for art in
Chicago. better STILL / am only trying to
show by these Texas aud Kansas CON-
parsons that this is good climate of ours
in which to grow art and artists. / am
talking merely in an agricultural sort OF
vein. As If one would say: 'Let US plant
vines on your hillside; they will do better
up there than down in the valley, |
think; so let us plant them and water them
and see that no dust, rust or mdew may
gather on them, and it will profit us in the
end" In short, / plead for some care of
the fruit in the new Greece, our garden of
art. And as sure as you are born, we
will grow something worth seeing before
another century rolls by.
/ was trying to recall the list of names
which Justice Field ran over on his fingers
In front of my cabin the other day to a
Chicago man. Henry George, Bret Barte,
McEwen. Bierce Stoddard, Helen Hunt,
Mark Twain. Atherton, Charles Howard
Shinn. John Vance Cheney, Polly Stock
But here the Chicago man threw up bis
hands to his ears and cried: "Oh, stop the
catalogue, continue it in our next, do some
thing; only stop your brag and buster"
"Brag and busterp' not bit OF 1t, or
Justice Field would have no word TO say.
Besides l have not yet mentioned one-half
the writer's, nor yet the name of one painter,
singer or composer or sculptor Nor had
you permitted me to remind you that the
great Civil War was fought out by Califor-
mans like Joe Hooker, Sherman. Sidney
Johnston, and so on to the end of dozen
like great names whom the war found as
rule Mt the plow. in the bank, or following
otAar employments OF peace.
| tell you proudly that about all Califor-
mans have to do is to stand little more
shoulder to shoulder: to believe in them
selves; to believe and believe and believe.
as well as to toll and toll, and the world OF
art is ours. The Justice from Greece is
right. This is the new and grander Greece
The art atmosphere is here. This intense
mental activity is born OF these fervid skies
and these vast. still seas. This sense of art
over all
Dewey of the Patent Agency here told me
last year that the California mind is more
fruitful in invention than that of any other
part of the Union many times over. And
here the smaIt young man smiles and sneers,
Patents and poetryW and this brings us
back to where we began. The creature
called genius Is merely busy mana
busy man with the power Of concentration
/ don't care whether the genius. so called