The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1893-09-14
AMATEUR ARTISTS.
THE PERSONS WHO WORK FOR
PLEASURE AND NoToRlETY.

PLEASURE AND NOTORIETy.
The Reign of the Amateur and How 1t Is
Affecting the Various Professions In
Which Mankind Is Trying to Earn Liv-
ing-A Metropolitan View.
The other day a company of American
artists seated at the cheap but filling re-
fection Of Gruyere cheese and the beer
of the country amused itself by discuss
ing the serious want of patronage from
which American art is just now suffer
ing.
II tell you," cried a young painter of
great talent. "that the professional art
list in this country is worse off than ever.
There was time some 10 or 20 years
ago when his prospects looked bright
and his outlook cheerful. But today he
wastes all his time and energy on pot
boiling, and even his pot boilers have to
go at a sacrifice"
"There are too many of u.s." quoth
one of his hearers. "The supply ex-
ceeds the demand, and we are simply
paying, as in other walks of life, for the
crime of overproduction."
"There are not too many of u.s." re.
lated the first speaker. "It's the infer
nal amateurs who are doing work al
most as good as ours, and who are un-
derselling us. 1t is the reign Of the am
ateurs which has taken all the gilt off
the gingerbread of the professional.
True, absolutely true, in almost every
highway and byway CT modern industry.
The amateur is rapidly displacing the
professional to his own slight-some-
times imperceptible benefit, and always
to the others injury. When one stops
to consider this truism, ono is fairly
stunned by the magnitude and quantity
of the illustrations which proveit. Take,
for instance, the field to which the dis
cussion above quoted has relation. The
woods are full of amateur artists. "
Hardly family now exists but has an
artistic son or daughter who neces-
sarily babbles the jargon Of the craft
and spoils more canvas and wastes more
paint in week than most professional
hItlStS Cdu duOTu III year.
Not only do their execrable compost
tions degrade the standard of art. they
do worse and more material harm by
making values ridiculously cheap. Glad
to get anything at all-half the cost
sometimes of the material they use. The
amateur painters of New York alone
constitute unconsciously guild which
practically starves out the profession.
And the worst Of it is that the amateurs
work is nothing like as conspicuously
bad in all instances as it used to be.
Sketohy and thin as the best of it may
be, 1t certainly complies with the ele.
mentary rules Of art, and he must in
deed be a bold critic who, comparing it
with the efforts of trained and expert
professionals, should unhesitatingly pro-
nounce it without exception rot and rub.
bish.
The amateur actor and the amateur
actress have inflicted incalculable injury
on what calls itself specifically the pro-
fession. It is an open secret, for exam.
pie, that the once profitable city Of
Brooklyn has been made positively
"bad show town." as the phrase goes, by
the number and audacity Of its amateurs
During the season they undertake per.
formances Of the severest professional
character with q prodigality of energy
and expenditure almost amounting tc
profigate extravaganza which utterly
eclipses the productions Of the regular
theaters. In fact, the Brooklyn amateurs
have all but destroyed the professional
drama in that city.
Again, the concert rooms Of New YorA
fairly swarm with unpaid vocalists who
acquit themselves In many instances
quite as well as their professional sisters
and brothers, and there are already sc
many amateur instrumentalists in this
city eager to play in public who have nc
urgent pecuniary need to do 80 that it il
doubtful IL the Musical Protective unior
dare order another general strike here
30 enormous would be the rush of fairly
competent amateur fiddlers and Others
to take the places Of the strikers.
Rising higher in the social world. WI
Hnd bowling swells like Suffern Taller
basing their regulations entirely on theil
knack Of driving four-in-hands en- anna
teur, 30 that the amateur coachman has
become really an important public char
acter and worthy of incessant notice.
The amateur wing shot is another 30
cial lion. Compared with the feats oi
the plain, uncelebrated every day poi
hunters Of Maryland and Pennsylvania
the performances afield Of George Wori
and Edgar Murphy and De Forrest Mau
rice and the rest Of them seem positively
puerile. But none the less are these lat
ter knights Of the trigger exalted and ex
tolled by the newspapers Ms marvels Of
{. skill and .vaunted among the possessions
Of which we ought all to be enthusiastic
ally proud. For are they not amateurs;
At the present rate Of development
one cannot be certain Of the ultimate
limit OF amateur expansion. We shall
beyond doubt, have amateur surgeons
amateur lawyers, amateur journalists
amateur BARRIERS, amateur tailors. anna
teur plumbers, arnateur icemen, even
amateur day laborers, perhaps. Our
streets will be patrolled by amateur po
hcemen, our confagrations extinguished
by amateur firemen. And who can tell
when the amateur will have SO profound
" exhausted the honest occupations that
be will have to become an amateur Grim
inal?
Then shall we have our amateur bur.
glars, our amateur pickpockets. our am.
ateur highwaymen, our amateur murder.
ers. The amateur shoplifter is already q