The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-07-30
AMATEUR ARTISTS.
THE PERSONS WHO WORK FOR
PLEASURE AND NoToRlETY.

The Reign of the Amateur and How 1t Is
Affecting the Various Professions In
which Mankind Is Trying to Earn n Liv.
ing--A Metropolitan View.
The other day a company of American
artists seated at the cheap but filling re-
lection 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 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
60 at a sacrifice"
"There are too many of us" quoth
one of his hearers. THE supply ex-
ceeds the demand, and we are simply
paving. as in other walks of life, for the
crime of overproduction."
"There are not too many of us" re-
lated the first speaker. ITS 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 of 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, one 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 spells more canvas and wastes moro
paint in week than most professional
artists can afford in year.
Not only do their eXecrable compost
tons degrade the standard of art, they
do worse and more material harm by
maxim values ridiculously cheap Glad
to get anything at all-half the cost
someti' 1es of the material they use. The
amate painters of New York alone
constit tie unconsciously a guild which
practiC lily starves out the profession.
And the worst of it is that the amateurs
work "a nothing like as conspicuously
bad in all instances as it used to be.
Sketcby and thin as the best of it may
be, it certainly complies with the ele'
menta-v rules of art, and he must in
deed b. a bold critic who, comparing il
with the efforts of trained and expert
professionals, should unhesitatingly pro
nounce it without exception rot and rub
Dish.
The amateur actor and the amateur
actress have inflicted incalculable injury
on what calls itself specifically the pro
fession. 1t is an open secret, for exam
pie, that the once profitable city o.
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 a prodigality of energ,
and expenditure almost amounting t,
profigate extravaganza which utterl,
echpses the productions of the regula
theaters. In fact, the Brooklyn amateur
have all but destroyed the professional
drama in that city.
Again, the concert rooms of New Yor
fairly swarm with unpaid vocalists VIII
acquit themselves in many instance
quite as well as their professional sister
and brothers, and there are already 81
many amateur instrumentalists in this
city eager to play in public who have nc
urgent pecuniary need to do so that it i:
doubtful if the Musical Protective uniOr
dare order another general strike here
so enormous would be the rush of fairly
competent amateur fiddlers and otheri
to take the places of the strikers.
Rising higher in the social world, w
find bowling swells like Suffern Tale
basing their regulations entirely on thei
knack Of driving four-in-hands en- anna
teur, so that the amateur coachman ha
become really an important public char
acter and worthy of incessant notice.
The amateur wing shot is another sc
cial lion. Compared with the feats c
the plain, uncelebrated every day pc
hunters of Maryland and Pennsylvani;
the performances afield of George Wor
and Edgar Murphy and De Forrest Maj
rice and the rest of them seem positivel
puerile. But none the less are these la
ter knights of the trigger exalted and e!
tolled by the newspapers as marvels {
skill and Wanted among the possession
of which we ought all to be enthusiastic
ally proud. For are they not amateur
At the present rate of developmeI
one cannot be certain of the ultimat
limit of amateur expansion. We shall
beyond doubt, have amateur surgeon
amateur lawyers, amateur journalist
amate II BARRIERS, amateur tailors, am
teur Plumbers, amateur icemen, eve
amate II day laborers, perhaps. Or
streets will be patrolled by amateur p
hceme !, our confiagrations extinguishe
by amateur iremen. And who can te
when me amateur will have so profoun,
ly exhausted the honest occupations thu
he will have to become an amateur Grin
inal2
Then shall we have our amateur bu
glars, our amateur pickpockets, our an
ateur highwaymen, our amateur murde
ers. The amateur shoplifter is already
formidable extant fact. What ON cart
is there in our social code to make I'll
amateur homicide and the amateur rive
pirate impossible?
Yes, i faith, this is the reign of IL
amateur with vengeance.-Archibal
Gordon in New York Recorder
"
Electric Treatment of Plants.