The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-04
IN ART.

A writer in a New York paper devotes
considerable space to criticism and con-
domination of the persons, mostly women,
who call themselves artists and who spend
their time in painting pictures which thew
fondly fancy are works of art, when they
are really atrocities, and which they hans
upon their walls and call upon their friends
to admire. Almost every one." saws this
writer, mas had some contact with pictures
of this sort. has strayed or been lured into
some dwelling where it was almost impos-
sible to keep her face straight in the pres
ence Of the homemade paintings staring
at her from every inch of wall, and all
such persons know the positive pain of the
experience. Such displays are certainly
not infrequent in this day, when it is al
most as much n matter of course that every
woman shall WELD the brush, as it once
was that she should play on the piano. and
it is quite true that the exhibitions are like
~ to cause pain to the observer of trained
taste. 1t is by no means true, however,
that such work is to be indiscriminately
condemned and ridiculed. 1t is merely a
phase OF development, not, perhaps, of the
WV Ahoy hCNOI IMPROVE III
knowledge or execution, but of the portion
of the community to which she belongs-a
class whose aesthetic sense is still rudi-
mentary and in the kindergarten stage of
growth. A little earlier this sense found its
manifestations in hair wreaths, pine-cone
and melon-seed picture frames, highly-col-
ored wax fruit and worsted embrcideries
of marvellous pattern. The women in coun-
try homes. and in city homes, as well. who
have taken up art and, after half a doz-
en- lessons in mixing colors, and not as
many in drawing, boldly undertake to paint
anything from a Madonna to a storm at
sea-these women smile compasslonately at
the wax fruit and the hair wreaths made
by their mothers and their aunts. and feel
that they have passed infinitely beyond
them. But the mothers felt the same de-
light in their green-worsted dogs and enor-
nous roses on the footstools that the
daughters experience in contemplating their
hardly less crude pr~oductions-the same
pleasure that the most accomplished artist
feels in seeing his conceptions come into
being under his fingers. In each one the
serse of beauty is gratified, according to
its Development. Art is long wrote Long
fellow. and time is fleeting,' but art is
also slow of growth. and does not come
into being full-fedged in one generation.
Only those who are born into its atmos-
phere. or whose education is directed into
the right channels from the beginning. can
appreciate the best, or can even under
stand what constitutes true art. Americans.
as a people. are sneered at by the thought
less critics because they care so little for
the works of the masters in sculpture and
painting, but Americans have had to at
tend to physical needs before they could
crafty those of the soul. Even wealth
leisure and intelligence do not Imply the
power of appreciation of aesthetic things
if the early environment has not been one
of beauty ard high thinking. The ability te
appreciate and enjoy masterpieces does not
come with the first sight of them. The edu-
cation of the eye and of the sense of beauty
must lead I'D to them. The untutored mar