The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-14

MYRIAD volumes have been written
on the art of nature and the nature of
art, and yet each magazine and week
" paper has its art essays; the cities
are full of clubs studying art, defining,
explaining and illustrating its nature.
When will they be done? When bleak
November ceases to bring new poems
or "snow" and thoughtless ridicule
succeeds in abashing the spring poet
into silence. Poets and painters and
sculptors are illustrating and critics
are defining that subtle something we
call art and when they have done with
their learned din and the head ceases
10 ache and the heart to throb for the
poets passion, mayhap from within
q dewdrop on a blade of grass little
elf Wits the stiff-necked conceit with
an unmistakeab I'm art; catch me
if you can" And then the definitions
begin all over again. Is it not case
of chasing ones own shadow? A poet
may burn the midnight oil to beat
ten lines into a ryhme' over which one
may yawn and another weep; the
sculptor may chisel twice ten years to
perfect his Venus, from which one may
turn, with Browning, Ito yonder girl
that fords the burn" Rosa BOnheur's
canvas may hold one enraptured, while
another would gladly turn from it to
look into the eye and stroke the name
of that king of domestic beasts. What
does it all mean. if not that art is as
broad. as deep and as varied as human
nature? One laughs at, another loves
q picture, because to one 1t is q mys-
tic mirror of an inner life; to another
It is but an external curiosity. To the
scientist nature is scientific; to the
artist it is artistic. The astronomer
sees in the heavens the mighty laws Of
gravitatiOn in operation; the poet sees
the 'infinite meadows Of heaven where
blossom the lovely stars, the forget
me-nOts Of the angels" The lumber
man sees so many feet of lumber in
the stately oak; the poet sees God s
first temples ere man learned to hew
the shaft or lay the architrave," The
slothful man feels no throb of pain in
reading Browning's allegorical tribute
to ambition:
ct said, then dearest since tits So
Since now at length my fate ! know,
Since nothing all my love avails
Since all my life seemed meant for fails
Take back the hope you gave; | claim
But memory of the same"
In those lines one may see the shat
tered image of a life's dream and
through the sensitive construction Of
the human heart a thrill of comfort
ing sympathy is awakened. The ma
dOnnas will never be to US what they
were to the men and women who were
driven by religious frenzy to lay
down their property, to risk their lives
and finally to send away over the seas
$1,000 urguarded children to rescue the
deserted sepuchre of the madonna's
son. To them the pictures of the di-
vine mother and great cathedrals were
the projected, embodied emotions which
throbbed in every breast, but which
could not be expressed save by the
genius of an artist. But there is a
beauty to which men and women Of
this century respond that would have
made no impression upon those of the
fifteenth. Art has been brought from
the skies, has been Gagged in human
form and made to yield up it's beauties
to the affairs of every day life. A
woman of refinement and culture need
not go now to the gallery for art; she
finds it all about her, and with a magic
IOuCI IIIdhGS Tie SIIlipISSI OuJSClS III
her home reflect the beauty and art
in her own soul. 1t is not hair-brain-
ed philosophy that names art as the
medium through which the human
spirit is to be brought to perfection.
Let the most snarling, fretful, distem-
pered woman once come to the full
appreciation of the element of beauty
in a work of art, and for that moment
the wrinkles of worry must smooth
away, her heart will grow with her
appreciation and by looking always for
the beautiful the art in her own nature
will find quick and frequent reflection
in the art that lies all about her. 1t
was genuinely artistic spirit that
said.
''There are hopes and fears,
There are Joys and tears
But the blessings come between"