The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1897-10-14


fragments have been found in caves
and river beds thus engraved; and
from them we find that the higher
artistic instinct of developing man has
dwelt in and originated with his saw
age brother, that our own perfection
consists solely in the further Develop
ment of the same ideas.
Carrying this idea down through the
ages, ages which of necessity but
slowly enhanced the artistic ideals of
the race, for the constant striving for an
ideal has been the incentive producing
the real, we are able to trace in his art,
the home life, the social life, the reli-
gious life, and by the very iconoclastic
spirit of age, mans political life as
we'll. We turn to Egypt to admire the
massive grandeur of her sculptured
collosi; her tempted sphinx; her pas
saged pyramids and chiseled mono
liths; her historic pages of stone, that
recorded her strength through the ages
on base and pillar, wall and frieze.
Here find portrayed the slave on
bended knee, yonder the mighty son of
Ra; here the triumphal return of the
victorious army laden with spoil, there
the procession of the dead. Here
standing the magnificent palace of the
king; beyond the river the humble
hut of the paraschities. Here
the court of justice crowned by
the image of Thoth, the blind goddess;
across the way the open store of the
food vendor. What wealth of life is
laid open. What depth of misery
concealed behind the lines of the artis-
tic conceptions of man as depicted in
this full, yet scant, field of knowledge
Look out upon this field as it has re-
vealed to us the life of the sixteenth
century b. G. when in the city of
Thebes the oppressor's edict went forth
and the first born needs must die
There under the shadow of the pyra-
mids, in the valley of the Nile, lay the
clustering huts of the Hebrew slaves,
then the sound of the death wall. See
that mother and daughter issue forth
bent on their heart-rending mission!
See the wicker basket, as it lays amid
the rushes freighted with it's precious
burden, living burden whose hand
became leader s, whose name became
torchlight; whose laws yet stand
evidence of his prestige among men!
He whose grave lies unknown on
Nebo's lonely mountain. Think you
art can tell greater story than this
the condemned child of the Hebrew
slave, the castaway, the priest of Ore,
the general of the legions of Ra, the
murderer, the fugitive, the shepherd
of Negdon, the chosen of God and the
leader and liberator of Israel? Ay. Art
may tell a more beautiful story but
never greater.
1t is art that has revealed to us the
buried civilizations of the past; that
has depicted for us through the centu-
ries, the culture that swayed the ma
tions of earth, that reveals to us the
social life of nations long buried in
oblivion, and enables us, by a COM
pariSOn of their standards to deter
mine the height of their civilization.
1t is art that raises man from the cave
of the savage to the palace of the king;
art that incites to higher life; more
perfect attachments, truer and nobler
conceptions of human purposes, and
the Creators will; art that makes life
worth living, life more real. 1t per-
meates, in some of its many forms,
every phase of our social life. It gives
to us our luxurious habitations; our
schools and churches; our temples of
thrift and amusement; fills our picture
galleries, our walls and homes with the
masterpieces of Titan, of Rubens, of
Murillo, of Alexander and the host
that follow in their path. Art that by
its constant striving for the ideal con-
ception, as harbored in the human
mind, leads to, and produces the ex-
preston of the real as seen around us.
1t was art that, by personifcation in
the stone or ivory statues of early life
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