The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-07
THE REFORMERS IN ART
PROF. a. VI. BROOKS DISCUSSES PRE-
RAPHAELITEs AND OTHERS.
A Lecture Before the Art Associate on
by Head of a state Univer-
sity Department.

At the presidents reception of the Art
Association of indianapolis, held in the
Propylaeum last night, Prof Alfred Mans
field Brooks lectured on 1.-The Art of the
Pre-Raphaelites and the Italians of the
Quarto-Cento." The arrangements for the
reception were made by Mrs. r. f. Hodges,
Mrs. George F. Adams and Mrs. Addison
Byhee The west parlor was decorated in
pink and green, the mantels being banked
with palms and plants frightened by clus-
tiers of roses. The speakers stand was half
concealed by tall palms. After the lecture
light refreshments were served and the
members of the association and their friends
met Professor Brooks. He is a man of
charming personality and the title ''profes-
sor'' seems rather homogeneous when applied
to one of his youthful appearance.
Mrs May Wright Sewall, president of the
association, in intro ducing Professor Brooks,
| said that the association was trying to re-
vive the monthly meetings which formerly
were so pleasant and successful. She spoke
of the pleasure it gave the association to
know of the great interest the Indiana Uni
versity is taking in art, and introduced Pro-
| lessor Brooks as the head of the art depart
ment in that institution.
| In an introductory way Professor Brooks
| reminded his auditors that when creeds and
governments become corrupt they are final
ly overthrown. This is also true, he said
of the fine arts, painting, sculpture and
| architecture. When the arts sink into base
ness the inevitable wave of reform sweeps
| over them Out of reform good finally
| comes. Luther gave US Professionalism, :"
said he, "yet few men will say they believe
their creeds are perfect in doctrine OF prac-
tice. George washington gave us a
new government 1t is not perfect
| There are many things we might
/ desire, yet none would give up his religious
| belief or his country because they are not
| perfect" 1t was the desire for reform that
| found expression in the pre-Raphaelite
| school. Professor Brooks said that one of
! the most common, withal wrong ideas, was
| that the pre-Rapha elites were society or
| men bound together to make pictures like
| those before Raphael, of religious subjects
and that their works were simply copies,
| SerVile in drawing and treatment. Before
| discussing them, he said, ii was necessary
| to speak of the conditions that made them
| reformers. TO do this it was necessary to
trace art from the earliest days. But little
| is known of the art of the Greeks, but he
said it was reasonable to suppose that the
| art of painting was as highly developed as
nothing left to strengthen this idea-none
| of the work itself-nothing but written de-
scriptions Through some Byzantine manu-
| scripts, Illuminated with paintings of re-
| ligious subjects, come the only traces of the
| art of the Greeks, and even these are SterO-
| typed and express but little. After the de-
| struction of Greek art it was revived in
| Italy. The professor then discussed art in
Italy, which began to manifest itself IN
| mosaics of religious subjects. He spoke of
! the difficulties under which the artists
| worked speaking of the impossibility of
| and the soft glow of flesh in mosaics mas
much as the artist must confine himself to
| broken bits of material; none much less
| than a quarter ST an inch square,
THE REFORM IN ITALY.
1t was an attempt to reform from mo-
sales that the Italians of the thirteenth
century made They began fresco work on
the church walls, copying the old Egyptian
methods of laying on the pigments in water,
| applying the brush while the plaster of the
walls was yet wet, so that the painting
sank in and became part of the wall 1t
was in the matter of graduation of color
that reform began. The work of
! the artists of this period was
| characterized by the three prin-
| ciples that afterward appealed to the
pre- aphaelites = faithfulness. earnestness
| them from the sixteenth and seventeenth
| century products. In the fourteenth and fif-
in drawing, perspective there was scarcely
any. Their work had back of it deep
| religious spirit, desire to teach the people
| of Christ, one artists work showing the
|
| While the faces OF the early works were
| expressive of the passions, they were not
human faces. The effects of misty distance
and sunlight, now so much striven for, were
wholly lacking. The leaves in the pictures
| can be counted and numbered. The artists
| forgot or ignored the TACT that the leaves
| of field or clover cannot be counted.
| After Raphael painting was done by men
| of no lofty purpose. Professor Brooks said
that he would not be understood as saying
| that there were no good and great paint
ings in the sixteenth and seventeenth CEN
| turtles. The fault was not in the work itself,
| but in the spirit in which it was done. Com
| ing down to the eighteenth century, he said
! that the first English painter of renown,
| Hogarth, was a reformer. His work was
| directed to satirizng the conditions of the
day, and much good was accomplished by
his work Joshua Reynolds saw and put
on canvas the spirit as well the figure,
of his sitter Turner's landscapes show the
hand of a genius. earnest faithful and palms.
taking. 1t was his mission to interpret ma
ture and any one of his paintings is a lovely
hymn of praise After this generation art in
England deteriorated until just before the
| pre-Raphaeite school was founded by Ro-
setti and six associates in 1913. Rosetti's
brother, writing of English ART at that time,
said that it was ''wishy-Washy' and worth
less. The pre-Raphaelites banded together
to elevate English art. Looking back over
the work of ages, they saw that which fol-
their models those who went before-be-
came known as pre-" Raphaelites Their
aim was the intellectual elevation and tech
meal advancement of art Art as they
found it was at low ehh. and they reached
the conclusion that this was due to the
lack of fathfulness, earnestness and per-
severance which they found marked the
work of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. They tried to revive the mys-
ticism of the thirteenth century, not by
copying. but by original work ON the same
lines They failed Modern times were not
in touch with the mysticism of the middle
ages. They adhered to the natural form
and devoted great attention to detail at the
expense of breadth. By breadth Professor
Brooks said he meant the quality of dis
tinguishing between the relations of the
part to the whole The straw in the paint
ing must not distract attention from the
whole sheaf
In conclusion he said that the influence
of the pre-Raphaelites had been to stimu-
late drawing and TO teach the artist to OBJ
serve nature more closely. Their influence
was felt by their contemporaries not only
in France but the United States Their
faults We're soon forgotten, and their in
sistence ON the three Observation-Disclosures
earnestness and perseverence-must be felt
in the history of art.
There was some discussion of the lecture
led by Mr. Steele and Mrs. Sewall
-&-o-e-
Death of Mrs. Maria A. HandIey.
Mrs Maria A Handley died at IN o'clock