The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-23
MORALS AND ART.

The controversy in New York be- tween Signor Biondi, the sculptor, and the trustees of the Metropolitan Muse um of Fine Arts, has a genuine inter lest for the country at large. because the museum is really a national insti- tuition, and also because the great pro- blem involved is brought sharply home to managers and directors of every col- lection of pictures, sculpture and ob- fleets of art in every city and town in the world. From the dawn of art to the present day the question has been asked, What is the relation of morals Ito art? And this is the subject of de- bate in New York, with prospect of Hong litigation, unless the museum re- traces it's steps, drags Biondi's group, "The Saturnalia,' from the basement, and exhibits it in full view of the pulp | lie for one year.
 The saturnalia" took the Grand IPrix at Paris and high awards at the
 Buffalo exposition; the sculptors of
 New York do not dispute the technical
 excellence of the artists handiwork; there is life, passion and meaning in the faces; the grouping is effective, the relation of the figures in this striking land vigorous work, the one to the oth- CT, is harmonious, and they all several fly combine to make a strong, complete
 whole
 But the riot of drunken men and wo- men, the utter deviltry and baseness suggested in the faces and attitudes of ,lot~a of f,.tx !, force accuracy and high mastery of detail and technic, are, say. the Arneri- can Judges, immoral. The group, not |withstanding the sculptor's professed object to enforce the lesson that sensu- Iality and debauchery bring their own dire penalties, reaches it's end by pains which are not approved by an Anneri- can public nor by American artists. The old issue is thus pretty clearly defined, What has art got to do with morals? In the ate1iers of Paris, in the Latin Quarter, in the books of vast number of intelligent and brilliant wri- ters on aesthetics, the answer has been given with much emphasis that morals have nothing whatever to do with art. The moral element of life is as neces- sary, they will admit, to the health of
 the human race as ozone is to the lungs, but art and morals are two entirely diff ferent and separate affairs. Even old
 Aristotle cited the case of, as one would say, "a perfect thief;p the doctors will say of blemish in the human anato- my that 'athis is beautiful sore" and so critics of that school will contend that in the world of art 1t is only a crude Philistinisrn which has quarrel with any faithful representation of life [ or nature that is slsillfully and faith fully done. They resent the tranamels which a too conscious and conscien- tious-or as they would say, prudish and pocritical-audience insist on throwing about their opportunities to depict life as it is--to mirror nature. lThackeray, for instance, thought he was by no means an tart for arts sake kind of 8 man, complained mournfully enough in his English Hu- morists'' that not an English writer since Fielding had dared to paint in novels the English people as they real lily were.
 These considerations bring to view the great problem of the fine arts in their relation to life. What is or should be, the underlying purpose of the artist whether novelist, painter or sculptor? Is It merely a mirror nature las faithfully as may be? Shall we heap honor on the man who with infi- mite pains merely gives a transcript of the dark corners, and who makes us feel, for instance, that we have really walked through the haunts of vice and have felt the horror of the murder al- ley? The answer, according to ideal- ists, is that unless that artist makes us resolve to do away with the slum he is not a noble artist. Of all the defini- tions of the artist and his aims, per- haps one of the best was given by Goe-