The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1904-05-08
NOT 50 TRUE
TO MA 'TURE,
y \, Yeats 't Says Paddy Witt
Pipe and Pick Is a
Myth.
.C,A,RlcATUREs or THE IRISH
Tbs l' d Artist IT'S Has Sought il Vain
10y Hin iii Old
Ireland.

JACK Yeats says that he has sought
here vainly for the 1rshman Of our
car1lc'aaltn res He Is not lii Ireland. There.
as here, nature refuses to look M to
art. lie has an! upper lip extremely
long. the upper lip or gorilla. He
smokes clay pipe. the stem of which
Is too short. 1t Is dover in bloom
at his teeth. hut the long upper lip is
an individual trait and not the trait Of
q race. And the Irish do not smoke
clay pipes.
One does not sec them carrying rick-
axes on their shoulders. They do not
dig the thenches or bulld the roads. The
Italians 10 that; they are doing that In
all the great lnnds. thus to continue the
exercise of the mission of Rome that
is to bring Rome to every forest, to every
desert 1lromm, tho chief Of a tribe OF
Gauls who We're Atrebats and did not
know that they were Atrebats, was a
brave warrior He had defeated many
other tribes because lie knew the forest
The Romans did not know the forest,
and he was sure that they could never
come to him. But he woke up one morn
Ing when thcre@was no forest. In front
of him were the Roman legions that
seemed to have taken Rono with them
to his lair. SO easy had been their road.
The road is the mark of civilizations. 1t
is a great honor TO MAKE Tint mark
Tho Irish are not making IT, They have
other missions In which there Is great
honor. but notEtlat one.
Jack Yeats draws lrishnicn-rcal Irish.
men, not those OF the caricature. Els
Figures are true. One may depend upon
them. They have the naive simplicity
| of the folk lore tale, and Jack Yeats has
worked for years and years to attain
that naive simplicity. 1t is natural. and
an artist needs n great deal of art to be
natural. He has lived among the Irish
as If he had never seen caricature of
them.
It was extremely difficult The per-
sons and tile things that one sees all
the time one never secs at all. The ef-
feet is similar 70 that OF holding ones
hand close to ones eyes. One does not
see it. Jack Yeats and his brother w.
b. Yeats, the poet. express Ireland per-
fectly In their pictures and in their
poems, because they have the faculty
to place themselves at a certain distance
from their subjects. They do not see
them too closely. and they do not see
them through caricaturcs and paintings.
Carcatures Of the Irish are all wrong
because they are mot made upon the
principle OF artistic caricature, that is.
to make portraits with characteristic
traits exaggerated. The caricaturists of
the Irish have copied one another for
years, and tincira master was a libelling
enemy. They HAYES violated the great
law of modern art. the law that nature
can be the only model to an artist They
have been mere copyists and im!tators,
and SO their work falls 1t has richly
deserved to fall.
Jack Yeats brought to Clausen's gal
lcry his water color pictures of Ireland.
The artists that appreciated them Their,
We're those who had not been spoiled in
their clearness OF vision by the carica-
lures that have been conventional. These
caricatllres. false as they were, seemed
to be truthful Most persons saw the
Irish through the caricaturcs that have
been made OF them Many persons car
rcd in their memory TO Ireland the inn
preston Of these caricatures. and re-
turned from Ireland with the sincere
opinion that they were truthful.
Untruth is more powerful than truth.
because untrutl IS multiple and has
suppleness which truth has not. 1t Is
vain to say that the trishman that wears
knee breeches. twirls n shillelah and
dances iigs is not In ireland nor else
where.Henri Rome du Bots, In New
York Journal,