The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-07

and the curly clouds. Why Will not our
girls leave off their cheap, tawdry
twitters and triIls, and shakes and eff
fects, and take honestly to song-such
as bubbles from the heart with the
laugh of the child such as scorns mus
cular contortions and trapeze per-
fornances. In nature there is ample
breadth of effect, perfect freedom is
her first great law, and the art which
distracts rather than initiates or con-
| forms. deserves gust such. reward as it
| finds among our American school of
music artists.
l shall try to describe some of the
art treasures of Florence. but at the at
tempt my thoughts go a-dreaming
| through an hundred worlds. The his
| tory of any one of her paintings, taken
with its author, might fill a volume;
| how then shall I dare to venture with
! flppant pen, or superficial step, upon
| ground sacred to a past which leans
| upon immortality? The collection in
the Uf1zzi palace was made by the royal
| family of Medicis and a chapel at the
entrance is dedicated to the exhibition
of some of the most prominent of them
| in marble and bronze. 1 wonder that
their vanity should have so got the bet
| ter of their intelligence as to allow
| tious faces to posterity. If arrogance,
| cruelty, ill-temper, obstinacy, weakness
| and disSoluteness were ever so incarnat-
| ed in human faces as among the ten
| Medicis princes, l have yet to behold
| the exhibition. You long to pull the
nose off the arrogant bombastic Gas
| ton You feel like sending the bald
headed, -proboscised Ferdinand
Third to the county Jail. You know
| that Cosmos is a bullet-headed puppy,
and that Laurence, with his low brows,
square jaws, and ugly eyes, is sadly in
need of a thrashing. Francis with his
weak, bad mouth and high cheek bones,
looks like a prison convict. Cosmos
Second has every indication of a dis
sOlute dry goods clerk. Cosmos Third
is effeminate and vicious. Ferdinand
| the Second is no better than Francis
Leopold sports a narrow forehead,
| bottle nose, and an idiots mouth and
| chin, and Ferdinand First, who looks
| like a prize-fghter, is the only one of
them all who would be selected as a
| possible ruler of men. But they and
| their successors are all dead thank
| Heaven, and the art collection they
| founded lives. They were evidently de-
| Vout Catholics and extreme sensualists,
| for the Tuscan school they patronized
| presents strange medley of religion
| and righteousness, and paintings suit
| able for a cathedral dispute the atten-
| ton with those unfit for public ex-
| hibition. There is a marked absence of
marine views and landscapes. A nat
ural bridge by Salvador Rosa is almost
| the only painting without human fig
ures. That satire on manhood-Adam,
| for surely he was poor specimen to
start world with, is represented in
the act of accepting the forbidden fruit
from a luscious, coaxing Eve, and the
| artist has thrown an expression of
| weakness not only into the face, but
the very listless fingers of the father
| of the human race.
There are several terrible torture pic
lures. Roastings and tearings of early
Christians by the heather. but none of
| subsequent destruction of Christians by
each other There are portraits of five
hundred illustrious characters, whose
names have never been heard since.
| There is portrait of the artist Ramon.
which might easily be taker for a paint
| ed photograph of the late Roscoe Conk-
| ling. so faithful and exact in every par
| ticular is the likeness. Here is the
famous Vencis de Medicis. Here are
Roman statues repaired by Michael An
gelo. Here are cups and vases, and
curious porcelains, and mosaics, inIaid
with precious stones. Here, in the hall
of Niobe, are 6tatues taken from a |
Greek temple. Here are fawns and
satyrs, lovers and warriors, gods and
mortals, martyrs and murderers, living |
again in bronze and marble. on frescoed |
wall and bright-hued canvass
A living author, and one not incon- |
TVn he
these words into the mouth of the hero !
OF the book and an artist:
Nowadays what can men do in the
arts? Nothingi All has been painted.
all sung, all said. There is no I'M
traversed ocean to tempt the Columbus
of any art
read these words and re-read them
again and again, and each time the
wonder grew. If the author had but
ieIt the reflection open to speculation, it
might be supposed that the assump-
ton was levelled at the waning taste or
demand for works of art But that
ali had been painted, all sung. all
said" Are then human passions and
purposes dead? Is human achievement
at an end? Where are the indictments
or science, she wonders revealed day by
day the discoveries, the inventions
WHICH III the upneaV1ng process of civil
lizatlon makes each it's distinct and in
olVldual draft upon art? What Raphael
for Shiloh? What lie Main for the
Battle of San Juan Hill? What Cham
pa1gn will give to the world art scenes
from Libby or AndersonvilIe? Is the
work of art accomplished while
Apaches strut, begirt with the bloody
garments of brave men, and crowned |
with scalps silken and fair as the sun?
Are there not ''untraversed oceans by |
every hearthstone. around every tun- |
mel, and shaft, and stock board. and
market place, everywhere from .Alcatraz