The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-14

dltci nav tIlS I1idQS the IOuId u I<0-
ropean churches, is like taking a
breath from the fields when the haw-
thorn bloom is fresh, after a season
in a perfumer's laboratory. While
tinselry and images. the coloring and
glow of most cathedrals, there is none
of that wide sense of desolateness, or
bereavement, or even monotony, as
you seek vainly to compass the broad
expanse. Because it is everywhere
thrown into the most graceful and ar
tistic of lines and curves, and even the
angles serve to cut off the material
ity of mathematical proportion. In
this 1 fancfed the mastery hand Of
| Giotto even before his name was men
toned as superintendent of the work.
| That the circle he made upon the wall
of his absent host-as the old story
runs-shouId have served effectually as
his visiting card, signifying his pres
ence in city long distant from his
home, one can readily believe. The
grand cupola. so much admired, and
which is said to have served Michael
Angelo as a model for Saint Peters at
Rome, is, like the church, in black
and white marble. Standing apart at
a distance of four or five feet or more,
it looks like an afterthought-a climax
not embraced in the mechanical design
OF the original 1t was Brunelleschi who
conceived and erected this last great
work
1t is a popular belief with American
Protestants that the Catholic church
receives all and grants nothing in re-
turn. On the contrary, what has she
not done for the preservation of these
most valuable relics of antiquity? In
deed, Protestant Europe seems to be a
paradox Everywhere, from the At
lantic to the Adriatic, wherever we
find precious memories embalmed we
also find the vesta1 fires, and hear wor-
shippers chanting hymns to the Virgin.
Their cathedrals are gorgeous regis
tries, their Campo Santos story the arts
in marble and porphyry. They make
no virtue of all their sacrifices for it is
done in the name of the Virgin and
the Son Their feast of the dead
is as sacred and sweet as their Easter
lilies, and travellers may wander
through their time-honored aisles at
will, without scrip or purse.
Who shall say that the day of re-
ligious intolerance has not gone by for
ever? In narrow street running "a
longside the Cathedral at Florence the
shops are all kept by Jews. The great
shadow of the Duorno falls upon places
where the descendants of Christ's exc
cutioners sell colored silk handker-
| chiefs to dry. the tears or dust the
! pantaloons of his mourners and wor-
! shippers.
why" said a New York Jew bank
| er, who was criticized by brother He
| brew for hanging in his art collection
a head of the Savior, why should I
not as a Jew honor the greatest Jew
| that ever lived?"
| Again am L haunted by this eternal
ubiquitous picture of Judith with the
head of Holofernes, and still again,
whether the female decapitatist be tall
or short fat or lean, languishing or
SSNeiSy VI DIuC-CyCu, dcAh VI
golden-haired, there is the same utter
vacuity, the same incarnate emptiness
upon her features. I long to behold
Judith who seems to take. an interest
in what she is doing. and my longing
remains unsatisfied.
Barbarian that I am, I am almost
tired of art, and I yearn for a noun
tain, a tumbling river, or a jingling
mule. team. I am sick of this crowded
perfectness of architecture and long
for a sharp corner-on May wheat, for
instance. 1 can understand what
Shakespeare meant by saying
so sweet that the sense aches at
thee
and L intend no jibe at the enhancing
art of Italy when 1 say that 1 rejoice
that it is there to go to- and there TO
depart from For hundreds and hum
dreds eff years thousands and thous-
ands of men have been busy with
brush and chisei, copying nature OF
giving expression to ideas. By the
Darwinian law of the survival of the
f1ttest it is the best of the countless
acres of canvas, and the choicest of the
marble multitudes which have been
preserved. and We of the New World
may we'll stand with grateful hearts
and uncovered heads before these
monuments of human genius and pa
t:ence and toll. But let US not there
fore decry our own land-as do some
dilletantists-or regret that she, too,
is not great in art Bierstadt, and Po-
ners and Church. and Hosmer. and
RosenthaI and Hill, and others not
less great do not lack for apprecia-
ton and honor from their countrymen.
and if greater reward and louder fame
came to Mccormick, and Fulton, and
Morse. and Jethro Wood, and Howe.
and Edison. it is because tanning and
utilizing the forces of nature is great
err than depicting her moods. or ehro-
melting the passions of her children.
Rubens painted the tightening, but the
pupiIs of Franklin. and Morse, and