The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1906-06-26

"Dear uncle" said little Oily with
an anxious look, tell me, what is
Art?'
Art, my dear nephew" replied
! Uncle George, vigorously busting the
ashes from his nickelodeon off his
| living. and art is also the bane of our
| existence. II gives employment te
| many deserving men and women. and
causes the treasury department untold
anguish. AS handled by Velasque2 or
Rubens 1t Is ethereal and taken care
1t is dipthereal the difference being
that the first two are not in posi-
ton to reap any reward for their work
and the latter are clamoring hungrily
for mere work at $3.50 a day. Done
by man who needs the money, art IL
worthless, but IL produced by some
gilded imbecile who has more than IL
good for him, 1t becomes at once OF
extreme value--tO some persons
Turned out by printing press the
picture Is not art handled by a long
haired gaZabo attired in a soiled vel
vet coat and a vaudyke beard, who
slaps wads of color on good canvass
with an air brush or a whitewash I'M
plement 1t becomes an impressionistic
symphony. There is a line Of De
narration somewhere, Oily but you
get three guesses. and no one puts II
in the same place
DO all artists paint, dear unole?'
asked Oily
No, my dear boy" replied Uncle
George Some Of them merely touch
Others, again, fuss about on pine
board with place of hot metal; still
others are to be found upon the stage
and others, again, are in Jail; but all
are artists. Augustine DAILY once re
marked that an artist without temper
ament was Of no value, and that If he
the patron was stung either way he
played It. Yet there are many wise
men in the art game, and it is these
who make the coin trip merrily in
their direction To masy of MS art
is a game; a sort of ats&-as-catch-caa-
I-saw-it-frst proceeding. Good Master
Pierpont Morgan goes abroad and pur
chases largely of works Of art and
pays enormous sums to have them
brought here. Then some rude per-
son points out delicately that Mr. Nor /
gan has been stung, for his object OF
art was turned out in Jersey City or
Mayayunk by garlic eating artist
with some plaster of paris and a fine
sense of humor.
ITO a great extent art depends upon |
its antiquity. What would be the |
soul of art If done by Michael Ange-
10 would be but paltry effort when
turned out by your friend. Algernon
st. Leger Dubbe, down the street, that
is II the public knew It, but If Alger
non was foxy enough to break the leg
Of his statue or crack the varnish of
his picture and let some one discover
il in an excavation or an attic as the
case might be, it would become real
art To the mind of many thinking
persons, Oily, the old masters were
the bunco men of their day. To many
others they were all the goods. You
never can tell. Much art comes from
abroad, and the native artists are
slathering considerably over the ques-
ton of duty upon art. II they are 10
be put in competition with the pauper
art labor Of Europe they can see their
dinner pals dwindling, but II we are
TO have a high protective tariff on art
they think perhaps TREY will be able
10 buy enough coal to heave at the
wolf that is rubbing the paint from
The door post 1t is a sad thing, my
lear boy. TO think that the foreign
.rade is driving our artists to the
wall"
Does all art rome from abroad, dear
melee" asked billy.
Eyes. Oily" said Uncle George.
Art is always distant from where we
i've. To the resident of Oskaloosa. the
,nly artists live in Paris To the
American in Paris all art comes from
Rome. and II you can get far enough
,ast you will find that the only true
lrt has its habitat somewhere between
rarrytown and Coshohocton. We
rave just discovered, my boy. that the
lelicate art Of the japanese about
which we raved for years. is manufac-
ured on the East side of New York
s~-v beetle-browed Germans under