The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-09
ARR EDUCATION AT FAULT.
MR. WARIN1PS VIEWS SUPPORTED
~ AMERICAN CRAFTSMEN.

Charles NJ. Rhean Says That We Neglect
Everything for Painting Architects
anxious 10 Take Foreign Wodels-CIty
Has Failed In Many OF Its BuiidInss.
The interview in yesterdays Sun with s,
j. Waring, the English decorator, on the
need Of a new American Renaissance =,
the keynote of which should be simplicity
Of form, simplicity in the Use OF color and
simplicity in ornament, caused comment
among artists yesterday. Mr.. Waring spoke
highly Of the Colonial art INC said he could
not understand the Americans blindness
TO its beauty with so many excellent exam
rles Of it about us. He suggested that in
stead of slavishly copying existing styles
thr artists here should take our own Colo
NAL style and reconstruct it to meet the
social needs and domestic conditions Of
to-day.
one Of the artists who agree with Mr..
Waring is Charles M. Shean, the mural
and portrait painter. who has given special
attention to the subject INC who wrote "A
Plea for Americanism in the Decorations
If Public Buildings" five years ago. Mr..
Waring, he said, took a very intelligent
view of the subject, hut personally he did
not see very much chance for improvement
in the near future.
Tho whole system of art education and
the traditions of the profession here make
the development Of an original style almost
inpossihle," said he. The general idea
,cens to lie that the only true artists are
painter, consequently those who take up
ornament and decoration are looked upon
a. belonging to an inferior grade of the
profession. There was objection long ago
To- even 40 eminent an artist as John La
Fargo merely because he did some decora-
tive work and did not stick slavishly to
his easel.
Now, what has been the result of this?
Pupils in our art schools are taught practi-
cany nothing but Painting. They do not
get the broad foundation necessary for
creative work. What might be called
The minor branches are neglected and
looked down upon; The art world
great geniuses that have added so much
to its glory We're thoroughly schooled in all
its branches and thus equipped to produce
worE that cannot be surpassed. Michael
angelo was not only a sculptor and a Painter,
but he was an architect. lie Prun, the
celebrated French painter designed the
most beautiful room in the Louvre, the
Gallery of Apollo. and yet there is not a
painting by lie Brun in that room. 1t is
the design of the gallery more than the
pictures that makes the room so strikingly
beautiful.
As Mr.. Waring says, we have many
excellent examples Of beautiful architect
ure about Ills, but instead of pTofiting
by them We seem to be going backward.
Take Philadelphia, for instance. There
there are countless specimens OF perfect
domestic architecture, and yet they are
running up architectural monstrosities
tight beside them. Look at our own City
Hall and then at some of the buildings
that surround 1.-THE Hall Of Records, for
instance, which should be a perfect picture
Of American life.
"Iu the City Hall are hung the portraits
of many dead and gone Mayors by Ameri-
can artists. some of these portraits are
splendid works Of art, yet practically no
new ones have been hung there in forty
building stopped about the time of the civil
war and it was never taken up again, al
though there is now q law on the statute
books Of the State permitting the munioi-
pality to spend $50. 900 a year on this work.
No advantage has ever been taken of that
law,
Boston has a great public library. Bos-
ton might be called the birthplace Of Ameri-
can literature. Yet in the decorations of
that library there is no reference whatever
TO American literature. The same can be
said Of the Congressional Library at Wash
In ton"
Mr.. Shean was inclined toblame the archi-
teots largely for conditions here. The orna-
mental and decorative work was so often
made to fit designs that were copied from
abroad that the artists had no chance for
creative work, even il they were inclined to
do it. Then, too, there was the craze for
reproduction among our wealthy people of
famous villas, palaces and rooms on the
other side. These men did not want origi-
nality. He cited the instance Of one man
who bought the furnishings of a fine room
in an Italian palace, transported them to
this country and set them up in his new
residence, apparently without approaching
The incongruity Of the whole thing or that
his old room would scarcely fit, from an ar
tistic viewpoint, the new American mansion.