Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-10-13
MRS. n. c. YOUNG OF FARGO
,Gontinued from page ~

is always interesting. Some of the
most interesting people in the world are
not the most beautiful. 1t is something
back of the expression that we care
for, and in Italian art it is the intel
lcctual content that interests us.
The Renaissance has a two-fold task
the task of interpreting the Christian
faith and the task of interpreting the
ancient world. After the revival in
Italy, under St. Francis of Assist,
churches sprang up everywhere, church,
cs with great wall spaces to be decor
atcd. The people had no Bibles. and if
they had they could not have read them.
The covered walls were to be their BIZ
BILE. The art of the early renaissance
>prang out of the necessity of the times.
Painting was as vital to the Italians as
sculpture had been to the Greeks About
the year l4Go, let us say the middle of
the fifteenth century, came the revival
OF learning in Italy; the return Of tray
clerS from Greece; the exploitation of
ancient manuscripts opened TIP a new
world to the thinking men of the time.
Theirs was midsummer night S
dream of forest glades, where dryades
and satyrs danced, or of far away seas,
where Triton blew his wreathcd horn.
Side by side with virgin and saints
were painted Palas, .Ariadne and .Aph-
rodte. Such dualsm in art could not
long exist without conflict. The out
come was the complete secularization of
art in the sixteenth century. And now
all the pagans have Christian names.
But. mark you, this has not been at
tanned until the Christian field has been
exhausted, and there has been the EN-
hodlment of every pagan myth. What
the modern world received from Italy
was the book of the past completely
illustrated. There was nothing left for
the Dutch and the French and the Eng
lish but to turn to the world of today
An art so exhausted as that demands
our unstinted admiration Has it ever
struck you that the artists of today do
not paint Madonnas. that they do not
turn to Greek mythology for sources of
inspiration? Not because the world is
tired of these then1es-the world never
grows tired Of beautiful pictures; but
because the Italians have said the last
word on Greek mythology and the
Christian faith
And Italian art is interesting because
It presents a development. should
like to give you three names. and with
those names three dates. The first is
Giotto and the time is 1900: the second
is Massaccio and the year is 400, and
the third is Leonardo da Vinci, and his
time is 300 These three men rise SO
far above the level of their time, that
succeeding artists for century despair
of more than initiating them. From a
low level art rises stage to stage First
comes the mastery of form, then the
mastery of expression. then mastery OF
movement. and following this the sue
cessful distribution of light and shade
and finally mastery of color.
In those three wonderful centuries
the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth
the foundation of all succeeding art was
laid. and almost every problem solved
Having promised so much as to the
interest Of my theme and it's Importance
1t behooves me to ask question of pri-
mary Importance What is art? Art is
the Interpretation in terms of beauty OF
the srorld in svIlich 7ce lie. Art is an
Interpretation, not an imitation, and it
IS always in terms of beauty. Other
wise it is not art. All of us have to a
lesser or greater degree the power OF
visualizing. I have only to repeat the
words
II love thy rocks and rills,
"Thy woods and tempted hills
to have come before us mental vision.
It may be memory or an idealization
With some it is vague. blurred image
tantalizing us because it will not stay
with others it is vision clear and dis
tinct remaining long enough for us 70
describe it, or if we are artists, to
paint it
You recall Browning's words:
We love when first we see them painted
Things we have passed perhaps hun
dred times,
Nor cared to see. God uses to help
each other so
Lending our minds out.
That's the purpose of art, an inter-
probation on the part of the artist to
make clear to US Our blurred images.
Dedication Of Statue.
The principal feature Of to-day's