Los Angeles herald., 1910-03-06

n nAUL DE LONGPRE has recently
issued another appeal for ma
4 tional art in the form Of an open
letter to all lovers Of art, which he
has sent to the press throughout the
United States. The following letter
"on the siliest and most barbarous
craze Of the age" is the fourth Of a
series of similar articles written by
Mr.. De Longpre in the past three
years, and all have been widely pub
| lished and commented upon:
"In the last fifty years several hun
dred millions of dollars spent for thou
sands of ugly, smoky, cracked old
masters (most of them spurious).
Starving pitilessly the living art
lists. The so sad picture of Millets life
repeated continually for the benent oil
the dead Of centuries ago!
"The great majority Of the so-called
old masters flooding the United States
should be relegated to special rooms
called chambers of horrors.
1.-THE true artist or amateur of art
must. first of all. be lover Of the
beautiful; it must be his religion, and
the great elevating mission Of art is
to educate the masses to love the
beautiful.
Starting with that idea. which is
absolute truth, it can be asked: Is
there any real beauty (outside of a
limited number) in the thousands of
so-called old masters to be found IN
the United States? Most assuredly
not! As the majority Of them are rep
resenting commonplace, wooden, stupid
subjects, full of faults Of drawing,
with the dead coloring of mummies.
"What pernicious influence upon
Il. ffgff 10 10 or Of T1pnnln
great republic must have the immense
quantity of those old hOrrros deco
rating thousands of wealthy homes!
"If the old masters could only see
the many atrocities sold under their
names!
IF they could see the numberless
factories in America and in Europe
where old masters are painted by the
gross! Just to satisfy the silly osten-
tation of the new rich.
as it not most inhuman, most in
famous, to wait till an artist is dead
| to purchase his paintings and proclaim
him great?
"Oh, rich art lovers read these few
lines about the great Millet's sad life:
Time after his first masterpieces were
rejected by the jury of the Paris salon.
In order to keep his wife and children
from starvation he would accept any
sums So late as 1S4S a friend, learn
ing of his plight. raised twenty dollars
for him from the minister of fine arts.
At that time all Paris was talking of
his paintings. And those same paint
ings, which command now fabulous
prices, nobody would buy!'
Instead of enriching dealers in old
fake paintings, why do not our rich
art patrons extend a helping hand to
needy geniuses?
Surely nothing could give greater
| satisfaction to them than to know that
their wealth was instrumental in
handing down to posterity some here
tofore undiscovered great artist.
ut should be the natural and sensible
wish of everyone that the reward
should come to those creating fine art
works before death has stilled their
hand and brain.
"The living artists should be entitled
to the moral and financial support of
their wealthy fellow men, and in re-
turn to give to the world the best that
is in them.
"Only in this way can the true art
spirit be created and leave it's imprint
on the sands of time. Only in this
way can the twentieth century be pro-