New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-12-22
By Kenneth Mcgowan

About once a year we should hold
high festival to the Urban god Of
beauty
Then the good folk Of Broadway
would gather together in some open
spot Of the town-perhaps the com
mons once known as. Long Acre-to lay
sacrifices upon the altar and dance
their devotion about IT, Messengers
from the country folk 10 the outer
demesnes Of westchester and Bergen
and Kings would bring tribute, and
stand clownishly about, watching in
round-eyed wonder the wild devoirs Of
the gods devotees.
Out from the swirl OF dancers on
the hidden, out from the tumbled
mazes Of coryphees in the undermus-
Inns of Lucille and bacchants in the
sacred high hats of the opera, would
fling with wild abandon the dappled
figaro Of the choregus Zegfeld Clad
in the leopard skin and crowned with
vine leaves caught skilfully with silver
wires into his scant locks, the choregus
with ecstatic step would lure the hunts
man Rogers into mock pursuit Of Pen
nington, the shepherdess, up to the
sanctuary of the altar.
Then, at the. height of revelry, the
bacchic orgy would be struck silent
and motionless by the stately approach
of the metropolis high priest Of song,
the goodly Gatti, robed in the sacred
Urban blue and dragging in Ais train
great hampers Of wreaths marked for
Carpso, Bach, Gounod, Meyerbeer,
godlsts upon whom this god has worked
benehcence-
Tins. tn alternate reverence and ec-
stasg- perhaps al the spring festival
time Of Follies- perhaps at the time of
the new opera-would Broadway do
homage 10 the spirit that has made
Meyerbeer into drama and gilded Caw-
thorn with beauty
There WAS time when Joseph Ur-
ban was mere Back Bay propriety, and
Boston alone worshipped him where
Ehen jordan filed the altar lamp.
There vas q time when Broadway knew
him not and came to chatter Of MAX
field Parrish blne' as the devoted Tyler
lmEnolated himself and the Lieblers on
the pier of '1The Garden of Paradise. 4"
There was time VIXEN only Ziegfeld
saw ths vision and only the Follies
danced the ritual of devotion.
But now the beautiful Fellics Of 1914
when Urban first painted the1r-seern
very long ago. almost as long ago
as the scenic honors Of the Follies Of
1916 For since that summer musical
comedy has been made over and opera
enliyened by a single brush The eff
feet OF Urban's work has gone far
afield into the labors of other artists,
and the prestige of his successes under
the Ziegfeld @gis has opened the Amer
lcaH theatre-even the Metropolitan-
to the new stagecraft.
The critics who talked Of Maxfeld
Parrish when they first saw Urban
might better have talked Of artists be-
hind them both. But, at any rate. they
hit upon something that makes us see
the reason Of the stage artists success
and his tremendous influence. In both
of them there is clarity and pre-
cisidn that cannot be denied. With all
theif beauty of color and vitality Of
imagination, there is a fundamental
something that conquers this age of
realism-dt Is tho concrete.
Parrish romance might rest on
photography, 1t is 80 accurate and full
bodied, just as Urban's beauty and
imagination rests on the strong basis
Of architecture. They both relate
back to fundamentals which the peo-
pie aof to-day instinctively recognize.
Parrish may be the lesser artist be-
cause his color is his only other virtue.