New-York tribune., 1920-12-26
New Strings in the Arts

NeW Stlrrlngs In the Arts
The progress Of the arts in a de-
mocracy, their status and achieve
ment, is exceedingly difficult to CAL
culate. The group Of move, readers,
OF theatergoers, Of music listeners
is perpetually widening And dilu
ton Of taste-if one can conceive Of
the taste possessed by nation as
totality-is inevitable. But taste
improves by experience, the crop
Of recruits is constant, and here
is q favorable and yeasty growth
! ever operating to Offset the raw
new nultitudes clamoring to be fed.
Creative achievement is equally
hard to evaluate for related reasons.
A new economic control of creative
energy in the arts has resulted from
the characterization Of the arts:
such huge profits have been made
possible that the integrity of all
artistic impulse is threatened from
its birth. Our peaks Of achieve
ment have been far between-Poc,
Lincoln, Whitman, Mark Twain
with little enough support from the
surrounding landscape, mountains
rising from plain. Heights are
deceptive under such conditions,
save at distance; the state Of Gre
ative effort at any spot or moment
is hard to gauge, since one can never
tell just when an isolated giant will
stand up to be counted.
OF late years the gloom seekers
have seen sign upon sign of lower
ing taste and a cor-espondingly glib
but second-rate creation in those
arts which react most quickly to
their audience-mag gazine fiction, for
example. Mechanical music has
been suspected of similarly debas-
ing influence. And the movie has
been treated as the final degrada-
ton Of the theater.
But are there not, on the other
side of the picture, even more potent
and significant STRINGS Of q re-
birth Of artistic interest? The items
are unrelated, yet their cumulative
effect is striking.
In literature there is the poetry
revival, as widespread and healthy
and genuine a renaissance as one
could ask to see. The output is ex-
tensive, the average Of merit hign.
The intelligent public is large, GER
tainly far larger than ever before
in America. No great outstanding
poets have upheaved, but the plains
are vanished amid wealth Of fertile
foothills. There is developing pre-
cisely that atmosphere Of taste, that
reserve Of creative ability, out Of
which an era Of high poetical
achievement can most naturally de-
velop.
Nor on the stage do all the arrows
point downward The little theater
movement is countrywide, vigor-
Gus, springing from a genuine zest
for the stage. It Is developing on
every plane-play writing, produc-
ton, acting It's repercussion upon
the commercial stage is already felt.
There is developing here exactly
the same broad basis Of apprecia-
ton and talent to be found in the
field of poetry.
Perhaps the least definite revival
is in music, condition which might
have been expected, considering how
mildly musical America has always
been. Yet community singing is a
hopeful sign. And the gradual
death Of the old style college glee
CLUB, with its turning to better
things, is another. The Harvard
Glee Club set the fashion a year
or SO ago, ana it has already made
a good record. Then there is dane
ing, a notable and highly artistic
gain in the teaching Of CHI ildren.
The enormous stimulation to musl-
cal interest from the perfection of
mechanical musc-making is unques-
tionablc We may have to wait q
decade or a generation for it to
bear its complete artistic fruit. But
the promise is already apparent.
SO If we cannot accept the Whit
manesque faith that out Of democ-
racy. new and marvellous art Of
the people will spring fully grown,
we can at least see hope Of a new
birth Of the arts in all their old
vigor True 1t is in q new aristocracy
Of taste and talent that the new
succession begins. 1t seems to come