The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-11-04


Englishman is worse off than the
American.
The October meeting of the Topeka
Art Guild, held Tuesday evening or
this week at the Hodge Photographic
studio, was one of the best attended
as well as one of the most interesting
meetings of the Guild for a long time
BY special request, Mrs. L. D. Whit
temore told of the motor trip made By
herself and Professor Whittemore, TO
Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, last
summer. She gave most fascinating
account of the daily lives and works
of the members of the celebrated ar
tist colonies of Taos and Santa Fe; OF
what these devoted men and women
are doing with paint and brush ana
strictly American art, to familiarize
the world with the curious and beau
tiful aboriginal life of the great south
west, and to portray the weird splen-
doris of the great half-desert spaces OF
New Mexico and Arizona.
Mrs. Whittemore gave an interest
ing description of the adobe dwell
ings of the Pueblo Indians of the
southwest, and of the strange yet at
tractive architecture that was devel-
oped by the early Spanish colonistS
thru combining the Indian method of
construction with ideas which they
brought over from the old world.
This style of architecture, which is so
pecialiy characteristic of Santa te,
Mrs. Whittemore showed, is being re-
tanned and adapted to modern needs
and conditions by the artists, arche-
olcgistS and other people of wealth
and culture, who have settled in or
near Santa. F'e during the last score of
years.
At the Tuesday evening Art Guild
meeting, a request from the Topeka
High School Art club rnat they might
become affiliated with the Topeka Art
Guild, as a junior branch thereof, w;Is
read and a favorable vote taken there
on.
other matters discussed were, the
advisability of putting on a campaign
| in Topeka for additional memberships
fer the American Federation of Art,
and the final plans for the big free
exhibition of war portraits, to be held
at the State Memorial building, as
soon as the pictures arrive from Ann
Arbor, Mich, where they were exhib-
tied during the month of October.
These great paintings are expected to
arrive any day, and the exhibition
will continue all thru this month. 1t
is safe to say that this will be the
most important art exhibition ever
held in Topeka. Work by the artists
represented is seldom seen outside of
the largest cities in the United States,
while the paintings themselves are said
to be of great beauty anc merit. They
will be of interest to veterans of the
great war, to students of history, and
to every person that made any sacri-
flee for the great cause of liberty,
which triumphed in 1918.
Owing to the fact that Mr.. L. A.
Gillette, treasurer of the Art Guild,
and one of its most valued members,
expects to leave Topeka in a few
weeks, to spend the winter in Florida,
he resigned his office, and Mrs. Carl,
P. Bolmar was elected to fill out the
unexpired term.
In letters to his parents from Ken
meth Adams, young Topeka artist now
studying abroad, the latter reports
that he is shortly to exhibit some of
his pictures in the Salon at the Grand
Falais in Paris. At the time of his
last writing, Mr.. Adams was located in
village near Avignon in southern
France, where he declared that he
beauty so necessary to most artists in
the successful prosecution of their
work.
trial and commercial art exhibitions
on in New York, the question is being
discussed by some critics there:
Should art direct industry, or should
One side insists that art is the su-
perior of industry, that It's real, true
province is to discover new and beau
tiful environments for man to live in,
and that therefore art has the right to
decree the design. color, size and
other qualities of necessary objects of
utility, in order that these may fit
into the planned environment without
marring 1t.
The other side, the side of indus
try, says that arts duty IS to make at
tractive what industry produces, SO
that the product may have an in
creased sale.
A careful consid Iteration of the uues-
ton, it would seem, ought to lead any
fair minded thinker, to agree with the
first contention, or at least, to admit
that it has the great force. For
surely, arts primary use is to uplift
and enoble man, not to lend itself as a
lure, that one man may profit at an
other mans expense.
Unfortunately. the compelling urge
of financial need, the primary nee
essity of earning a living, makes the |
average artist more or less the servant
of industry instead of it's director
That the products of the manufac-
turer should be made as beautiful
as their importance warrants, is, of
course, perfectly true, that Is the way
it should be, and it is a noble duty for
the artist to help make them so. 1t
is also right for the artist to use his
talents in helping to advertise things
that are worth while, but where the
trouble comes in is, that commerce
sometimes compels the dependent |
artist to put ornament where none |
should be put or to use decoration of |
a pernicious kind, and to use his |
talents in advertising things that are
unworthy.
The critic is assuredly right who |
that in the long rI5p industry L