Evening star., 1924-05-14

The meeting of the American Fed
Grafton of Arts. which opens today in
Washington is a compliment to the
spirit of Americans. It's promise to
use its good Offices for the advance
ment Of Senator Lodges bill to have
Congress to appropriate funds to
erect a suitable national art gallery
should come as a breath of ozone
to revive the spirits Of Congress after
the gas attack Of its many "investiga-
tions" of foul corruptions. 1t all be-
tokens something higher and finer
than sordid materiality in our be-
loved country.
There are "many men Of many
minds" To the politician the i'm
portance of beauty, aside from mere
usefulness, may appear negligible.
Then too, there are "red-blooded"
masculine men who consider art as
too efreminate for their serious ap-
probation, forgetting that there are
hundred successful male artists to
one woman. There are fussy folks,
it is true, who boast of their broad
appreciation of all sorts of art, from
the architecture of Lincoln
Memorial to the pink and cream pref
tiness of amateur china painting, or
even the chef d'oeuvre of the cook,
or the permanent wave" of the coif-
feure.
Art is long" is a familiar quota
ton, indicating the WEAKNESS OF the
traveller in its ways, but art also
has another dimension which even
Prof Einstein may have difficulty in
81 hrnQd-lf
not only permits long travelling but
breadth Of comprehension. Art is
deep-as deep as the human soul.
Art is universal in its language, for
the same principle makes art in the
picture, the song, the statue. mon
ument or edifice, majestic prose or
charming poem. 1t is beauty, true pro-
portion, eternal fitness.
Nobody has ever succeeded in defin-
ing matter. We are told the qualities
of matter. It is hard or soft; it is hot
or cold; It Is simple or conglomerate;
it is bright or dull. tough or brittle.
translucent or opaque. But these and
others are its qualities-not its essen
tials. So while art may reproduce
nature in appearance-fts size and
shane and textnre-that is not art 1t
ia not art to deceive the vision, how
ever cleverly, though birds may peck
at Phidias' grapes. 1t is not art to
daub colors where refinement seeks
color, or to substitute noise for har-
mony, or to print for some distracted
Hamlet words! Words! Woros!
when ones soul seeks the beauty and
inspiration Of a true message"
How to the point was the retort OF
Turner to the lady who had protested
that she had never seen in Nature the
coIorfne he put on canvas:
"But. madame, don't you wish you
couldT"
We see only what we have vision to
see. vision is not the spectroscope OF
the eye; it is the understanding OF the
soul. and SO comprehension OF art is
not physical sight OF paint nor mafhe.
matical measuring Of proportions OF
all the stupid sayings OF art-ignofam-
uses the most idotic is that familiar
confession:
know what like
Let it be said in an astronomical
.Oh. Tm not learned in star-gazing,
but 1 know what stars and orbits suit
Art criticism is only a Httla less
destructive Of art Joy than the boast
Of art ignorance.
Monsieur Meissonier, have come
to ask your views on modern art" ex-
platned q correspondent, as he Knocked
at the studio of the mastsr.
art? Art? I know nothing about