THE PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS IN THE WEST
by
Charles Lawrence Hutchinson
Delivered to The Chicago Literary Club
April 17, 1916
I chose as the subject for my paper tonight Art and Artists, with
apologies
to Miss Lena McAuley of the Chicago Evening Post, but the
Chairman of our
Committee on Arrangements and Exercises, preferred to have me
speak upon the
subject announced - "The progress of the Fine Arts in the West".
I hesitate to do so, fearing that some of you will be
inflicted by a second
hearing of a paper containing many oft repeated remarks, although
I shall
not present an exact duplicate of any previous effort.
Every man should have a hobby. Some men have more than
one. Some also have
pet theories about their hobbies. This is true of me. A man
cannot refrain
from bringing his hobby to the light upon every and all
occasions.
Especially is this true if his hobby be one of Art. What a
multitude of
phases there are to the subject, Art. The very word is so
hackneyed that
one almost shrinks from using it. It has been put to ignoble
uses, and many
crimes have been committed in its name. For example, not many
years ago at
a State Fair, of one of our Western States, the chief attraction
in the Art
Gallery was the pelt of a sheep upon which a good woman had
worked the
Lord's Prayer in potatoe bugs. It would be well to create
another name to
express that - co-ordinating intelligence and skill which man
exercises in
creating beautiful things. I think you will recognize in this
last sentence
Gookin's definition of the word "Art", which to me is the most
satisfactory
of any yet invented, although it is not conclusive since it
raises the
question "What is Beauty?. We are called upon to determine
standards of
admission for works of artists into the realms of Art. These
standards
change from time to time. Classic standards of criticism have
long since
been called into question. Radicals conservatives continue to
disagree. A
score of men deliberately reject all well established canons of
representative Art, and their friends hail them as creators of a
new world.
It is individualism versus tradition. Both sides present
certain
fallacies. It would simplify matters if we could have a "What's
What in
Art", as we have a "Who's Who in America".
You may have seen an article which appeared in one of our
new magazines, not
long ago, that seems to me to present in a masterly way the
controversy now
going on in the world of Art. It is well worth repeating.
"A valiant fly dipped his six legs impure color, and
started to crawl over
the fly paper which protects a dozing world from needless
buzzing. The
paper was sticky, and the fly struggled furiously. This is
impressionism.
A student found all the broken pieces of a young world. He
plastered them
joyfully into a brilliant mosaic but the cracks were wider than
his vision.
This is post-impressionism. A child was given a birthday gift.
He began
to build a new world with many brand new blocks. This is cubism.
A young
man rushed toward the future. The future like a friendly giant
intending an
embrace hit him clean between the eyes. This is futurism. A
Chinese god
stretched his bronze limbs and flew over many deserts for a
night's chat
with the Sphinx. They smiled over an ancient secret - that is
Art."
Still here are many who do not hesitate to affirm the
secret which the
Sphinx and the Chinese god have not yet revealed. However, out
of all the
discussion pro and con, will come some new values worthy of
recognition, and
some old familiar rules will be more firmly established. There
are many
different modes of expression in painting as there are in
literature. There
is no one supreme master of painting, there are many. Each has a
glory of
his own, although he differs from the others. Let a man paint
what he will,
be it portrait or landscape, let him see it, feel it, and handle
it rightly,
and the result will be a work of Art. In every age the art of
Painting has
been a sufficient medium for the expressions of men's minds.
There is no
great Art without great men. When we have great men, we have
great art.
Let us not be blind to all the beauty created by men in the past,
simply
because a few new forms of expression may be created in the
present. We
live in an age of progress. Our Golden Age is no longer in the
past, but in
the future. Our progress in science and in material development
has been
rapid. There has been no similar progress in the world of Art.
Nor should
we expect that there should be. The cases are not parallel.
What reason
have we to expect that the Art of the future will be finer than
that of the
present or excel that of the past? If the Art of the future
equals the Art
of the past and creates for our enjoyment as much of beauty and
of worth, we
will be content, nor question the manner in which it may be
presented.
A minister chooses his text which often proves [he's] but
a peg upon which
he hangs his sermon as a coat hangs upon a nail.
In orthodox Scotland the Parson is said to have his
"grounds," the
fundamental truths underlying the sermon. Coming late to service
once upon
a time, and finding the pastor well along in his argument, an old
lady is
said to have asked her neighbor - "what's his grounds", and
received in
answer - "he has lost his grounds, and is swimming all around".
Both of these illustrations may perhaps aptly be applied
to me before my
talk is done. However, in these times of a multitude of things,
one can
pardon a speaker if he strays from the straight path laid out by
his text.
Already I have been tempted to ignore the subject
assigned to me. I have
not even mentioned the hobby, which I must bring in as it is
vitally
connected with all Art progress.
It is easy for one with a taste for Art, for things
aesthetic, to wander
from the straight and narrow path. Temptations that surround one
who
attempts to write or speak upon Art will probably lead me to
produce a paper
that may be likened unto the loose garment sometimes worn by
women called
the "mother-hubbard". You doubtless recall it, although it is
not so much
worn today as it was formerly. "It is a garment that hides
everything and
touches nothing".
Just here two other phases of the subject suggest themselves.
The refining
power of the beautiful, and beauty as an Asset. It is of more
importance,
however, at this time, to dwell upon the hobby which is the
"Democracy of
Art". Unthinking people look upon Art as something apart from
daily life.
Nothing is more untrue than that assumption. Art is not destined
for a
small or privileged class. Art is democratic, it is of the
people, and for
the people and from the people have come some of its greatest
creators.
Giotto, Donatello, Correggio, and Murillo sprang from common
stock. Matys
was a blacksmith; Jan Steen was the son of a glazier, and
Rembrandt one of
the two greatest painters that the world has ever produced was
the son of a
miller. I thoughtlessly made this statement before a Minneapolis
audience,
and was obliged to remind them that there is a great difference
between
Holland in the seventeenth century and Minneapolis in the
twentieth century.
In the early days the Miller was not as he is in Minneapolis
today the
aristocracy of the community.
One cannot maintain the theory that Art belongs only to
the powerful and the
rich. It exists for the common heart, and for ordinary culture.
While one
can assert that the fine Arts have a truly intellectual
amusement, he can
with equal assurance declare they have minister pleasure to the
masses as
well. There is an infinite relation between the highest and the
lowest in
life. In the humblest walks of life you will find the most
conspicuous
examples of virtue. There also you may find true appreciation of
the best
Art. The sense of beauty if present everywhere and sense of
beauty is a
means of happiness. A noted preacher of the Gospel said not long
ago that
we are in this world not to make other people good, but to make
them happy
and ourselves good. There is nothing more closely allied than
Beauty and
Art. What an opportunity then is offered to every Art Museum to
minister in
the right way not only to the individual, uplifting of the
community, but to
the enjoyment of its people.
In speaking of the progress of the fine Arts in the West,
I seek to show you
how much has been done west of the Alleghenies for the
advancement of Art in
America, rather than to write the history of the movement in the
West. I
desire to emphasize the importance of the work done. It is not
appreciated
in the East, and but by few in the West. America has made great
progress in
fostering and developing the Fine Arts since eighteen hundred and
eighty-two. I choose this date because in the year eighteen
hundred and
eighty-two, the Bureau of Education in Washington issued its
first report on
Art Education in the United States. This progress has been
especially
marked during the last twenty years. In the movement the East
and the West
have gone hand in hand. No, I can hardly say that, for the East
has not
given its hand freely to the West in the conduct of the work.
The West has
been more progressive. The West has really done more to create a
taste for
Art among the people, among the masses, since the World's
Columbian
Exposition of Chicago than the East.
In discussing the progress of Art in the West one must
necessarily give
consideration to the three principal agencies through which the
cause has
been advanced. They are the Art Museum, the Art School, and the
Art
Society. Their increase and growth in the West, as well as in
the East
during the last thirty-four years has been phenomenal and
furnishes a good
index of the progress of Art in our country.
In the first report of the Bureau of Education to which I
have referred,
thirty Museums of Art were catalogued. The American Art Annual,
published
by the American Federation of Arts, is the most exhaustive book
upon Art in
the United States now published. Its last issue, published in
1915,
contains reports from seven hundred and fifty-one Art Museums and
Societies,
and two hundred and ninety-six Art schools. There are more than
fifty
cities in the United States with a population over one hundred
thousand. In
these cities there are more than sixty Museums of Art, and two
hundred and
sixteen schools of Art and Design. Three smaller cities, Fort
Worth,
Portland, Maine, and Muskegon, Michigan also have Art Museums.
Far more
than one-half of these Museums and Schools are to be found in the
Cities of
the West.
The first Museum devoted wholly to Art established in
this country, was the
Wadsworth Athenaeum of Hartford, Connecticut, opened in eighteen
hundred and
forty-two. The last Museums to be opened to the public was that
of the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, dedicated in early 1915, and next
month the
City of Cleveland will dedicate its new Museum Building. During
the past
two years in the far West the Museum of the Municipal Commission
of Los
Angeles has been established. Since 1879, sixteen Art Museums
have been
established in the West. Those of Chicago and St. Louis in 1879;
Cincinnati
1881; Indianapolis and Minneapolis in 1883; Detroit in 1885;
Milwaukee in
1888; San Francisco 1889; Portland, Oregon, 1892; Cleveland 1900;
Toledo
1901; Seattle 1906; Los Angeles 1907; Muskegon, Mich. and
Oakland,
California in 1910. To these Museums there come every year more
than two
millions of visitors. The attendance at the Art Institute along
last year
reached over one million.
These Museums have collections of Painting, Sculpture and
Objects of Applied
Art that would do credit to any city in the world. Most of them
hold from
time tome temporary exhibitions of contemporaneous Art. It is
generally
admitted that the best exhibitions of contemporaneous Art held in
our
country are to be found in Museums of the West. One cannot lay
too much
stress upon the importance of these exhibitions. They do more
perhaps than
any other one thing to create an interest in the Fine Arts.
During the past twenty-five years more Museums, more
Schools and more
Societies of Art have been established in the West than in the
East. These
Museums have been run on broader and more comprehensive lines
than those of
the East.
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