TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY.

Evening Star, Issue 7652, 30 June 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY.

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[Bv Andrew Carnegie.J CHAPTER XIV, ART AND MUSIC. The sludy c.f art possesses this great and peculiar chaim, that it is absolutely unconnected with the struggles and contests of ordinary life ... It Is a taste at once engrossing and unselfish, which may be indulged without effort, and yet has the power of exciting and to gratify both the nobler and softer parts of our nature, the imagination and the judgment, love of emotion and power of reflection, the enthusiasm and the critical faculty, the senses and the reason,— Qdizot. Of all the literal arts, music has the greatest influence over the passions, and is that to which ;he legislator ought to give the greatest encouragement. A well composed song strikes and softens the mind, and produces a greater effect than a moral work, which convinces our reason, lint does not warm our feelings, nor effect the slightest alteration in our habits.— Napolkon (at St. Helena) Half a century ago it was the fashion in Europe to decry anything American, and to sneer at even the suggestion of culture in the United States. A country without historical or poetical associations, devoid of all the sources from which the genius of the Old World had derived its inspirations—in short, a new country whose energies must for generations be directed in practical channels cannot hope to compete, it was argued, in the fine arts with nations whose traditions and culture reach back for centuries. In 1824 a contributor to ‘Blackwood’s Magazine ’ wrote: — Tho fine arts, generally, are neglected by the Americans. By this I mean that they, the Americans, do not themselves cultivate them. They have foreign musical composers and sculptors, among them, most of whom are indigent or starving, but none of their own. Architecture is hardly in a better state. I know of no capital American architect. - The writer then makes one exception to his sweeping declaration —painting. In this the Americans have made a surprising proficiency—surprising not only by comparison with what they have done in every other department, but surprising (if we consider their numbers, infancy, and want of encouragement), when compared with what we ourselves have done, or any other people during the same period. He then cites, in support of this assertion, the names of Copley, West, Trumbull, Rembrandt Peale, Allston, Morse, Sully, Stuart, Leslie, Newton, and Chester Harding, but ends by qualifying his praise with the remark that the most celebrated of these men were educated in Great Britain, and some of them born there. Another class of critics went still further and asserted that a genius for art was incompatible with a republican form of government. “ It would seem,” says a writer of about the same time, in the London ‘Quarterly Review,’ “that a high and refined genius for art is indigenous to monarchies, and under such a form of government alone can it flourish, either vigorously or securely. The United States of North America can never expect to possess a fine school of art, so long as they retain their present system. Art indigenous to monarchies ! Did any one ever hear such an absurdity ? The great law is that each shall produce fruit after its kind; but this genius makes a monarchy produce the greatest of all republics, the republic of art. In art, the source of that which gives the finer touches to human life, all is republican; there is no trace of hereditary privileges within its bounds; it is as free, as unstained of these injustices as the American Republic itself. Art asks not— Wast thou cottager or king, Poor or peasant; no such thing. Who knows or cares who Michael Angelo’s father was ; or what was Beethoven’s birth, or whether Raphael was an aristocrat, or Wagner the son of a poor actuary of police ? Just imagine monarchy in art—a hereditary painter, for instance, or a sculptor who only was his father’s son, or a musician, because born In the profession! What claims from birth have Liszt, Rubinstein, Gluck, or the Scotch laddies from thenheather hills, the sons of shepherds and tradesmen; the Millaises, Orchardsons, Petties, Hunters, and Blacks, but from the republicanism of art. Our rulers these, in art, by virtue of the universal suffrage of their fellows. The royal violinist’s parentage gives him no place in art which lie has not earned, nor do the creditable etchings or sculptures of the royal princesses advance them one iota beyond the merit of their work. Nor is it in the power of Victoria, nor can it be her wish, to advance them one step in the republic of art, were she twenty times their mother. A king can make a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that ; but let him try his hand upon creating ranks in the commonwealth of art, of music, and of literature, and where is he? The aristocrats there are better born than he himself because Heaven-born; “ nobles by the right of an earlier creation, priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.” Millais and Leighton, Benedict and Sullivan were knighted by the .monarch, but these rulers in art and music have not yet recognised Her Majesty or any of her family in their republics beyond the stage of “Honorable Mention,” The Queen dispenses her degrees, even to a peerage, for brewing beer or playing court lackey. In the republics of art and letters, as Her Majesty finds, our rulers are much more fastidious. The standard is different. If Art be, as she is, a most jealous she is as just as she is exacting and no respecter of persons. There is nothing monarchical about her. Nay, when the monarch leaves the tinsel of official life and rises to real work in the higher domain of art her drawings are pronounced good, and by so much she is an artist. Her books—for letters, too, like art, are republican—are most creditable in this—that a queen should have thought about making a book at all; for it is true all the same that “a book’s a book although there’s nothing in’t,” and the effort to write a boob is in itself praiseworthy. Whatever a person of high rank achieves in the higher realms of art deserves Im-J'ume acknowledgment. The Royal Family ot Euglor. 1 to-day should receive,” and I pay them the compliment to believe they do receive, more genuine satisfaction from their literary and artistic labors than from their rank, and would value distinction in the republics of art, music, and letters, if required, beyond rank in society, which can confer no honor, because purely accidental ; for such, my readers, is the effect of this republican atmosphere in letters and art upon all who once enter its charmed circle and breathe its sweet influences, that even these royal people, exalted by a fiction in political life, would be the first to repel with proud indignation the slightest intimation that their works were to be judged by any lower standard than the republican test—by the suffrage of the people, comparison with the performances of the sons of shepherds, delvers, weavers, and ditchers, their equals in the Republic. This is highly creditable to them. Such as have contributed, however humbly, to art, music, or literature—beginning with Her Majesty herself—are to be held in special honor. They have their places in the republic of art. Were the Prince of Wales animated, like them, with the true spirit of art and letters, it might extend to his ideas about position, and then he could not accept the throne except by a vote of his fellows calling him to it, as the person best fitted to serve the State. He would scorn place granted for any reason but for his ability to serve. His motto can only in this way be lived up to. Death levels all ranks; the republics of art and of letter!) do no loss. Contestants for place in these gracious commonwealths are stripped of all distinctions, and start upon equal terms. The equality of the citizen is the fundamental law upon which is founded all that brings sweetness and light to human life. Thus, my friends, art is republican, literature is republican, religion is republican. (No hereditary privilege in the church.) Every good is republican. That alone which is valueless, hurtful, and unjust is monarchical; but fortunately, as we have seen, the poison of hereditary rank is confined to very narrow limits, beyond which it is not recognised. This curious writer, whq would have monarchy allied with art, built his theory upon the exploded iaeq that only monarchs qnd thp aristocracy which flutter around courts could or would patronise the beautiful. That theory is unfortunate, in view of the fact that the best patrons of art are the Americans, and the monarchy, at least, is not conspicuous for its treatment of art or artists. Music and art, like literature, flourish in our day not by the patronage of a class, hut from popular support, Nothing

flourishes in our day but through the sup* port of the people—monarchy itself must play to them and please them for its daily bread. One breath of popular displeasure and it becomes a thing of the past. It seems strange, in the light of the present, that anyone could read history so awry as to lead himtotheconclusionthatmonarchy favors art or literature. But it is too late to render necessary any refutation of such assertions. Time has proved its falsity, and we may now safely relegate it to the curiosities of literature. But there is a modicum of truth in the assertion of the writer in ‘ Blackwood ’ of sixty years ago, that the Americans did not then cultivate the flue arts. A few painters, whose names are still pointed to with pride by their countrymen, had enlivened the drear monotony of our art horizon ; but they were Americans in little more than the accident of birth. Most of them were under the British flag, and the art of all was but a reflection of foreign schools and methods. Nor does this militate against their skill as artists, nor against the right of Americana to include them among their countrymen. It is well to remember that France had no art till Da Vinci and Primaticcio showed the way; and that in England Holbein, Lely, and Vandyck made possible a Reynolds and a Gainsborough. It is perhaps a little remarkable that these early American painters, who won as much credit abroad as at home, should have left little inspiration behind them, for it is certain that those who immediately succeeded them did not attain to a similar reputation. Perhaps this is to be accounted for in the fact that the energies of the people were directed by the exigencies of their surroundings into more practical channels than the pursuit of the be-'ntiful. In the building up of a new country uere is little time for art cultivation. The establishment of a political and social system and the development of industrial resources must precede and furnish the foundation on which the superstructure of art may rise. Nature must be conquered before she can be admired. Men must be fed and clothed ere they can moralise. About the beginning of the period to which we have constantly referred—of fifty years ago—American art began to rise from its dark age, as we may characterise the period immediately succeeding that of the colonial painters. Up to that time there had been no training schools, no public galleries of any consequence, and but a small audience capable of appreciating good work. In 1826 the National Academy of Design was organised in New York, under the presidency of Samuel F. B. Morse, as the successor of the American Academy of Fine Arts, which died after the fire of the same year had destroyed its art collection. Similar institutions had been founded early in Philadelphia and in Boston, but the National Academy has always exercised a paramount influence in the development of American art. About ten years later the American Art Union, an incorporated institution for the distribution, by lot, of works of art, came into existence, and during more than a decade aided much in educating the people, and in bringing into notice many artists who might otherwise have found it difficult to win recognition. But this gain was loss; the influence of the lottery system must have transcended a hundredfold any possible advantage gained through it by art. Happily the day for such gambling is over, but we meet with the evil still, where one would least expect it. There is a moral in the story of the poor parishioner, who regretted to his minister that he could not pay his quarter’s pew rent. “Been gambling in stocks, I suppose ?” said the minister, testily. “ No, sir, not that.” “Well, speculating in oU, then?” “ No, sir; I went to your church fair, sir, and was roped into so many lotteries.” Tableau. Several small public galleries like those of the Athenaeum in Boston, and of the Historical Society in blew York, and a few private collections were found in different parts of the country, which all exercised & considerable influence in raising the standard of popular taste. People began to buy pictures, and, as was natural, began by buying very poor pictures. European dealers, taking advantage of the comparative ignorance of the country in art matters, flooded the principal cities with alleged examples of the old masters, which found a ready sale thirty or forty years ago, but which gradually disappeared as their worthlessness was understood ; aud now it would be difficult to find one of these early art treasures of America in any respectable house unless it may have been preserved among the rubbish of the garret. The experience thus gained was of the utmost value. The American, with his quick perception, soon learned to distinguish between the good and the bad, and though his taste may in some cases seem a little “ loud ” to the European connoisseur, he seldom buys anything which is absolutely worthless. He is recognised now in the European markets as one of the shrewdest, as well as one of the most liberal buyers. Throughout the world, whenever art treasures come under the hammer, the American will be found in competition with cobles, and even with crowned heads, and he is no mean competitor, for he carries a pocket lull of dollars, and is not afraid to spend them where he is sure of getting his money’s worth. Thus, during the past twenty years, there has been a constant flow of works of art to the United States. There is no city of importance in the country which has not its public gallery of painting and of sculpture, as well as many private collections in the houses of its citizens. These latter are often put on exhibition as loan collections, and exert a most beneficial influence in creating a taste for art. Of course the United States can scarcely hope to form art collections comparable with those of the Old World, unless some unforeseen revolution should break up the great museums of some of its capital cities, when we might hope, and indeed expect, that many of their treasures would gravitate westward. But while the old masters are thus denied to us, we have some consolation in knowing that a large proportion of the best modern works are brought to this country. I have excellent authority for the assertion that the United States now possesses more and finer examples of the modern French and German schools of painting than arc to be found in Europe. The modern Spanish and Italian schools are also well represented, the English school not so well, American taste gravitating rather to the realism of the French than to the romantic idealism of the British school. It is useless for the critics to attempt to explain the extraordinary disproportion between the influx of British and French art into America by the assertion that the fine art dealers in the United States are mostly of French and German origin. Even if this were true, the dealers would not hesitate to import English pictures if there was a market for them. They purchase largely of English engravings, because there is a demand for them, and they oan be had at a price which leaves a good margin for profit; they do not buy English paintings because they are held at prices much higher in proportion to the talent displayed than are the works of French and German artiste. This is sufficient in itself to account for the numerical preponderance of these two schools of art in the United States and for the gravitation of American taste in their direction. 1 would not draw any invidious comparison, but I am not sure—if I am called upon for a father explanation of the phenomenon—that the prevailing fashion of buying French paintings may not haven still more serious justification, for whatever the London critics may preach concerning the decadence of the French school the Salon is still, as it was under the Empire, the highest art tribunal in the world. (To be continued.),