XI

THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART.

Macbeth; iv.--3.

The inner history of the effigies which in Boston do duty as statues

would be most interesting reading, amusing or depressing as one felt

obliged to take it. To know what causes led to the production and then

to the erection of these monstrosities could hardly fail to be

instructive, although the knowledge might be rather dreary.

The subject has been too much discussed to make it easy to touch it,

but all this examination has by no means resulted in general

enlightenment, as was sufficiently evident at the meeting of the

committee in charge of the new statue of _America_ about to be erected

in a properly select Back Bay location. The committee consisted of

Stewart Hubbard, Alfred Irons, and Peter Calvin, three names which were

seldom long absent from the columns of the leading Boston daily

newspapers. Mr. Irons had been strongly objected to by both his

associates, neither of whom felt quite disposed to assume even such

equality as might seem to follow from joint membership of the

committee. That gentleman had, however, sufficient influence at City

Hall to secure appointment, a whim which had seized him to pose as a

patron of art being his obvious motive; and neither Mr. Hubbard nor Mr.

Calvin was prepared to go quite to the length of declining to serve

with the obnoxious parvenu.

Stewart Hubbard was a most admirable example of the best type of an

American gentleman. Arthur Fenton once described him as "a genuine old

Beacon street, purple window-glass swell;" a description expressive, if

not especially elegant. Tall and well-built, with the patrician written

in every line of his handsome face, his finely shaped head covered with

short hair, snowy white although he had hardly passed middle age, his

clear dark eyes straightforward and frank in their glances, he was a

striking and pleasing figure in any company. He had graduated, like his

ancestors for three or four generations, at Harvard; and if he knew

less about art than his place on the committee made desirable, he at

least had a pretty fair idea of what authorities could be trusted.

Peter Calvin's place in Boston art matters has already been spoken of.

He took himself very seriously, moving through life with a sunny-faced

self-complacency so inoffensive and sincere as to be positively

delightful. He was too good-natured and in all respects of character

too little virile to meet Irons with anything but kindness, but as he

was a trifle less sure of his social standing than Hubbard, he was

naturally more annoyed at the choice of the third member of the

committee. He made not a few protests to his friends, and gently

represented himself as a martyr to his devotion to the cause of art

from having accepted the place he held.

When one considered, however, the way in which committees upon art

matters are made up at City Hall, it becomes evident that the wonder

was not that the present body was no better, but that it should be so

good. The truth was that the choice of Hubbard and Calvin had been

considered a great concession to the unreasonable prejudices of the

self-appointed arbitrators of art affairs in town. A short time before,

a committee consisting of a butcher, a furniture dealer and a North End

ward politician, had been sent to New York on a matter connected with a

public monument, and their action had been so egregiously absurd as to

bring down upon their heads and upon the heads of those who appointed

them such a torrent of ridicule that even the tough hide of City Hall

could not withstand it. It was felt that the public was more alive on

art matters than had been suspected; and when a South Boston

liquor-dealer manifested a singular but unmistakable desire to be

appointed on the _America_ committee, he had been promptly suppressed

with the information that this was to be "a regular bang-up, silver-top

committee," and was forced to soothe his disappointed ambition with

such consolation as lay in the promise that next time he should be

counted in.

When the committee had been named, a hint was dropped in one or two

newspaper offices that the powers which work darkly at City Hall

expected due credit for the self-sacrifice involved in putting on two

men at least from whom no reward was to be expected. The journals

improved the opportunity, and praised highly the choice of all three of

the members. When this called out a protest from the artists, because

no artist had been appointed, City Hall had no words adequate to the

expression of its disgust.

"That's what comes of trying to satisfy them fellows," one City Father

observed, in an indignant and unstilted speech to his colleagues. "They

want the earth, and nothing else will satisfy them. What if they ain't

got no artist on the committee; everybody knows that Peter Calvin's a

man who's published a lot of books about art, and it stands to reason

he's a bigger gun than a feller that just paints."

The committee paid no attention to the discussion concerning their

fitness, of which indeed they did not know a great deal, but came

together in a matter-of-fact way, precisely as they would have

assembled to transact any other business.

"I don't know what you think," Mr. Irons observed, as the three

gentlemen settled themselves in the easy-chairs of Mr. Hubbard's

private office and lighted their cigars, "but it seems to me we had

better try to come to some reasonably definite idea of what we want

this monument to be before we go any farther. It will be time enough to

talk about who's to get the order when we've made up our minds what the

order is to be."

Both the words and the manner rasped the nerves of Mr. Calvin almost

beyond endurance. He was accustomed to phrasing his views with

elegance, and although in truth his ideas in the matter on hand were

not widely different from those of Mr. Irons, the latter had stated the

proposition with a boldness which made it impossible for him to agree

with it. By birth, by instinct, and by lifelong training a faithful

servant of the god Dagon, he yet seldom professed his allegiance

frankly. He sheltered his slavish adherence to conventions under a

decent show of following convictions; so that the pure and

straightforward Philistinism which Mr. Irons professed from simple lack

of a knowledge of the secrets of what might perhaps be called the

priestly cult of Philistia, appeared to Peter Calvin shockingly crude

and offensive.

"Perhaps," he said, with a smile which was hardly less sweet than

usual, so well trained were the muscles of his face in producing it,

"it can hardly be said that we can decide. The artist after all cannot

be expected to accept too many limitations if he is to produce a work

of art. His genius must have full play."

Secretly, Irons had a most profound respect for the other's art

knowledge, and he was too anxious to appear well in his capacity as a

member of the statue committee to be willing to run any risks by

attempting to controvert any aesthetic proposition laid down by Mr.

Calvin. He was by no means fond of the man, however, and to his dislike

his envy of Calvin's reputation, socially and aesthetically, added

venom. He hastened now, with quite unnecessary vigor, to defend himself

from the mildly implied attack.

"I suppose we have got to give an order--or a commission, if the word

suits you better--of some sort; and whatever it is to be it needs to be

defined."

His manner was so evidently belligerent that Mr. Hubbard hastened to

interpose.

"That is pretty well defined for us, isn't it?" he said. "We were

directed to give a commission for a single figure representing America,

to be executed in bronze and not to exceed a fixed sum in cost. That

does not leave much latitude, so far as I can see, beyond the right of

selecting or rejecting models shown us. For my own part, I may as well

say at once, I am in favor of giving Mr. Herman whatever terms he wants

to make a model, and trusting everything to him. Of course we should

still have the right to veto the arrangement if the figure he made

should not prove satisfactory."

Mr. Hubbard spoke with a certain elegant deliberation and precision

which Irons supposed himself to regard as affected, while secretly he

thoroughly envied it.

"Oh, we all know what Herman would do," Irons retorted. "He'd make one

of those things that nobody could understand, and then say it was

artistic. We want something to please folks."

Irons was more concerned about his popularity than even in regard to

the reputation as an art patron he was laboriously striving to build

up. He was an inordinately vain man, but he was an exceedingly shrewd

one. His self-esteem was gratified by seeing his name among those of

men influential in art matters; he bought pictures largely for the

pleasure of being talked of as a man who patronized the proper

painters, and he was looked upon as likely at no distant day to become

president of a club which Fenton dubbed the Discourager of Art; but he

realized that for a man who still had some political aspirations there

was a substantial value in popular favor not to be found in any

reputation for culture, however delightful the latter might be. He

distinctly intended to please the public by his action in regard to the

statue, a resolution which was rendered the more firm by the fact that

he vastly over-estimated the interest which the public was likely to

take in the matter. He trimmed the ashes from his cigar as he spoke,

with an air which was intended to convey the idea that he would stand

no nonsense.

"Won't Mr. Herman enter a competitive trial?" Calvin asked. "We might

ask two or three others and then select the best model."

"He won't go into a competition. He says it's beneath an artist's

dignity."

"Damned nonsense!" blustered Irons, sitting up in his chair in

excitement over such an extraordinary proposition. "Don't we all go

into competitions whenever we send in sealed proposals? Beneath his

dignity! Great Scott! The cockiness of artists is enough to take away a

man's breath."

Mr. Hubbard, who was a lawyer chiefly occupied, as far as business

went, in managing his own large property and certain trust funds, and

Mr. Calvin, who had never in his life soiled his aristocratic hands

with any business whatever, smiled in the mutual consciousness that

"sealed proposals" were as much outside their experience as

competitions were foreign to that of Grant Herman. The thought, passing

and trivial as it was, moved their sympathy a little toward the

sculptor's view of the matter, although since secretly Mr. Calvin was

determined that the commission should be given to Orin Stanton, the

fact made little difference.

"You evidently don't want to undergo the general condemnation that has

fallen on whoever has had a share in the Boston statues thus far," Mr.

Calvin observed, glancing at Irons with a genial smile. "If you are

going to set yourself to hit the popular taste and keep yourself clear

of the claws of the critics at the same time, I fear you've a heavy

task laid out."

"The critics always pitch into everything," Irons responded with a

growl. "It's the taste of the people I want to please. I believe in art

as a popular educator, and people can't be educated by things they

won't look at."

"Oh, as to that," Stewart Hubbard rejoined, with a twinkle in his eye,

"conventionality is after all the consensus of the taste of mankind."

Peter Calvin was at a loss to tell whether his friend was in earnest or

was only quizzing Irons, so he contented himself with an appreciative

look, and a smile of dazzling warmth. Irons, on the other hand, looked

toward the speaker with suspicion.

"I haven't much sympathy with a good deal of the stuff artists talk,"

he continued, following his own train of thought. "It doesn't square

very well with common sense and ain't much more than pure gassing, I

think. The truth is, genius is mostly moonshine. The man I call a

genius is the one that makes things work practically."

"In other words," said Calvin, spurred to emulate Hubbard's epigram,

and involuntarily glancing toward the latter for approval, "you think a

genius is a man who is able to harness Pegasus to the plough, and make

him work without kicking things to pieces."

"That's about it," Irons assented; "and I think Herman is too

toploftical and full of cranky theories. They say Mrs. Greyson has hit

the nail exactly on the head in that statue she showed in Paris last

year. That pleased the critics and the public both, and that's exactly

what we are after. I think we ought to ask her to make a design."

Mr. Calvin saw and seized the opportunity easily to introduce his own

especial candidate.

"If each of you have a sculptor," he said, lightly, "I can hardly do

less than to have one, too. There's an exceedingly clever fellow just

home from Rome, that I want to see given a chance. He's done some very

promising work, and I look upon him as the coming man."

The two men regarded him with some interest, as one who has introduced

a new element into a game. Mr. Hubbard leaned back in his chair, and

sent a puff of cigar smoke floating upward, before he answered.

"I can't enter my man for the triangular contest," said he. "He won't

go into a competition unless he's paid for making the design. He says,

in so many words, that he doesn't want the commission to make the

statue unless he can do it in his own way. He will be unhindered, or he

will let the whole thing alone."

"For my part," Mr. Irons responded, settling himself in his chair, with

a certain air of determination, "I don't take a great deal of stock in

this letting an artist have his own way. He might put up a naked woman,

or any rubbish he happened to think of. The amount of the matter is

that it isn't such a devilish smart thing to make a figure as they try

to make out. Any man can do it that has learned the trade, and I

haven't any great amount of patience with the fuss these fellows make

over their statues."

Neither of his companions felt inclined to enter into a general

discussion of the principles underlying art work, and, although neither

agreed with this broad statement, there was no direct response offered.

Calvin and Hubbard looked at each other, and the latter asked,--

"Have you any notion what Mrs. Greyson would do?"

"No, I have never talked with her."

"Very likely she'd give us another figure like those that are stuck all

over Boston, like pins in a pincushion," Hubbard objected. "Some

carpet-knight, with a face spread over with a grin as inane as that of

Henry Clay on a cigar-box cover."

Irons laughed contemptuously, and rose, throwing away his cigar stub.

"Well, I must go," he announced. "We don't seem to be getting ahead

very fast. I'll try and find out if she'll go into a competition, and

you two had better do the same with your folks. Then we shall at least

have something to go upon. The _Daily Observer_ has already begun to

ask why something isn't done, and I'd like to get the thing finished

up, myself."

The two others rose also, and it was thereby manifest that this

unproductive sitting of the committee was at an end.