Aimee Greene-Abbott
Robert S. Ament
E. M. Ashe
A. J. Bjornstad
Fred S. Blossom
Charles Roy Bowers
Nell Brinkley
O. Cesare
Irvin S. Cobb
Carter S. Cole
George Elliott Cooley
Willard D. Coxey
H. K. Cranmer
John Campbell Delano
Dorothy Dix
H. B. Eddy
Harry C. Edwards
Anthony H. Euwer
Lee Fairchild
Arthur Farwell
Thomas Fogarty
E. Fuhr
Eugene Geary
John R. Gregg
William B. Green
Jeffie Forbush-Hanaford
John Harrison
S. Frances Herschel
Kingston Hengler
Karl Hassmann
John E. Hazzard
Dixie Hines
M. Torre Hood
Harry Johnson
A. I. Keller
George Kerr
Carrie Van Deusen King
W. Krieghof
W. J. Lampton
Laura Fitzhugh Lance
G. Warren Landon
Annabelle Lee
Richard LeGallienne
R. A. Lüders
Katherine Fitzhugh McAllister
Roy L. McCardell
Hector McPherson
Adrien Machefert
G. Michelson
Phillip Verrill Mighels
E. H. Miner
F. Luis Mora
E. V. Nadherny
Frank A. Nankivell
Howard S. Neiman
Frank L. Norris
O Hana San
Alexander Popini
J. W. Postgare
Maud G. Pride
Henry Raleigh
Henry Reuterdahl
Louis Rhead
John Jerome Rooney
Helen Rowland
Maurice V. Samuels
John W. Sargent
Eleanor Schorer
Charlotte B. Scott
Charles L. Sicard
Dan Smith
Francesca di Maria Spaulding
Arthur Stahlschmidt
W. J. Steinigans
Albert Sterner
W. D. Stevens
Henry Tyrrell
Mabel Herbert Urner
Wm. Van Benthuysen
John P. Wade
Ryan Walker
H. S. Watson
Paul West
Luther S. White
―――――――――― ――――――――――
[Illustration]
What Is Art?
_by Henry Tyrrell._
_Illustration by Dan Smith._
“A criticism of life,” says Matthew Arnold.
“The rhythmic creation of beauty,” says Edgar Allan Poe—defining
the art of lyric poetry.
“The end of art,” says Victor Cousin (combining Plato and
Aristotle), “is the expression of moral beauty by the assistance of
physical beauty.”
But apply these and other bromidic definitions to the art and
literature of to-day—measure them up against the Sunday newspaper,
or “Peter Pan” at the theatre, or picture exhibitions of the
Independent Artists and the followers of Matisse—and assuredly
there is something wrong, either with the definitions or with the
art.
Then turn to Emile Zola, and take from him this following dictum,
which comes very close to being invulnerable:
“_A work of art is a bit of nature seen through a temperament._”
This takes in all the schools, as well as the fiery, untamed
spirits who would break away from schools altogether. Art is always
the same; temperaments differ and become warped. The academician’s
temperamental glass is ruled off into formal geometrical patterns,
and he sees nature as a kind of problem in perspective. The rabid
“impressionist” looks within himself, and away from nature, and
“sees things” which don’t exist for anyone else. The true artist
gazes straight out upon nature, and forgets himself, and art comes
to him “as easily as lying.”
“What the poet writes.
He writes: mankind accepts it if it suits,
And that’s success. If not, the poem’s passed
From hand to hand, and yet from hand to hand.
Until the unborn snatch it, crying out
In pity on their fathers’ being so dull,—
And that’s success, too.”
[Illustration]