ON IDEAS
By Heyworth Campbell
Thackeray resigned the editorship of a British periodical only because he could not endure the ordeal of rejecting the thousands of submitted manuscripts. This is a distressing phase of an Art Director's duties and to my mind his most sacred obligation. No matter how hardened by experience, a conscientious editor cannot fail to suffer for and with the unhappy authors and artists whose work goes back with the proverbial pink rejection slip. Why are drawings and photographs rejected? What is wrong with the great mass of rejected material? My observation is that they suffer more from a lack of clear thinking and careful execution than from a paucity of ideas.
The weird conceptions and grotesque ideas in back of most of the unsolicited material submitted would make one easily believe that the artists are inmates, or perfectly qualified to be inmates of asylums. I am seldom inclined or required to urge an artist to seek originality of idea. My constant plea, and what to my mind is a prerequisite, is an optimistic point of view, a sound, intelligent thought rendered with, may I say, reverence.
Struggling young artists are constantly advised to cultivate their imagination. What is imagination? Arthur Brisbane defined this in the most compact, tangible statement: “Imagination is nothing more than the power to see and realize what others fail to see and realize.” The illusive idea that we are searching for is nothing hidden or mystic but right before our very eyes. We have only to “see and realize.”
It is conceded, I am sure, that the idea is the prime requisite of a political cartoon. A prominent cartoonist was once asked where he got his ideas. In reply he asked “what ideas?” Men of ideas have brains that function exactly as those of other normal well-ordered citizens. They are not gifted by strange kinks in their brain cells. When the prominent cartoonist is contemplating the banal act of shaving or putting in a new furnace, his thoughts are no more or less exalted or lofty than when creating a cartoon idea intended to sway public opinion. Strange, isn't it, that considering the thousands of earnest thinking [pg 14] diligent-working young students, that there are so few artists whose work reflects real genius? Strange that the standard of the Graphic Arts is as discouragingly low as it is considering this army of talent. But even more strange that this contradiction to the law of averages is also applicable to the field of sports—to a field so practical, tangible and therefore measurable. Every healthy-minded youngster born, has two early ambitions: one to be a great baseball player, another to become President. And yet the scouts and managers for the Big Leagues have difficulty in discovering talent above the average.
In the field of Pictorial Photography, the average is exceedingly high. This volume is a demonstration. To be sure, if one seeks, one can quickly discover atrocities in the galleries and on the printed page; but my conviction is that the progress from the purely aesthetic standpoint has kept pace with the mechanical and scientific strides made in Photography.
Quotations are generally sneered at, but they make excellent conclusions. Some one once said: “All one's life is music if one touched the notes rightly and in tune.” A very happy thought and true. But finding the right note is infinitely more difficult than the striking in tune. Ideas, to be sure, you must seek. But orderly thought, patience and fine craftsmanship in carrying out your idea frequently count for more than the originality or brilliance of the idea itself. Owing to the restlessness of the world situation—wars and rumors of wars, strikes and overtendency towards jazz and slang—there is already, especially in the work of youngsters, too evident an urge to be different; different merely for the sake of being different.
A thought possibly worthy of the deliberation of every artist is that Distinction is a result, never the object, of a great mind.
A DECORATIVE PANEL
By Thos. O. Sheckell, Salt Lake City, Utah
IN A DANCER'S STUDIO
By Wayne Albee, Seattle, Washington
HOUSE-BOATS
By Ernest M. Pratt, Los Angeles, Calif.
MAY I COME IN?
By Robert R. McGeorge, Buffalo, N. Y.
THE DISTANT SAIL
By William Gordon Shields, New York City
GATEWAY, DINAN
By Dr. Chas. H. Jaeger, New York City
SILHOUETTES—EGYPT
By Julia Marshall, Duluth, Minn.
MOUNT EVERETT
By Robert B. Montgomery, Brooklyn, N. Y.
THE BACK FENCE
By C. R. Herzler, New York City
ON DECK OF THE METAGAMA
By Johan Hagemeyer, San Francisco, Calif.
TIDEWATER
By Amelia H. McLean, Bronxville, N. Y.
STREET VENDORS—ROME, ITALY
By H. A. Latimer, Boston, Mass.
SUMMERTIME
By Paul Wierum, Chicago, Ill.
TORSO OF A DANCER
By Arnold Genthe, New York City
A MAINE FISHING VILLAGE
By Eugene P. Henry, Brooklyn, N. Y.
SMOKE EATERS
By W. H. Zerbe, Richmond Hill, N. Y.
PUEBLO DWELLING
By Ernest Williams, Los Angeles, Calif.
IN THE BERKSHIRES
By William Elbert Macnaughton, New York City
BEPPY
By Helen W. Drew, Montclair, N. J.
EMPTIES
By K. B. Lambert, Glen Ridge, N. J.
THE WOODCHOPPER'S WOMAN
By Harry C. Phipps, Chicago, Ill.
THE DES PLAINES TRAIL
By E. E. Gray, Chicago, Ill.
MOTHER AND CHILD
By Clarence H. White, New York City
YE OLD BARN
By Olive Garrison, Yonkers, N. Y.
INTERIOR
By Jane Reece, Dayton, Ohio
PENNSYLVANIA STATION
By Dr. D. J. Ruzicka, New York City
CLOUDS OF MORNING
By Francis O. Libby, F.R.P.S., Portland, Me.
THE CANYON
By Jerry D. Drew, Montclair, N. J.
THE EAST RIVER
By John Paul Edwards, San Francisco, Calif.
THE TRAIN SHED—PITTSBURGH
By W. W. Zieg, Pittsburgh, Pa.
ODD MOMENTS IN BRITTANY
By George Henry High, Chicago, Ill.
UZERCHES: "IL FAIT UN BON SOLEIL"
By Dr. A. D. Chaffee, New York City
A MISTY MORNING
By N. S. Wooldridge, Pittsburgh, Pa.
PTARMIGAN IN WINTER
By Clark Blickensderfer, Denver, Colo.
MARJORIE
By Sophie L. Lauffer, New York City
THE PATTERNED WALL
By Mildred Ruth Wilson, Montclair, N. J.
THE SUNNY WINDOW
By Mary F. Boyd, Chambersburg, Pa.
AT CLARENCE WHITE'S, CANAAN, CONN.
By Florence Burton Livingston, Mohegan Lake, N. Y.
STUDY OF A YOUNG GIRL
By charles H. Brown, Santa Barbara, Calif.
IVY AND OLD GLASS
By Clara E. Sipprell, New York City
ROSE DANCE
By J. Anthony Bull, Cincinnati, Ohio
A CONCERT IN THE NURSERY
By Frank R. Nivison, Fall River, Mass.
GREY ATTIC
By Edward Weston, Glendale, Calif.
MUD-PIES
By Cornelia F. White, New York City
CARVED WITH THE TOOLS OF TIME, THE SCULPTOR
By Edith R. Wilson, Mt. Vernon, N. Y.
MORNING GLORY
By Otis Williams, Los Angeles, Calif.
THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN
By Thomas R. Hartley, Pittsburgh, Pa.
SEAR AUTUMN
By Anson Herrick, San Francisco, Cal.
THE BAZAR
By Margaret D. M. Brown, Arlington, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
WANDERERS FROM HOME
By P. Douglas Anderson, San Francisco, Calif.
DECORATIVE STUDY
By Henry A. Hussey, Berkeley, Calif.
THE WAY UP
By Folsom Rich, Chicago, Ill.
COLONEL MARSH
By E. L. Mix, New York City
SHADOW DESIGN
By G. W. Harting, New York City
AT GUINGAMP
By Mrs. Antoinette B. Hervey, New York City
KISSING THE PADRE'S HAND
By Myers R. Jones, Brooklyn, N. Y.
UNDER BROOKLYN BRIDGE
By A. E. Schaaf, Cleveland, Ohio
THE BRIDGES
By Henry Hoyt Moore, Brooklyn, N. Y.
WHIRLPOOL RAPIDS, NIAGARA
By William A. Alcock, New York City
STUDY
By A. Ralph Steiner, New York City
DOMESTIC SYMPHONY
By Margaret Watkins, New York City
MORNING SUNLIGHT
By Ira W. Martin, New York City
L'ESPRIT DE MANDALAY
By J. Ludger Rainville, Portland, Me.
THE GORGE BELOW THE WHIRLPOOL, NIAGARA
By W. H. Porterfield, Buffalo, N. Y.
PORTRAIT—GIRL IN BLACK
By Rabinovitch, New York City
THE TOILERS
By Edward Ostrom, Jr., Brooklyn, N. Y.
FROM MY WINDOW
By Betty Gresh, Norristown, Penn.
YOUNG AMERICAN
By Louis Fleckenstein, Long Beach, Calif.
MESA DEL MAR
By G. H. S. Harding, Berkeley, Calif.
SEINE BOATS
By William B. Imlach, New York City
THE MOON OF THE RED GODS
By Laura Gilpin, Colorado Springs, Colo.
HIGH SEAS
By Joseph Petrocelli, New York City
SIXTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
By Ben J. Lubschez, New York City
HILLSIDE SHADOWS
By Charles K. Archer, Pittsburgh, Pa.
MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST
By Herbert B. Turner, Boston, Mass.
THE SCHOOL YARD
By Vernon E. Duroe, Brooklyn, N. Y.