Editorials and Announcement
Powys at the Hebrew Institute
On [page 43] there is announcement of a series of lectures by John Cowper Powys. I can hear him now on the philosophical basis of democracy: “My dear friends, the philosophical basis of democracy is individualism”! As to the Nietzsche and Dostoevsky lecture, you may count upon it being one of the memorable occasions of your life.
The Foreigner in America
Mary Antin is talking all through the country of the wonderful things America does for the foreigner. These things are not true.
I went the other night to an affair given by a Norwegian woman and her husband before a gathering of Chicago’s representative intellectuals. The woman was Borgny Hammer, an actress of tremendous power from the National Theatre, Christiania. Mme. Hammer plays Ibsen so well that there is not much chance of her playing it very often. On this particular evening she gave some Björnson things and talked with naive fervor of Norway as compared with this commercialized land. Her intensity was so authentic and so beautiful and so moving that it became almost pitiable in that stiff, self-contained room. Mme. Hammer could be playing Ghosts and Master Builder and Beyond Human Power, could be giving nightly inspiration to thousands of unimaginative Americans if America was able to offer the foreigner one tenth of what the foreigner brings to America.
Not long ago the Hebrew Institute of Chicago refused its platform to Alexander Berkman who was to speak there on the Schmidt and Caplan case. Some one who sympathized with the action of the directors explained to me that it was a wise move on their part because the foreigners, especially the Russian Jews, are so easily inflamed. Thank heaven they are! If only something could be done to inflame the American. Well—there is always the flag....
The Russian Class
The group for the study of Russian literature will have a preliminary meeting in room 612 Fine Arts Building on Friday, January 14, 1916, at 8 p. m. All interested are invited.
The Illusions of “The Art Student”
There has made its appearance in this city of ours a new magazine, The Art Student. Its desire, according to the editor’s announcement, is to “help establish a bond of understanding between the American student of the allied arts and the public.”
This aim is commendable and deserves the co-operation of everybody unselfishly interested in the promotion of American art.
The reason for this publication at the present time is also given in that announcement. It says there: “With all Europe at war and its art centers crippled, it is not only America’s opportunity, but her duty, to preserve and promote art in its various forms.”
I am afraid the youthful enthusiasm of The Art Student is the cause both of this exaggeration as concerns Europe and the illusion as concerns America.
We have heard much and read more about America’s opportunity these last fourteen months. First it was the trade fields deserted by the warring nations in South America and the Orient; then it was the sea routes closed to the second biggest merchant fleet of the world—the opportunity for an American merchant marine; and now it is our opportunity in the field of Art!
What has become of the first illusions of which our papers and magazines were full? England expanded her commerce in South America, having forced for the time being her German rival from that field of hottest competition, and Japan practically monopolized the commerce of China. England increases her merchant fleet by capering American ships, and the Pacific Mail retires voluntarily from the Pacific ocean.
That is the result of our boasted opportunity in the realm of trade and commerce. Why? Because we underestimated others and because we talked about our own foreign methods instead of changing our own and acting.
And now in Art we are doing exactly the same thing. We point with horror to the war that cripples European art and acclaim loudly the superiority of our civilization.
Gentlemen, you are all wrong. Art is not crippled in Europe through the war! Inter arma silent musae! The arts are silent, they sleep. Silence and sleep we all understand are good things. The first helps us to concentrate and find ourselves, the latter gives us new strength.
And that is the worst that the war does to Art in Europe. Art is at present less active, a self-imposed inactivity, owing to circumstances; not crippled, a result of direct unartistic influences.
European Art is free of such crippling influences. Art schools are not run by local millionaires, galleries not governed by rich manufacturers, academy instructors not selected by wealthy trustees with the sole idea that their insignificance will insure submittance to the layman rule!
Is Sir Thomas Lipton president of the Royal Academy? No! Is Herr von Krupp president of the Duesseldorf Academy? No! Do they make bankers and brewers directors and trustees of art institutions in Paris or Munich? No! Do they in St. Petersburg or Vienna? No! Do they in Berlin or Rome? No! Do they in Brussels or Madrid? No!
Do they in America? Yes!
Do they in England, France, Russia, Italy, Germany, or Australia invite their best painters and sculptors to teach in their academies? Yes! Do they in America? No! Do they in England, France, Russia, Italy, Germany, or Austria select these teachers from mediocrities who will be sure not to revolt against the incompetent decisions of a layman board of trustees? They don’t!
Do they in America? They do!
What is “city beautiful” in Europe? It is a fact! What is it in America? It is a “slogan.”
No, gentlemen, you need not be worried about European Art! War is not inartistic. Money is! A general staff in war time can destroy what art has created! Our system of millionaire trustees is preventing Art from creating!
War in Europe can kill artists, it cannot kill art.
In America we kill art and our artists escape to Europe.
—Garnerin.