The true realist cannot worship at the shrine of power, nor prostitute his gifts for gold. With an artist’s eye he sees the world exactly as it is, and tells the story faithful unto life. He feels for every heart that beats, else he could not paint them as he does. It takes the soul to warm a statue into life and make living flesh and coursing blood, and each true picture that he paints or draws makes the world a better place in which to live.
The artists of the realistic school have a sense so fine that they cannot help but catch the inspiration that is filling all the world’s best minds with the hope of greater justice and more equal social life. With the vision of the seer they feel the coming dawn when true equality shall reign upon the earth; the time when democracy shall no more be confined to constitutions and to laws, but will be a part of human life. The greatest artists of the world to-day are telling facts and painting scenes that cause humanity to stop, and think, and ask why one should be a master and another be a serf; why a portion of the world should toil and spin, should wear away its strength and life, that the rest should live in idleness and ease.
The old-time artists thought they served humanity by painting saints and madonnas and angels from the myths they conjured in their brains. They painted war with long lines of soldiers dressed in uniforms, and looking plump and gay; and a battle scene was always drawn from the side of the victorious camp, with the ensign proudly planting his bright colors on the rampart of the foe. One or two were dying, but always in their comrades’ arms, and listening to shouts of victory that filled the air, and thinking of the righteous cause for which they fought and died. In the last moments they dreamed of pleasant burial yards at home, and of graves kept green by loving, grateful friends; and a smile of joy shone on their wasted faces that was so sweet, that it seemed a hardship not to die in war. They painted peace as a white winged dove settling down upon a cold and fading earth. Between the two it was plain which choice a boy would make, and thus art served the state and king.
But Verestchagin painted war; he painted war so true to life that as we look upon the scene, we long for peace. He painted war as war has ever been, and as war will ever be—a horrible and ghastly scene, where men, drunk with blind frenzy which rulers say is patriotic pride, and made mad by drums and fifes and smoke and shot and shell and flowing blood, seek to maim and wound and kill, because a ruler gives the word. He paints a battle field, a field of life and death; a field of carnage and of blood; and who are these that fight like fiends and devils driven to despair? What cause is this that makes these men forget that they are men, and vie with beasts to show their cruel thirst for blood? They shout of home and native land, but they have no homes, and the owners of their native land exist upon their toil and blood. The nobles and princes, for whom this fight is waged, are far away upon a hill, beyond the reach of shot and shell, and from this spot they watch their slaves pour out their blood to satisfy their rulers’ pride and lust of power. What is the enemy they fight? Men like themselves; who blindly go to death at another king’s command, slaves, who have no land, who freely give their toil or blood, whichever one their rulers may demand. These fighting soldiers have no cause for strife, but their rulers live by kindling in their hearts a love of native land, a love that makes them hate their brother laborers of other lands, and dumbly march to death to satisfy a king’s caprice. But let us look once more after the battle has been fought. Here we see the wreck and ruin of the strife; the field is silent now, given to the dead, the beast of prey and night. A young soldier lies upon the ground; the snow is falling fast around his form; the lonely mountain peaks rise up on every side; the wreck of war is all about. His uniform is soiled and stained, a spot of red is seen upon his breast. It is not the color that his country wove upon his coat to catch his eye and bait him to his death; it is hard and jagged and cold. It is his life’s blood, which leaked out through a hole that followed the point of a sabre to his heart. His form is stiff and cold, for he is dead. The cruel wound and icy air have done their work. The government that took his life taught this poor boy to love his native land; as a child he dreamed of scenes of glory and of power, and the great wide world just waiting to fall captive to his magic strength. He dreamed of war and strife, of victory and fame; if he should die, kind hands would smooth his brow, and loving friends would keep his grave and memory green, because he died in war. But no human eye is there at last, as the mist of night and mist of death shut out the lonely mountains from his sight. The snow is all around, and the air above is grey with falling flakes, which soon will hide him from the world; and when the summer time shall come again, no one can tell his bleaching bones from all the rest. The only life upon the scene is the buzzard slowly circling in the air above his head, waiting to make sure that death has come. The bird looks down upon the boy, into the eyes through which he first looked out upon the great, wide world, and which his mother fondly kissed; upon these eyes the buzzard will commence his meal.
Not all the world is beautiful, and not all of life is good. The true artist has no right to choose the lovely spots alone and make us think that this is life. He must bring the world before our eyes and make us read and learn. As he loves the true and noble, he must show the false and bad. As he yearns for true equality, he must paint the master and the slave. He must tell the truth, and tell it all, must tell it o’er and o’er again, till the deafest ear will listen and the dullest mind will think. He must not swerve to please the world by painting only pleasant sights and telling only lovely tales. He must think, and paint, and write, and work, until the world shall learn so much and grow so good, that the true will all be beautiful and all the real be ideal.
THE · SKELETON
IN · THE · CLOSET
