Money, commerce and the Protestant faith have been drawbacks to the progress of the fine arts in America—the last do not believe in beauty, as do the Roman Catholics. Better than Mohammedanism, though, whose Koran does not allow the right of man to copy even the meanest of God-made creatures, the Eastern art is a constant struggle between religion and the desire to make representations of living things. Autocracy’s motto—”væ victis,” or to the devil with the hindmost—is the proper one for the fine arts. The taste of a whole community is the dead level of mediocrity, and a proof of the scant attention paid to art in America is the place given it in the newspapers—before the fashions and after the dog fights.
Last week a statue of General Grant was unveiled with much celebration. Although the sculptor who made it had spent fifteen years of his life doing the work, there was no mention of his name in the account in the papers, but the wives of the Senators and Congressmen present were featured by photographs in the Sunday supplements. In France it is different. The committee would probably be mentioned first, but the artist’s name would come second. Public opinion rules, and the arts will come back when the people want them; and then the fact will be recorded on that thermometer—the newspapers.
Most of our organizations, in my opinion, have been a complete failure, due to this democratic idea. I was in at the beginning of the Institute of Arts and Letters. Holbrook Curtis came to me one day, telling me of the proposition and that I had been chosen as the member of the initial committee to represent painting, sculpture, and architecture. The little group who met to start the society consisted of William Dean Howells, Charles Dudley Warner, Marion Crawford, Johnson of the Century, Doctor Curtis, and myself. Alas! the literary element prevailed!
I was asked to hand in a list of those whom I thought worthy of becoming the first members, so brought into the next meeting the names of Whistler, Sargent, and (ex officio) myself to represent painting; Charles McKim for architecture; and Augustus Saint-Gaudens for sculpture. To my astonishment, a list of more than a hundred writers was offered to me. I objected on the ground that to belong to this Institute was a prize, to be given for extraordinary merit; therefore, the greater the number the less the honor. There was much talking and arguing, during which I could see I was becoming exceedingly unpopular among those who believed in the “American advertisement” point of view. Finally, Marion Crawford, who had hitherto kept silent, said:
“Oh, Simmons, leave these people to stew in their own juice. Our host here has some very good Scotch whisky. Come with me and we’ll sample it.”
Later I was given a list of more than a hundred names of painters, to mark those of which I approved. I refused and stuck to my theory, that only a few should have the honor—and I automatically became an outcast. I never had anything more to do with them until I was invited to read a paper on the fine arts at one of their meetings. But, if asked to-day, I could not tell whether I belong to the organization or not.
This experience being so disappointing, I was always loath to join any group of artists. It seemed to me that it was impossible to have it work out successfully, as the purpose on the surface of things was never the real underlying one, and it was impossible to mix democracy and the fine arts. The Ten American Painters was started quite by accident, and when the too-human elements began to enter, it died a natural death. We never called ourselves the “Ten”; in fact, we never called ourselves anything and it was our purpose, at first, to have twelve. We were just a group who wanted to make a showing and left the society as a protest against big exhibits. At our first exhibition at the Durand Ruel’s Gallery, we merely put out the sign—“Show of Ten American Painters”—and it was the reporters and critics speaking of us who gave us the name. In the original group were Twachtman, Dewing, Metcalf, Reid, Hassam, Weir, Benson, De Camp, Tarbell, and myself. After the death of Twachtman, Chase was voted in to take his place. We had asked both Winslow Homer and Abbot Thayer to join us. Homer replied that he would have been mighty glad to be a member, but that he never meant to paint again, that he was tired of it all; and as far as I know he never did. Thayer accepted with enthusiasm, but later wrote: “Tell the boys I must decline. The poor society needs me too much.”
The first few years we divided the wall into equal spaces and drew lots for them, each man having the right to use it as he saw fit, hanging one picture or a number of pictures. As long as we adhered to that idea all went well. But then objections came in. I, being a mural decorator, had large work, and those members with small canvases naturally did not want them hung next to mine. This, of course, restricted me in my showing. At last, to save controversy, we left the hanging to the dealer, and he placed those which sold the best in the choice parts of the room and the others elsewhere.
We left the society as a protest, not believing that an art show should be like a child’s bouquet—all higgledy-piggledy with all the flowers that can be picked. We were accused of starting as an advertisement, and, indeed, it proved a big one, but there was no such idea in the mind of any one of us. Many others took it up, and a group followed us, calling themselves “The Eight” in an attempt to boil the egg over again. When the wives of our members “butted in” and made the proposals of sandwiches and tea and finally wanted us to have music at our openings (music with painting is like sugar on oysters), we struck. The “pep” and enthusiasm of youth started the Ten American Painters and age has finished it. Peace to its ashes!
It is years since I have acted on a jury for the choice of pictures for an exhibit. I do not understand the politics of the affairs and always get myself much disliked, for one reason or another, so I gave it up long ago.