Other faults in my work were caused by my early New England environment and education. To me, modern education is like a puddle in the road—very broad, but only two inches deep—and one must remember that truth has never been said to come from a puddle. In pictures, truth dwells in deep places. There is a painting in France of “Truth Arising from a Well” and the scandalized burghers fleeing in every direction. It isn’t considered decent, even in New York, to listen to naked truth, hence the crucifixion of all geniuses, from Christ to Whistler.
It is so strange to see mothers teaching their girls; for example, to take care of babies by giving them dolls, but as to the method of procuring these babies—no! My early ignorance had driven me in the opposite direction later in life. In my desire to be truthful, I went too far and filled my work with a mass of unimportant details.
The subject of education reminds me of an experience I once had with a man of high authority, in the question of the teaching of youth. In fact, he was the president of the board of education of the largest city of the country. Also, he was in the “art” business—that is, he made what were supposed to be the most artistic calendars and pictures used by large firms for advertising purposes. During my hard-up days a friend of mine suggested that I send him a canvas of a girl’s head that I had done out of pure chic, thinking it was the style of thing he could use. I have never been successful with illustration (it needs a special talent), and I would have been surprised if he had accepted it, but I was surely not prepared for this statement from a man occupying so prominent a position in the educational world as he.
“Too much character in the face, Mr. Simmons, too much character. We mustn’t have any at all.”
And this man’s productions go all over the United States, in many obscure and out-of-the-way places. They are the only specimens (besides those atrocities—the Sunday colored supplements) that the people have upon which to form an artistic taste.
Then there is that tendency to “follow de crowd.” We all have it, and in attempting to get away from it resort to the other extreme, resulting in so-called Cubism and Futurism, etc. We are like the sheep I saw on Scott’s ranch in California. Although for two generations the rail fence leading from one field to another had not existed, these creatures still skipped in the empty air, just as did their grandfathers long ago. We are the same, else why do sculptors make statues in marble when there is an abundance of wonderful jasper in this country? Tradition and the Greeks say so. I have no quarrel with the man who goes to the other extreme, provided he first learns what the world has found out, up to his time, about his art, and then chooses to differ. He may possibly add something. But if he insists upon being ignorant, it is like the Sultan’s order to his general to burn the library at Alexandria. “If the books agree with the Koran, they are needless; if they disagree, they are wicked. Burn them.”
We speak of Realism and Idealism—it seems to me that we just go around in circles and all such discussion is futile. First, we dig with our noses, like the ground hog, producing Realism; then we gradually climb up, going through all the stages of Idealism, Super-idealism, Æstheticism, and Euphuism. Then bang! we drop back again to the ground hog and dig for the truth.
Kenyon Cox gave us the best idea of this question that I know of. He said (to paraphrase): “Every honest worker is striving to realize his ideal. He maintains, if he succeeds, that he has produced Realism, but it is not the way we outsiders see it. To us it is Idealism.”
Hawkins told me about following Corot in the fields when he was painting. One day when the master had made a particularly beautiful landscape, with cows browsing in the foreground, Hawkins objected to the fact that Corot had painted in a pond when there was really none in sight.
“My cows will be in my picture for a thousand years,” he answered, “and I put in the pond to give them some water.”