[1] Brown, Perry, or Cosmos Pictures, or they may be obtained from Victor Talking Machine Company, especially the living artists.
CHAPTER TEN
Story-Telling to Awaken an Appreciation of Art
The child who is surrounded by good pictures from his earliest years grows to love good pictures, and gaudily colored, cheap ones have no charm for him. His taste has been formed for the fine and true, and nothing else will satisfy him. To behold a beautiful painting gives him pleasure, while to see a glaring chromo produces an unpleasant sensation. This is not because he is different by nature from one to whom masterpieces have no meaning, but because he has learned to know them.
Here again we have one of the striking differences between the average American and the average European. The Italian, French, Austrian, or German laborer sees masterpieces from infancy. His earliest recollection of religious worship is associated with them. Every continental town has its art gallery or picture exhibit, and on certain days there is no admission fee. The laborer avails himself of this opportunity. On Sunday, when he is free from toil, he makes a festival of the occasion and takes his family to some park or place of amusement, and very frequently the jaunt includes a trip to the picture gallery. Consequently, even the children of those lands have a knowledge of the masterpieces of art far surpassing that of the average adult American.
In most respects the Italian street gamin does not differ from the guttersnipe of our own land, but in one he is vastly his superior. He knows the free days at the galleries as well as he knows the alleys of his native town, and is a liberal patron of such places on those occasions. I once made the acquaintance of a little chap in Rome who was an excellent guide. He piloted me among the treasures of the Vatican with the ease and security that bespeaks thorough knowledge, for he had been there so often that he knew in just which rooms or alcoves to find his favorites. He knew much of the artists, too, of their lives and times, their discouragements and successes. Yet this Roman street boy was no exception to his class. Along the Piazza di Spagna, in fact, on any of the highways, are dozens like him, rich in knowledge of the statues and fountains that glorify the streets and parks of the Holy City. The names of Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Fra Angelico, Giotto, and those other men who built or carved or painted with marvelous power, are fraught with meaning to them, and it is not strange that it should be so. Children in Italy have grown up among beautiful things. For centuries beauty has been almost a religion to this joy-loving, sun-loving race, and the country of the Apennines, as Francis Hopkinson Smith says, is the one place in the world where a song or a sunset is worth more than a soldo. Consequently, the Italians are a nation of art lovers. Each individual regards the masterpieces as his property, and the reason the Italian people hate the memory of Napoleon is not only that he conquered parts of their land, but that he robbed Italy of some of her art treasures. These were things they and their fathers had seen and loved, and they could not forgive the vandal who carried them away, even after the wound left by the victor had ceased to rankle.
Here in America we have not had the opportunity of the average European, but already we have made a beginning, and we now possess a number of art galleries that deserve the name. At the present time these are found only in the large cities, but they are helping to form national standards. Meanwhile every worker with children ought to try to lead those intrusted to his care to a knowledge and appreciation of great pictures.
It is not enough to place reproductions of masterpieces in schools and homes and say nothing about them. If children are to have an appreciation of them, they must be led to see their beauty, to understand what they mean, to have some idea of the infinite patience and labor that made their creation possible. The child of an artistic bent will observe and study them without aid or guidance and unconsciously grow into loving them, because beauty in any form attracts him as a magnet draws a bar of steel. But teachers and parents do not work solely with budding genius, and in the great scheme of human advancement it may mean as much for many average children to appreciate and love art, as for one who is gifted to reach immortal heights of achievement. The average child must be led and directed. His interest must be aroused before we can hope to mold his taste as we would have it molded. He must be taught to see that a Gainsborough is more beautiful than an advertising chromo, that a face by Raphael is the expression of an inspiration that is almost divine. Only through an association that gives pleasure will he come to see and appreciate, and here again story-telling can work wonders, because through it we can intensify a child’s delight in a picture.
In the field of art the biographical tale is of immeasurable value, for the story of an artist’s life, illustrated by reproductions of his works, can be made the pathway to appreciation.