(And in the galleries of Europe I gazed upon miles of madonnas—madonnas mournful and madonnas smiling, madonnas with wavy golden hair and madonnas with straight black hair—but never a madonna that was not plump, manicured and polished and robed in silks and satins, as became the mistresses of court painters, and of popes and cardinals and abbots able to pay for publicity.)
The sons and grandsons of Ogi cultivated his magic, and found new ways to intensify the thrills of art. They learned to make clay figures, and to carve the Old Men of the tribe and the Witch Doctors out of wood and stone.
(And just before the war, being in Berlin, I was taken by a friend for a drive down the Sieges Allée, between rows of white marble monsters in halberd and helm and cowl and royal robes, brandishing sceptres and mitres, battle-axes and two-bladed swords. Being myself a barbarian, I ventured to titter at this spectacle; whereupon my friend turned pale, and put his fingers upon my lips, indicating the driver of the hack, and whispering how more than once it had happened that presumptuous barbarians who tittered at the Old Men of the Hohenzollern tribe had been driven by a loyal hackman straight to the police station and to jail.)
Likewise the sons of Ogi learned to make noises in imitation of the songs of birds, and so they were able to bring back the thrills of first love. They learned to imitate the rolling of thunder, and the clash of clubs and spears in battle fury, and so they were able to renew the glory of the hunt and the slaughter.
(And in the year 1870 the Khedive of Egypt offered a prize of ten thousand pounds to that descendant of Ogi who should make the most powerful magic out of his ancestral slaughterings; and now, throughout all civilization, the masters of the machines of slaughter put on their honorific raiment, and escort their pudgy wives, bedecked with jewels, to performances of their favorite grand opera, “Aida.”)
Likewise the descendants of Ogi learned to enact their adventures in imitation hunts. Inspired by music, they would dance about the camp-fire, thrusting their weapons into a magic aurochs, shouting when they saw him fall, and licking their chops at the taste of imaginary flesh.
(And in thirty thousand “movie” houses throughout the United States the tribes now gather to woo and win magic darlings of luxury, and lick their chops over the acquirement of imaginary millions; also to shudder at wicked Russian Bolsheviks with bristling beards, at villainous “Red” agitators with twisted faces, and at such other spectacles as the Old Men and the Witch Doctors prepare for them, according to instructions from the Great Hunter on the Holy Mountain.)
Three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three generations have passed, and in every generation the descendants of Ogi have had to face the problem of their relationship to the Old Men and the Witch Doctors. Ogi himself was a hunter, who slew his aurochs with his own hand, and butchered and cooked his meat before he ate it. But now it has been long since any descendant of Ogi has driven a spear through the eye of a charging aurochs. They have become specialists in the imaginary; their hands adjusted, not to spears and stone hatchets, but to brushes and pencils, fountain-pens and typewriter keys. So, when they are cast out from the tribe they can no longer face the sabre-toothed tiger and find meat for themselves and their beautiful women; so, more than ever, the grip of the Old Men and the Witch Doctors grows tight upon them. More than ever it is required that their pictures and stories shall deal with things of which the Old Men and the Witch Doctors approve; more than ever they are called upon to honor and praise the customs of their tribe, as against the customs of all other tribes of men or angels.
CHAPTER II
WHO OWNS THE ARTISTS?
Many and various are the art-forms which the sons and grandsons of Ogi have invented; but of all these forms, the one which bores us most quickly is the parable—a little story made up for the purpose of illustrating a special lesson. Therefore, I hasten to drop Ogi and his sons and grandsons, and to say in plain English that this book is a study of the artist in his relation to the propertied classes. Its thesis is that from the dawn of human history, the path to honor and success in the arts has been through the service and glorification of the ruling classes; entertaining them, making them pleasant to themselves, and teaching their subjects and slaves to stand in awe of them.