DOI chapter:
Chapter III Of the Three Leaders, and of Moral Earnestness in Art
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65493#0083
AMERICAN SCULPTURE
49
mean, some valued critic of our arts
and letters. As it is, we of today leave
such work to the censor. And our
democracy, avid for class distinctions,
accounts the censor considerably lower
than the angels. The censor, poor
soul, might as well slink at once into
the society of the executioner, that
most dejected, most rejected figure in
history. When the censor says, in
his own way, “My heart hath named
it vile,” nobody pays much attention.
But the world might look up if some
urbane and trusted critic would write
with the moral earnestness of Euri-
pides, dodging nothing. Kenyon Cox
used to do so.
What I am driving at is this : With-
out moral earnestness, (very probably
the French would call it seriousness)
art cannot prosper in a strange coun-
try, under unnative sky. There would
be no foundation for laying the corner-
stones of art, let alone for building its
MORAL EARNESTNESS IN ART
49
mean, some valued critic of our arts
and letters. As it is, we of today leave
such work to the censor. And our
democracy, avid for class distinctions,
accounts the censor considerably lower
than the angels. The censor, poor
soul, might as well slink at once into
the society of the executioner, that
most dejected, most rejected figure in
history. When the censor says, in
his own way, “My heart hath named
it vile,” nobody pays much attention.
But the world might look up if some
urbane and trusted critic would write
with the moral earnestness of Euri-
pides, dodging nothing. Kenyon Cox
used to do so.
What I am driving at is this : With-
out moral earnestness, (very probably
the French would call it seriousness)
art cannot prosper in a strange coun-
try, under unnative sky. There would
be no foundation for laying the corner-
stones of art, let alone for building its
MORAL EARNESTNESS IN ART