DOI article:
Joseph T. [Turner] Keiley, The Buffalo Exhibition
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31226#0042
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tions have grown to be high-class marts for artistic wares, and are but a few
degrees removed from the art dealer’s gallery. By “making” certain artists
and creating a demand for a certain class of work, they have educated the
public along certain popular lines, and often shut the doors of recognition
and success in the face of originality and progress. It is always unfortunate
when an artist is dependent on his art for his living. It is degenerating when
an artist’s inspiration finds incentive in cupidity. It is vulgarizing, the long-
ing for academic honors. The real artist is so much bigger as a man when
he stands alone than he is as an academician, when he becomes one of a
crowd. And yet it is all this that the modern academies and exhibitions have
largely fostered.
When there are recognized exhibitions, held at stated times, for which
artists prepare special pictures for exhibition purposes, the real cause of art
and beauty is too often lost sight of in the ardency of the desire to produce
a picture that the jury will be likely to approve. It is this underlying motive
that has killed the most promising of all of the recognized photographic
exhibitions. It killed the “Joint Exhibitions”; it killed the American Insti-
tute Exhibition; it killed the Philadelphia Salons; and, finally, it killed the
London Linked Ring Salons. They all began well. They all prospered
for a while. They all fell away from the verity of their purpose, in the by-
ways of envy, vanity and cupidity. They all refused to take warning when
the warning note was sounded, and, as a result, they one and all died, because
the element of beauty is ever a vital force that ever seeks its own level, and
ever retaliates on those of its professed votaries who seek like beavers to dam
its current for their own betterment and satisfaction.
It may surprise some readers when the assertion is made that this exhibi-
tion has been over a quarter of a century preparing. Yet such is the fact.
For over twenty-five years I have watched exhibitions come and go and their
wrecks as monuments to much wasted and misdirected endeavor. But,
through it all, like a coral island being built up slowly, surely, under the
surface has grown the spirit that finally unveils itself in its full ideality in
this exhibition. It is said that whatever is good is worth fighting for. Every
step of the way has been fought. The same elements that in the past made the
old “Joint Exhibitions” impossible, and that diverted the Philadelphia
Salons from their original high purpose into a sort of County Fair photo-
show, where vulgarity vied with vanity to be classed as artists with Rembrandt
and Rubens, these same elements sought by every means to pull down this
exhibition as they had others, and failing in that, to misrepresent it after-
wards through dishonest misrepresentation. But the days of the power of
these elements for mischief were passed. They had faded into mere shades,
whose thin crackling voices were all that was left of them.
The force of purpose behind the “Secessionistic Idea,” and the truth
of the great principle it sought to shape into definite being—like all high and
sound ideals when backed up by uncompromising, fearless truth—slowly
but surely conquered, and set a standard of beauty that must eventually
influence the world of modern art.
24
degrees removed from the art dealer’s gallery. By “making” certain artists
and creating a demand for a certain class of work, they have educated the
public along certain popular lines, and often shut the doors of recognition
and success in the face of originality and progress. It is always unfortunate
when an artist is dependent on his art for his living. It is degenerating when
an artist’s inspiration finds incentive in cupidity. It is vulgarizing, the long-
ing for academic honors. The real artist is so much bigger as a man when
he stands alone than he is as an academician, when he becomes one of a
crowd. And yet it is all this that the modern academies and exhibitions have
largely fostered.
When there are recognized exhibitions, held at stated times, for which
artists prepare special pictures for exhibition purposes, the real cause of art
and beauty is too often lost sight of in the ardency of the desire to produce
a picture that the jury will be likely to approve. It is this underlying motive
that has killed the most promising of all of the recognized photographic
exhibitions. It killed the “Joint Exhibitions”; it killed the American Insti-
tute Exhibition; it killed the Philadelphia Salons; and, finally, it killed the
London Linked Ring Salons. They all began well. They all prospered
for a while. They all fell away from the verity of their purpose, in the by-
ways of envy, vanity and cupidity. They all refused to take warning when
the warning note was sounded, and, as a result, they one and all died, because
the element of beauty is ever a vital force that ever seeks its own level, and
ever retaliates on those of its professed votaries who seek like beavers to dam
its current for their own betterment and satisfaction.
It may surprise some readers when the assertion is made that this exhibi-
tion has been over a quarter of a century preparing. Yet such is the fact.
For over twenty-five years I have watched exhibitions come and go and their
wrecks as monuments to much wasted and misdirected endeavor. But,
through it all, like a coral island being built up slowly, surely, under the
surface has grown the spirit that finally unveils itself in its full ideality in
this exhibition. It is said that whatever is good is worth fighting for. Every
step of the way has been fought. The same elements that in the past made the
old “Joint Exhibitions” impossible, and that diverted the Philadelphia
Salons from their original high purpose into a sort of County Fair photo-
show, where vulgarity vied with vanity to be classed as artists with Rembrandt
and Rubens, these same elements sought by every means to pull down this
exhibition as they had others, and failing in that, to misrepresent it after-
wards through dishonest misrepresentation. But the days of the power of
these elements for mischief were passed. They had faded into mere shades,
whose thin crackling voices were all that was left of them.
The force of purpose behind the “Secessionistic Idea,” and the truth
of the great principle it sought to shape into definite being—like all high and
sound ideals when backed up by uncompromising, fearless truth—slowly
but surely conquered, and set a standard of beauty that must eventually
influence the world of modern art.
24
