Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1913 (Special number))

foster the superficial but remunerative cleverness and routine of home talent.
There is, too, a good deal of self-doubt, as well as apprehension of the future,
on the part of the anaemic and conceited academic painters. And there is,
lastly, the unreasoning Pharisaism of high-priest-critics. Each of these types,
nolens volens, defends the old against the new; and with so big a noise that
the public takes the sound for soundness and thus the real issue becomes
misunderstood. Accordingly, as was almost to be foreseen, a lack of fair-
mindedness and of understanding are the principal causes of the unfavorable
or aggressively hostile reception of the imported new art by our “authorities.”
This would not matter, if the larger part of our public were not wont to abide
abjectly by the pronouncements of those whom it has good naturedly set up
as its guides.
*****
Art in America is still largely misunderstood. Its purpose is not to amuse
or instruct, as people think. Nor is its aim the imitation of life or nature.
Neither is it meant to immortalize names with the halo of N. A., nor to make
the dukes of Europe feel at home in the mansions of the dollar, nor to serve
the latter in any way, not even to raise the wages of dressmakers. All “art”
of this sort is sham, devoid of truth, or relation to ourselves. Art—pure art—
elevates and liberates, because it makes articulate the life of its own time.
So it must be today. The proper functioning of art, however, depends on
the spectator’s mind. Which is where America’s false notions still handicap
Americans.
We, the public, do not know how to approach, how to look at a work of
art. Therefore the real significance and value of an Exhibition is lost upon the
majority of the visitors, misdirected, instead of guided, from the beginning
by the “authorities.” The layman takes art to be photography, so to speak,
in one material or another; he attaches to this sort of photography his senti-
ments or practical purposes. His first question before a painting is, “Of what
is it a picture?” Next, “How accurate is it?” Then, “By what phenomena
of reality, reproduced as naturally as possible, does it tickle his favorite taste,
knowledge or sentiments?” Accordingly he judges. Similarly the academ-
ical high-priest enquires: “In what respects does a painting or statue agree
with his dogmas and conventionalities?” The artist himself is never at-
tempted to be understood or asked to explain.
To fully understand, appreciate and enjoy a work of art requires gift
and co-operation on the part of the beholder. Furthermore his perceptive
faculties and sensibilities need training. Without self-education one cannot
gain the pleasures of art. For these reasons all art is lost to the multitude,
including the majority of the so-called educated. For our modes of education
confer no advantage upon the pupils in the way of understanding art. The
schools teach us to be literary. The Greeks knew better; while the peoples
of the Orient have developed art instincts superior to those of Western nations.
In Europe, at least, closer contact on all sides with art, centuries of habit