DOI Heft:
No. 192 (February, 1913)
DOI Artikel:Brinton, Christian: Standardized sentiment in current art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0449
Standardized Sentiment in Current Art
The Corcoran Gallery Exhibition Awarded the Second W. A. Clark Prize ($1,500) and the Corcoran Silver Medal
WILDERNESS
BY DANIEL GARBER
finds them in New York. There is here no con-
fusion, no over-crowding. The possibility of sub-
division into numerous smaller rooms makes it
practicable to hang the pictures in more or less
generically related groups, and everywhere there
is that sense of dignity and spaciousness, as
well as intimacy, which artistic effort would seem
to exact, and which alone can render its message
effective, if not indeed actually articulate.
There is something in the superior freedom and
spontaneity of the medium itself, and not infre-
quently also in the artist’s mood as well, which
lends to water colors numerous points of attraction
not ordinarily encountered in the average run of
work in oils. Many of those represented in the
recent Philadelphia exhibition were men of estab-
lished position in the province of oil painting who
were here seeking casual relaxation from sterner
effort; not a few were water color painters by pro-
fession, and still others were recruits from the
field of illustration. It was hence inevitable that
there should have been to the display as a whole a
vivacity of temper and a general diversity of
handling which are all too rare in the more formal
product of brush and canvas. There is no con-
ceivable reason why American art should take
itself with such preternatural seriousness. Our
painters appear one and all to have lost the primal
sense of play—to have ceased doing things for the
sheer joy of accomplishment. They seem to get
pathetically little downright fun out of their work,
and the effects of this attitude are year by year
more visible on the walls of our leading galleries.
We must stand out against that tendency
toward a monotonous standardization which is so
paramount in the industrial and social worlds.
The most precious quality in creative effort is the
note of wholesome individuality, and it must be
preserved above and beyond all else. The great,
levelling forces of latter-day existence—the legacy
of this age of democracy—are frankly inimical to
instinctive, spontaneous esthetic expression. They
tend in art to produce mere pictorial conventions,
paintings which are soothingly uniform in spirit
rather than stimulating, which are delicate and
persuasive rather than vigorous or powerful in
LXXXV
The Corcoran Gallery Exhibition Awarded the Second W. A. Clark Prize ($1,500) and the Corcoran Silver Medal
WILDERNESS
BY DANIEL GARBER
finds them in New York. There is here no con-
fusion, no over-crowding. The possibility of sub-
division into numerous smaller rooms makes it
practicable to hang the pictures in more or less
generically related groups, and everywhere there
is that sense of dignity and spaciousness, as
well as intimacy, which artistic effort would seem
to exact, and which alone can render its message
effective, if not indeed actually articulate.
There is something in the superior freedom and
spontaneity of the medium itself, and not infre-
quently also in the artist’s mood as well, which
lends to water colors numerous points of attraction
not ordinarily encountered in the average run of
work in oils. Many of those represented in the
recent Philadelphia exhibition were men of estab-
lished position in the province of oil painting who
were here seeking casual relaxation from sterner
effort; not a few were water color painters by pro-
fession, and still others were recruits from the
field of illustration. It was hence inevitable that
there should have been to the display as a whole a
vivacity of temper and a general diversity of
handling which are all too rare in the more formal
product of brush and canvas. There is no con-
ceivable reason why American art should take
itself with such preternatural seriousness. Our
painters appear one and all to have lost the primal
sense of play—to have ceased doing things for the
sheer joy of accomplishment. They seem to get
pathetically little downright fun out of their work,
and the effects of this attitude are year by year
more visible on the walls of our leading galleries.
We must stand out against that tendency
toward a monotonous standardization which is so
paramount in the industrial and social worlds.
The most precious quality in creative effort is the
note of wholesome individuality, and it must be
preserved above and beyond all else. The great,
levelling forces of latter-day existence—the legacy
of this age of democracy—are frankly inimical to
instinctive, spontaneous esthetic expression. They
tend in art to produce mere pictorial conventions,
paintings which are soothingly uniform in spirit
rather than stimulating, which are delicate and
persuasive rather than vigorous or powerful in
LXXXV