International studio (54.1914/1915)

A Western Renaissance

common interest in a social way and promote its
artistic side. Through the Art Institute, the
Municipal Art League and their own co-operative
gallery and Fine Arts shop at the Artists’ Guild
and the artist clubs, there is a unity of interest and
a general effort toward the wider fields of art and
a national progress.
The art enterprises of Chicago have been dealt
with at some length because they are first in age
and activities, but what has been said of the Art
Institute is to a great degree true of the City Art
Museum of St. Louis, the John Herron Art Insti-
tute of Indianapolis, the Hackley Art Gallery at
Muskegon, the Milwaukee Art Society (whose
director, Dudley Crafts Watson, was trained in
Chicago), and will obtain in the new Minneapolis
Museum of Fine Arts. Every one of the latter
has aspirations to become a notable museum, has
ventured art in the education of children, has
popularized its collections, and through directors
of present-day enterprise is determined to pro-
mote a love for the beautiful and its refining influ-
ences as art for life’s sake. Nor has this renais-
sance stayed in the Middle West. Texas, in Dal-
las, Waco, Houston and in other cities, regards
training in art history and art accomplishments a
part of public education. The State has adopted
a text-book. In the North, as will be shown, the
Minnesota State Art Society is setting an example
for the entire country.
As early as 1879 St. Louis organized its art
forces as the art department of the Washington
University. Halsey G. Ives, the director, a far-
seeing man, brought fresh ideas into the art school
and purchased good paintings, but it was not until
the impetus given by the World’s Fair of 1903, and
the “art tax” given by the legislature in 1907,
that the City Art Museum and School of Fine
Arts became a municipal institution supported by
the State and open to the public every day of the
year. The art palace of the Lewis and Clark
Exposition, on a commanding site in Forest Park,
became the Museum. Until the time of his death
Halsey G. Ives devoted his life to upbuilding the
collections in its thirty-nine galleries. Its Sculp-
ture Court, 150 feet long by 60 feet wide, contains
the most comprehensive gathering of American
sculptures in the world. Acting-director R. A.
Holland continued the progressive policy sup-
ported by William K. Bixby, himself a collector,
and the president. Mr. Holland and the docents
and special lecturers give Sunday afternoon talks
in the galleries. The museum co-operates with
schools, colleges and civic societies, and the series

of changing exhibitions belong to those seen at
other great cities of the country, and the number
of viewers is increasing.
The Two-by-Four Society of St. Louis (the
local artists) gives loyal aid. Frederick Oakes
Sylvester paints the landscape of the Mississippi
River; Edmund H. Wuerpel is a poet of the moods
of nature peculiar to the region; 0. E. Berninghaus,
a third leading member of the group, chooses
Indian and frontier scenes. In making compari-
sons, it is interesting to note that the Missouri
artists have a significant originality, and that one
who knows Western art at large would not confuse
their fine style with the equally good though differ-
ent art of the Hoosier painters of Indiana, the cos-
mopolitan work in Chicago, the Illinois spirit of
the Palette and Chisel Club of the metropolis, or
that of the Milwaukee painters or those of Minne-
sota. In comprehending a renaissance all must be
considered.
Civic art, the City Art Museum, the local paint-
ers and the art school of St. Louis are a strong
factor in stimulating art enthusiasm and exhibi-
tions of work in Arkansas, Nebraska, Kansas, and
the West and Southwest. All the scattered art
centres in these regions are signs of a healthy
progress.
The John Herron Art Institute of Indianapolis,
founded by John Herron, with the art school of the
capital city of Indiana, is third in age and con-
trolled by the Art Association of Indianapolis. It
is a live organization, vital in a modern sense. It
has held twenty-eight annual exhibitions of
American art and has brought the population of
the city to its doors through its co-operative work
among the teachers and children of Indianapolis.
Students flock to the lectures after school hours,
Saturday mornings there are art classes under Miss
Seegmiller and William Forsyth, the Indiana land-
scape painter, and the staff of the Art Institute.
Friday evenings the High School boys and girls
have the liberty of the galleries, and the Art Insti-
tute circulates fifteen travelling exhibitions of
paintings, textiles and other objects, which were
shown to fifty groups of children in thirty-five
schools of the city in a limited time. The first
month of the year 7,000 visited the Art Institute.
Leaflets of a special kind are distributed to attract
children to the Art Institute, mothers’ clubs meet
there, in addition to art societies, and the Indiana
Federation of Women’s Clubs and the Drama
League have the club rooms for their congresses.
Thus, in the revived idea of art for the people
and art for life’s sake, art lovers are sought in the

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