DOI Heft:
Nr. 334 (March 1925)
DOI Artikel:Pennington, Jo: American sporting prints
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0205
inceRHAcionAL
WATER-RAIL SHOOTING PUBLISHED BY CURRIER AND IVES
the western series of prairie life are scarcer and so more elaborate presentations would be. The man
bring higher prices. genuinely interested in boxing would greatly pre-
It is doubtful whether any serious attempt at fer an account of a prize fight written by Hype
artistry entered into the making of these old litho- Igoe to one of the same fight by Henry James,
graphs. They were made to sell to a market whose But apart from their interest for collectors,
first demand was for an approach to realism. The they are being sought by those who have devel-
horses must be recognizable, not only as horses oped and can afford to indulge in the fashionable
but as particular animals. A great part of their early-American complex. Lifting our skirts high
interest to the sporting fraternity lay in the por- to avoid the muddy Victorian period, we try to
traiture of the drivers, of the race horses and the place our feet among the beauties of the eighteenth
members of the coaching parties. The print de- and early nineteenth centuries, but now and then
signers were graphic reporters. And, as happens we find to our dismay that even the sixties occa-
occasionally in journalism, where lucidity and sionahy offered something that was naive not
accuracy are of greater importance than literary alone by reason of being hideous. In spite of the
style, the very restrictions imposed often saved a discrepancy of time, if we be not period-bound, it
work from the pitfalls of over-elaboration and does not seem incongruous to place on a wall
banality. In some of the prints, as in the "Flush- above a pine dough-mixer or dower chest a Cur-
ing a Woodcock" illustrated here, there is evident ricr and Ives print. Because they are colorful and
an attempt to conform to the style then in vogue decorative they relieve a little the primness which
in painting, but for the most part they are simple too much early-Americanism sometimes carries
statements, devoid of fussiness, of a sporting event, with it. They are gay, realistic and—in more
It is that quality of simplicity which made them senses than one—artless. They bring back the
so popular and gives them whatever of artistic spirit of those happy days when it was not a crime
value they may have. They belong to the category to admire a picture for the sake of its subject;
of "popular art," which is sometimes as bad as those free old days before we were bound by the
anything can well be but which has also produced modern shibboleth: " I don't know anything about
works of very definite merit. And they are much art but I know what I ought to like."
more appropriate renderings of their subjects than illustrations by courtesy oj Max Williams
MARCH I925
jour sixty-Jive
WATER-RAIL SHOOTING PUBLISHED BY CURRIER AND IVES
the western series of prairie life are scarcer and so more elaborate presentations would be. The man
bring higher prices. genuinely interested in boxing would greatly pre-
It is doubtful whether any serious attempt at fer an account of a prize fight written by Hype
artistry entered into the making of these old litho- Igoe to one of the same fight by Henry James,
graphs. They were made to sell to a market whose But apart from their interest for collectors,
first demand was for an approach to realism. The they are being sought by those who have devel-
horses must be recognizable, not only as horses oped and can afford to indulge in the fashionable
but as particular animals. A great part of their early-American complex. Lifting our skirts high
interest to the sporting fraternity lay in the por- to avoid the muddy Victorian period, we try to
traiture of the drivers, of the race horses and the place our feet among the beauties of the eighteenth
members of the coaching parties. The print de- and early nineteenth centuries, but now and then
signers were graphic reporters. And, as happens we find to our dismay that even the sixties occa-
occasionally in journalism, where lucidity and sionahy offered something that was naive not
accuracy are of greater importance than literary alone by reason of being hideous. In spite of the
style, the very restrictions imposed often saved a discrepancy of time, if we be not period-bound, it
work from the pitfalls of over-elaboration and does not seem incongruous to place on a wall
banality. In some of the prints, as in the "Flush- above a pine dough-mixer or dower chest a Cur-
ing a Woodcock" illustrated here, there is evident ricr and Ives print. Because they are colorful and
an attempt to conform to the style then in vogue decorative they relieve a little the primness which
in painting, but for the most part they are simple too much early-Americanism sometimes carries
statements, devoid of fussiness, of a sporting event, with it. They are gay, realistic and—in more
It is that quality of simplicity which made them senses than one—artless. They bring back the
so popular and gives them whatever of artistic spirit of those happy days when it was not a crime
value they may have. They belong to the category to admire a picture for the sake of its subject;
of "popular art," which is sometimes as bad as those free old days before we were bound by the
anything can well be but which has also produced modern shibboleth: " I don't know anything about
works of very definite merit. And they are much art but I know what I ought to like."
more appropriate renderings of their subjects than illustrations by courtesy oj Max Williams
MARCH I925
jour sixty-Jive