International studio (82.1925)

mceRHACionAL

(Amevican(Avt and the Holiday Spirit

/n the bleak and Round- Our native painters have ture is commonly the court,
head-ridden winter of [eft a[most un touched the If our Cromwellian malcon-
1645 some old Hogarth Christmas tide as too Com- tent had waited sixty-seven

of the homely arts, lacking / /•//■//• years he could have attend-

„ ■ t a u- t i monplace a subiect for their it- c- t? i

sarcasm, inked his brush r J . J ed benign Sir Roger de

and recorded against our express ion Coverley's confession in

timely consideration the la- j-J ^\ \J £ ]\[ P t\ Q P The Spectator: "I allow a

ment that then was in him: A double Quantity of Malt

"Any man or woman . . . that can give any to my small Beer, and set it a-running for

knowledge, or tell any tidings, of an old, old, very twelve Days for every one that calls for it. I

old gray-bearded gentleman, called Christmas, have always a Piece of cold Beef and a Mince-Pye

who was wont to be a verie familiar ghest, and upon the Table, and am wonderfully pleased to

visite all sorts of people both pore and rich, and see my Tenants pass away a whole Evening in

used to appear glittering gold, silk, and silver, in playing their innocent Tricks, and smutting one

the Court, and in all shapes in the Theatre in another." Supposing Tony Sarg in a Queen Anne

Whitehall, and had ringing, feasts, jollities in all skirted coat had called one evening. Would he

places, both in the citie and countrie, lor his have water-colored some jolly scenes of little

coming . . . whosoever can tel what is become of figures?

him, or where he may be found, let them bring Another century sees Dickens putting the last

him back againe into England." Anglican touches to the really Saxon business of

If for Court and Theatre we read academy and Christmas. Plum puddings are made safe for the
gallery, and in place of England, the American British Empire. Mrs. Cratchit has seen to that,
canvas, we may thank our anonymous friend for and Tiny Tim to the more or less happy tears that
his suggestion. But it is a half-tone suggestion; go with it. But what Yankee could we have got
he might for our purpose have sketched it blacker, to chuckle creatively, seeing how "Mr. Pick-
Before we nod acceptingly, before we topically wick . . . was standing under the mistletoe . . .
deplore the defection of American painters from now pulled this way, and then that, and first
the peppermint-stick variety of Santa Claus we kissed on the chin and then on the nose, and then
might review their implied affection. Before we on the spectacles, and to hear the peals of laughter
pursue the regret of our seventeenth century which were raised on every side" or "Mr. Pick-
provocateur, who adds that this errant Christmas wick . . . going through all the mysteries of
"was full and fat as any divine doctor" but "hath blind-man's buff, with the utmost relish of the
looked very thin and ill of late," we would do well game, until at last he caught one of the poor rela-
to ponder how happily this seasonal "verie familiar tions"? Surely not Mr. Gibson. No, we would
ghest" ever was supported by our national easel. have to read on to interest Mr. Gibson about the

Casting about for a suggestive old-fashioned same game of blind-man's buff: "The poor rela-

rack on which to hang the bright mufflers and tions caught just the people whom they thought

mittens of this picturesque argument, I came upon would like it; and when the game flagged, got

James Pollard's "Approach to Christmas." While caught themselves." And in the end Mr. Gibson

it makes no bid for popular recognition of some would not have used color.

Christmas label, it takes itself genteely for In England, then, there was the life, there was

granted. It would have been held by a gazeteer, the literature and, inevitably, the color depiction,

by a middle-class Surrey hostess, even by a What of these States?

Royal Mail clerk, to be someone's painting, not Well, what would the layman's quest turn up?

anyone's illustration. Stretching its merit we may Magazine covers. Seasonal illustrations. Jessie

say, this is life and Christmas the incident. Look- Wilcox Smith and artificial dreams for children,

ing at Pollard's festive coach and holly-fied na- Early designs by Maxfield Parrish and W. T.

tives, we ask ourselves just to what degree Benda. Bethlehem stars or Medieval boars'

American studios have been concerned with heads on platters. It is easy to see that money

mistletoe motives. And, nursing a faint suspicion, has been made and ideas manufactured,

we answer after some small research: by tradition, Perhaps we shall find a commemorative mural

imitatively; by spontaneity, hardly at all. by Blashfield. There is exactly one subject:

When history files an action against art, litera- "Christmas Bells—a Fragment, 1892;" and it is

DECEMBER I 925

two hundred three