THE BOGIE MAN.
There is a very laudable scheme on foot just now to erect a monument, or statue, to the memory of Maryland’s contingent of Confederate and Federal soldiers who lost their lives on the battle-field of Antietam. The idea of such a memorial does great credit to the magnanimity of the American people, and offers another convincing proof to the world at large that we are again a truly united and broadminded nation. The lofty patriotism that suggests and makes practicable the erection of a monument of this description is beyond all praise and cannot be commended too highly: There is, however,—if a recent experience teaches us anything—an unfortunate element of danger that, no matter what noble-minded motives may have originally inspired this projected tribute to our brave dead, its artistic side may actually leave much to be desired; and that in the next century, when we shall have at length become a truly artistic people, we may turn our heads aside and blush for it, as we do now for the hideous Firemen’s Tablet and the Lord Baltimore of Cathedral street.
There is no reason but ignorance for the existence of such a state of things. Nothing is easier than to get expert judgment on those architectural and sculptural plans that may be submitted to the committee in charge of the erection of this monument. There is a very common, and most erroneous, idea that trained technical and artistic knowledge is unnecessary in such cases, whereas no task is in reality more difficult. To be able to choose correctly, from the many rough little wax and clay suggestions huddled momentarily together, the project which will produce, when it is thrown up on a large scale and carefully finished, the most beautiful and inspiring work of art, requires an experience that is almost invariably lacking in the persons so thoughtlessly given the power to say which theme is to be adjudged the best.
In the recent case to which we have referred, a committee of laymen apparently judged the sketches submitted to them solely from the point of view of finish,—a most immaterial matter in a sketch, as every artist knows,—and consequently one of our great national heroes, instead of being eternally honored as was intended by many of his admirers, is compelled to rest under a mediocre pile of stone and bronze that, while far from being as good as it ought to be, is just good enough to insure its remaining where it is for many years to come. Is this sort of thing fair to the art-loving people who contribute to the building of our public monuments, or to posterity that must receive and preserve them, or to those heroes themselves in whose memory and to whose glory we would like to erect enduring proofs of our love and admiration?
The Theatrical Trust has at last met with a well merited rebuke for its peculiar methods of business. TheBaltimore Newstook it in hand the other day and told it some very plain truths. It seems that the local representative of the Trust went to theNewsoffice with a proposition to publish a half-page “ad” every Saturday providing a local “ad-writer”, who thinks himself an authority on things theatrical, was allowed to polish up the swell front advance notices. TheNewsnot only declined the proposition but exposed the whole affair. The Academy took its “ad” out immediately, and published for a few days, “We do not advertise in the News.” Foolish mistake! What is the use of flinging mud at a man who owns a mud-machine?
We heartily commend theNewsfor the action it has taken in this matter. It is an outrage that a few men should attempt to control this business. They made every effort to close the doors of the very popular Lyceum, and leave Mr. Albaugh to starve if he saw fit, but the energy and perseverance of his son Jack were entirely successful in defeating their purpose, and the good people of Baltimore have fully shown their appreciation of his pluck. Now the Trust is measuring steel with the Fords, but in spite of giving them the worst of it in the way of attractions, the Fords are making more money than the Academy. Ford and Albaugh are the names that represent everything theatrical in Baltimore. Years and years ago these two men had firmly established themselves with Baltimoreans, and it will take more than a theatrical trust to inspire hostility where there has always existed confidence and good-will.
There can be no doubt as to the precarious condition of music in Baltimore at the beginning of the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine; but there is much that can be done to improve its really sad plight. In other words, its state, while deplorable in the extreme, is not altogether hopeless. It is deeply to be regretted that the recent manager of the Peabody Institute, a man of great and acknowledged musical ability, having had the chance to make Baltimore the recognized musical centre of America, should have failed so utterly to add that distinction to the metropolis of the South.
His successor, a young man of education, of refinement, and of apparent ambition, although undoubtedly handicapped by the legacy of sterile contentions and discouragements left him by his predecessor, has still a very brilliant opportunity before him. Will he succeed ultimately where his master has so conspicuously failed? We sincerely hope so, and trust that some few of our misgivings, arising from what we fear is a tendency to cultivate the noisy and pretentious few at the expense of the more modest, but by far the more musical, majority may prove after all to be groundless.
Nothing so forcibly illustrates the inability of even educated persons to distinguish between the good and the bad as the family portrait. How seldom one sees in houses otherwise marked by refinement and good taste this really necessaryand, to future generations, valuable object characterized by sufficient artistic merit to insure to it one’s attention for five minutes. And how often it is a mere caricature of the person whose portrayal has been attempted. What man dare call himself educated who has not sufficiently acquainted himself with the elements of drawing and color to know when he, or some member of his family, is being transferred to canvas for no better purpose than to afford amusement for persons of greater knowledge and judgment. It is true all of us cannot spare the time to acquire even the elements of an art education, but then it is equally true that the upper class of Americans is not truly a cultivated class, is not possessed of the culture of the same class in Europe. This is lamentable; but sadder still is the knowledge that the egotism (widely known as the American spirit) of the average man of refinement will preclude for a long time to come a betterment of the situation.
Baltimore, among other cities noted for their educated class, has been, and still is, an easy victim to the artist of the solar-print. Nothing more thoroughly delights the heart of a Baltimorean of average development than to come into possession of one of those family portraits that exhibit all the rotundity of objects turned on a lathe, the burnish (in the high lights) of excessively polished metal-ware, and the finish of a miniature done under the glass of a microscope. In such work the ideal of portrait painting is reached—for the Baltimorean of average development. The revered canvas is given the place of honor in the most prominent room of the house and there left for the adoration of all who enter—no one daring to call down upon his head, for adverse criticism, the pitying scorn of the deluded family. “It is a speaking likeness rendered with unusual technical skill.” One often wishes, as a relief for tortured eyes, that painters could do without technique altogether, and might be allowed to indulge the wildest flights of imagination conceivable in depicting the features of beloved relatives and friends.
But little can be said in defense of the “artist” who produces this class of work. It is the result of either a base commercial spirit or of untalented affrontery that trades on the ignorance of those who should blush for their little knowledge. In many instances these painters have had every opportunity for study at home and abroad, and yet seek to degrade a profession they can in no wise benefit. Have the patrons of these men concluded that honesty has lost its worth, and that a bad painter is more useful that a good photographer? An almost hopeless ignorance of art is, in these cases, the true explanation of why this phase of brush-work has not long since disappeared from among intelligent people. As long as men are found willing to pay for a bad thing the parodists of art will continue to flourish. That it is not the ignorant, or unscrupulous, painter who needs to be educated is easily seen.
Baltimore, with its unusually large number of thinking people, is not altogether hopeless of improvement in its ideas of art. Fortunately there are here a few families that have true judgment in such matters, and whose influence, although at present but little felt, has a tendency to create a future favorable to good work. May that happy epoch not be synchronous with the Millennium.