Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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158 THE ORACLE hearty, fox-hunting, honest to the core, glows from the rosy cheeks of a Reynolds portrait. Further back, before our modern civilization, we remember Greece —the race-name that stands for everything lofty in ideals. And after we have felt and thought a great deal about the broadness, the Christianity of Greek culture, what do we find embodies and expresses it all? A Greek God—a Greek God as a Phidias has imagined it for us. His Art executes our conception. | From all the civilized races of antiquity we have heirlooms of sculp- ture and building, as the only tangible memorial of their existence. So we see that pre-eminently, indication of character has been the peculiar func- tion of Art. In modern times, it may be that Painting with its own deli- cate attributes of color and shade expresses the feelings of our more compli- cated life with greater accuracy than any other of the Fine Arts—even than Poetry. For, if we believe Macaulay, Poetry is essentially primitive, and de- clines as civilization advances. Certain it is, that the infancy of the World produced a Homer and a David, and equally certain it is that a Phidias and a Raphael came by Evolution. The difference lies here, that whereas Poetry is the unhindered voice of the soul, in Art the voice of the soul speaks through the instrumentality of the hands. Mere speech is primi- tive, and needs no instruction, but the hands need training and the skill that comes only with Time. In Art, too truly, “the spirit is always willing but always the flesh is weak.’ And so in Art we see a parallel incarnation of human nature, ever striving to represent, to live, what it feels to be right— the spiritual, imperfectly seen, guiding the blind, endeavoring, unskilled hands of will. And when we realize how vital is Art to a nation’s develop- ment, and equally how accurate it is as an Indicator of the inner workings of national life, what must we fear and hope for the future of American Art? That an artistic revolution is in progress among our people is made evident by a thousand Signs of the Times. There is no longer a market for gilt vases. Our schools, once timbered barns, are now picture-galleries. This means that a certain part of the American people realize that children must be made to know something about Art. Whether these people are actuated more by a sense of obligation than by a spirit of sincere convic- tion is another matter. Very few of us can feel Art. But we all know that to be properly balanced we ought to. Taste is a thing which once lacked can never be acquired. But in the rough it can be developed, and the broad- cast spread of Art works it rapidly accomplishing a development.

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THE ORACLE. 157 without which he had made? Inquiry was useless. The man and the position met at last. John Hay’s final opportunity was at hand and he grasped it without hesitation. No wonder now that John Hay dared to lead the nation into a new epoch; no wonder now that the nations of Europe look on apprehensively while, under his guidance, we take our first strides as a world power. Well might Germany rage because John Hay said, ‘China shall not be divided.” Indeed the raging did little good. The integrity of China was secured. John Hay had decreed it. Well might Russia roar because John Hay said, “The Open Door shall prevail in China,’ and did the roaring do much good? The ports of China are open to the world. John Hay had de- manded it. With the right always on his side, John Hay has dared all the powers of Europe, and they have quailed before him. It is not reck- lessness nor is it audacity; it is a firm courage and an implicit faith in the triumph of the right, an appreciation of the advantages of clean diplomacy over foul treachery. Thus in John Hay we see the height which a humble American citizen may reach; not through luck, not through double dealing, but by plain, honest, hard work, and by seizing each opportunity as it comes. And now let us thank God for John Hay, and pray that He will spare us for many years the life of this true, this ideal American. II. THE MISSION OF AMERICAN ART. VAN WYCK BROOKS. HERE is no other phase of National Life which so generally embodies and so accurately expresses the National characteristics and ideals as the Nation’s Art. Fe Italy, with her acutely artistic temperament and her passionate fer- vor, presented in her Art the opening scene of modern civilization. Germany followed—primitive, uncouth, profound. And every other race placed in the History of Art the symbol of its national character. Murillo typifies Spanish Art in the dusky, black-eyed signoritas who were his conception of the Madonna. Every nook of thrifty, home-loving, practical little Hol- land is illuminated by the brush of a Brouwer. All the polish, the dainti- ness, the worldliness of the court of Louis is pictured on the canvases of Watteau. And always last in a question of sensibility, dear old England,

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DHE: ORACLE. 159 So it seems that we are really growing in cultivation. It becomes our responsibility as a composite people to unite the virtues of all races. In us must be found the rugged integrity of the Saxon blended with the delicate sensibility of the Italian. And this blending—this building up of ideal manhood—is the Mission of American Art. For it is ever the duty of Art to combine and to guide. What shall it be—Walt Whitman’s art, primitive once more, loosed of all tradition, utterly new—the art of the Prairie? Yes, in one sense, that it must be fresh, healthy, free from effete culture. But in a much deeper sense, No. For Art is Evolution and to begin again is to waste what three thousand years have developed. It is for us now to gather together the best that the World’s Art has attained, and to let it be moulded by Nature to express our American ideas in our American way. Then must come the genuine expression of our national life—harmonized, softened, idealized. We shall combine a Lincoln and a Raphael. We shall have eloquent Beauty and sturdy Manhood. Culture for culture’s sake we shall cast away; but the culture of fellowship with the sages, and the culture of experience for to-day’s ennobling we shall joyfully embrace. The blossom is all we see of the water-lily. Yet beneath there stretches in the muddy water a long stem that in its turn rise s from a slimy root. Cut away the root below, and in an hour we see the blossom wither on the surface. Healthy culture is the lily. Integrity, uncouth labor is the root. As a people we are noted pre-eminently for Ingenuity, and it becomes one of the greatest problems before us to prevent Cleverness from supplanting true Art. But Ingenuity can in one way serve our high- est ends—that by working through Science it may place Art within the reach of the people. Science simplifies the mechanical medium through which Art teaches. And the very simplicity implies two advantages—real Beauty, and Cost equal to the smallest pocket-book. It is Art only which can purify our national failings. We have a mighty slough of Commer- cialism that only Art can reconcile with Ideal. For Art always makes for righteousness and cleanness, drawing forth directly the nobilities of the character. That great soul which exists behind all, chooses many vehicles of utterance; and where the great soul exists, it must speak forth. We are a spiritual people—not in the emotional, wavering devotion of Italy, but in the hardier, mute earnestness of the North—more full of honest faith and honest doubt, more enduring, more sincere. And so our Art must come and will come—to simplify, to uplift, to loose from prejudice, always parallel with American living, yet ever going before to guide, softening our self- confidence, refining our commercialism, and moulding from his varied ele- ments the American as he should be—the type of ideal Manhood.