Massachusetts College of Art and Design - Palette and Pen Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 14 text:

She wove humanity’s thoughts and emotions into words, and spoke them with her tongue. When the people heard of the miracle of the three sisters they disbelieved. It was fantastic to hear bewitching sounds flow from reeds by the river, to see color on the flat leaves and connected lines upon the walls, and to listen to tales of people who did not exist, of things that had not happened, or places never seen. But soon even the most incredulous came to marvel at these three and their magic. Word traveled quickly by mouth, and many people from n earby lands came to witness the sight. Thus it was that even the gods in the heaven above came to know of this earthly miracle and sent a messenger to search out the truth, for they were amazed and delighted with these mortals who had dis- covered some wondrous secret out of their suffering. Thereupon the king of the gods descended to earth to visit the three sisters. When he saw that they were holy and wise, he decreed that they should become immortal and walk the earth forever, choosing to divulge their secret to those few mortals created to receive them. And he named the first sister Music. And he named the second sister Art. And the third sister was called Literature. DOROTHY ISAACS

Page 13 text:

left with a terrible aftermath of their ordeal of suffering, and in the strangest of ways. The first of them had been struck blind and mute; the second, deaf and dumb; and the third, blind and deaf. It seemed incredible to the people that each of them had been bereft of two of their senses and left each with a different one. And as the sisters, somehow wise and holy, rose from their sickbeds, an awesome bewilder- ment filled the minds of each person. Soon stranger things began to happen in the house wherein they dwelt. The first sister, who could not see or speak, but only hear, began to commute to the others in unusual intonations the sounds that came to her ears. The world to her now was just vibration and tone, no more, but everything she had seen before translated itself into wondrous sonority that became the voice of living. The second sister, who could not speak or hear, but only see, per- ceived everything in a new and wonderful light. Having no voice to tell of it, or ear to hear its sound, she dared to depict what she saw in line and form and color. Not content with what lay directly before her eyes, she drew inward to her mind and brought forth unforgotten scenes and experiences and gave them new meaning. The third sister, who could not see or hear, but only speak, found herself in a darkened world of the mind. But there descended upon her a light in the darkness, whereby she remembered and thought upon all she had ever seen and heard. To her came a marvelous gift of divining the dreams, loves, joys and sorrows of people known and Imagined.

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WHITHER AMERICAN ART? Yesterday Americans fled to Paris to be injected with the “spirit of art.” Their famous Latin Quarter reeked with second-rate Frenchmen and Americans alike, who donned conspicuous bow ties, assumed a blase attitude, and then named themselves artists. Instead of sifting out only the good and authentic offered by recognized artists at that time, Americans, permeated with Parisienne parfume, returned to America with only borrowed mannerisms. Today, in this year nineteen hundred forty-one, because of the constantly changing conditions abroad, Americans must remain at home. Necessity affords here a compelling opportunity to create an art that is truly American. So far as we are Informed, art in Europe lies dormant. Master- pieces of painting, prose, and architecture have been destroyed. Be- cause of the assumption that only Europe was capable of producing fine art, the interim in its progress gives America its occasion for con- tributing to the world stream of art by developing its natural abundance of esthetic material. Art depicts America not only in its landscapes — western farms. Southern colonial houses, or California peach-trees, which have been the cliches of American art — but in its democratic functions. As de- mocracy is the expression of free people, so art in a democracy ex- presses their forces, environments, and situations. In this political, social, and educational upheaval, everyone must cooperate to con- struct a social order democratic in the operating of its ideals. IRENE ANDELMAN