USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Congress of Women : held in the Woman's building, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893 : with portraits, biographies and addresses > Part 58
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CLASSIC ART AND AMERICAN ART.
Today there is before the American people a question of national interest. In the new American art that is becoming definite and promising, shall we make promi- nent the study of classic art? We answer " Yes, " a thousand times " Yes."
Because this age is one of financial estimates and enterprises, so much the more is there imperative need that we cultivate in every direction, and by every method, power to apprehend and appreciate the precious values of spirit, truth-seeking and beauty-loving.
Because Greek art, more than any other art on earth, holds today and will hold forever these values, we need the standards of those who wrought it, those standards of truths that were universal, unchanging, beauty-giving and immortal. We need the noble methods by which Greek sculptors gave mind the mastery over matter, and religion the mastery over the mind. In our outlining of Greek art, we found that the chief art centers were the centers of worship, also that the very character of the art was determined by the character and associated legends of the principal deities; therefore, as preparatory to, and as accompaniment of, a fine apprehension of classic art, we plead for the study of classic mythology.
THE STUDY OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY.
The classic legends lie at the basis of much of the finest culture, but they may be taught to children, to little children, as a mother said, as soon as you can get a child to listen. Let them be taught in the homes, in the primary classes at school. Do you fear to teach myths? The children will know intuitively that the legends are but curious husks that enwrap kernels of facts. They will not confuse fiction and truth. In soul matters with very young children, ideals readily become reals, and they will soon learn that while there is truth in all the myths, there is never myth in truth. There will be in their minds ready recognition that only in the paths of truth-seeking the rainbow of beauty arches heavenward, so those mothers and teachers who give to children the myths and legends largely enrich their inheritances. Chil- dren should early enter upon their inheritance .in art. Show them first the perfect creations of human genius, and thus they will learn to shrink from the crude and to admire only the lovely.
We plead for the study of classic mythology, not only in public schools and insti- tutions of higher learning, but in all schools of art. Let all students, whether of sculpture or of painting, learn the fascinating stories of the characters which they reproduce, also the history of those worships which gave the ideals that called out such noble art efforts and success. Let art teachers of today, as did those of classic times, kindle in their students ambition and enthusiasm for more and more noble embodiments of more and more lofty ideals. Then while homes and art galleries may be filled with the beauty that delights but entices not, then will have come a greater good, for everywhere the art standards will become mind over matter, religion over mind, and God over all. Then will the beauty of the Lord our God be upon the spirit of teacher and student, and upon the work of their hands.
LIFE OF ARTISTS. By MISS KATHERINE M. COHEN.
Having been an art student for some years, and with the sincere hope of continu- ing to be one all my life, perhaps a few words about them and the life they lead may be of interest to you.
We know they are generally considered as " Bohe- mian," and their changeableness and apparent evasion of what are called "the real responsibilities of life" must certainly be very trying to orthodox minds who are bewildered at the sixteen different moods they may be found in in the course of the day; but if you will think for a moment of the pictures you admire most, you will find that they are those which show the most thorough sympathy between the artist and the - work he is doing. A work of art is best defined as " a corner of creation as seen through a temperament," and it will readily be seen that the more sensitive and easily impressed the temperament, the finer the work it will be able to do. In Paris, to be an art student is to have but one aim and one purpose-to do good work and use your time to the best advantage; to have even your washerwoman and concierge or door- keeper take the profoundest interest in the fate of your salon picture or statuc; to have no hesitation in wearing your clothes of the year before last until MISS KATHERINE M. COHEN. there is not a shred of them left, so that you may have money to pay your model for posing or buy old brasses and draperies for "still life" studies; to go to concerts where you are inspired by the finest of music, in scats which would here be known as the " peanut gallery" and which cost a mere song, and yet to be judged and received among people according to the value of the work you are doing, even if your shoc-buttons are pinned on (as I have known them to be). Each artist in Paris has, as a rule, a day to receive his or her friends, but, except in rare cases, this is done in the most informal manner; your acquaintances dropping in after their day's work and taking their cup of Russian tea with a real satisfaction often left out of more elaborate entertainments. I have been at feasts where ice-cream was partaken of in modeling tools, in lieu of spoons, the members of which feasts are now making a name and fame for themselves in the world. You may have to walk long distances to save expense and live by the light of one candle, but you will be pretty sure to have a piano upon which you and your musical friends will have weekly feasts, and to which you will often find a flute, guitar, violin or beautiful voice added, and where future prima-donnas and soloists will give you of their best in the grateful certainty of having their efforts understood and appreciated.
Miss Katherine M. ('ohen was born March 18, 1859, in Philadelphia, Pa., of English ancestry. Henry Cohen of London and Matilda Samuel Cohen of Liverpool, were her parents. She was educated by Ann Dickson of Scotland, at Chestnut Street Seminary; her art education was received at " Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts," Philadelphia, and "New York Art Students League," and in Paris. She has traveled through Europe. Her special work includes sculpture and painting in water-colors, her principal productions being bas-relief portraits, water-color busts, landscapes and figures. By profession she is an artist, and her productions have been exhibited at art displays in New York, Philadelphia, the studios and salons of Paris, in the " Fine Arts Building" of Chicago, and at the World's Fair. In religious faith Miss Cohen is a Jewess. Her postoffice address is No. 2103 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
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You will rise at half-past six on Monday morning, and breakfast at seven, so that you may be at the great school belonging to Julian or Colarossi or Delacluse before eight, and so get your choice of a seat for the week, late comers having to take what is left. At twelve, having worked four hours from the living model, you will go to a queer little restaurant, the outside of which gives you a shudder, but which serves you a fairly good meal, and where you meet the other students. You will spend the after- noon either in painting or modeling in your own studio or in going to the Louvre or Luxembourg galleries; or, if it is spring, at the salons, and you can either take your work to a great artist and get his criticism upon it, or, if it is sculpture, he will come to your little studio, and glorify it with his presence, and say enough in ten minutes to make you wish you had ten pairs of hands and five heads, as one set is not nearly enough for you. In the summer you will go with other students into Brittany or Hol- land, or where you will, and study outdoors-by the sea or in the country-and have wonderful adventures. You will return to the city in the fall, full of new enthusiasm, and feeling more than ever the value of continual study from the fine living models, who pose so much better than the peasants and country people, who do not see why you can not take their pictures in three seconds, as if you were a Kodac. Let us go into some of the studios of last winter and see some of their workings. You are all familiar with the MacMonnies Fountain in front of the Administration Building,* and as I had the pleasure of watching its progress during several stages of the work, a few words in regard to it may not be amiss.
The sculptor, though still a young man, has worked very hard for years. When he received the commission of this fountain, he expressed his first idea with regard to its general arrangement by making a tiny sketch model in clay. This was followed by clay figures made carefully from life, and sometimes under difficulties; for instance, the model who was posing swayed constantly out of the proper position, being too indolent or careless to remain in it. The sculptor calmly went to work and made a wonderful trapeze arrangement of ropes, so that arms and legs were held in position, and where that was not sufficient, added a sharp point or two near the knee and elbow, to give a warning prick, and remind the sitter of his or her duty to keep still.
You doubtless all know that the fine decorations on the north end of the interior of this Woman's Building that we are in was made by Mrs. MacMonnies, the wife of the sculptor. I also saw this when its author was working upon it from a scaffold so high over my head that I did not at first know she was in the great studio.
Their studios are a constant resort of artists and students of all sorts, as they are young and sympathetic and remember their own student days and the immense bene- fit that such meeting-grounds are to artistic natures. A little way off is a street called " the street of the mill of butter," and through a little iron grating we enter a court and ring a bell. The answer to it is a door opening and a figure appearing with hands covered with clay. It is that of Douglas Tilden, the deaf and dumb sculptor from Cal- ifornia, an excellent artist as you may easily see by his works: "The Base-Ball Man" and "Indian Bear Hunt" in the Fine Arts Building. We conversed with him in writ- ing and we look with interest on his statue at which he is now working. It is called "A Wounded Foot-Ball Player," and is a group of three figures full of life and expres- sion. His little den upstairs, furnished as a sitting-room, is strewn with manuscript, and we learned that it is a magazine story. Another sculptor that I met in Paris is Miss Matthews, who has only one arm, and yet, who has managed to do better work than some of the fraternity who have all their members. I think such instances should convince all Philistines that artists, if they be truly such, may be bereft of almost any- thing except their heads and yet succeed in their work, for the spirit of a true artist can never be wholly suppressed.
For many years, the only way by which artists met each other was at their own stu- dios, but now there are two clubs of American students, one for men and one for women, the latter growing out of the work of Mr. and Mrs. Newell who established it. It has
*Columbian Exposition.
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been greatly helped by Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, who is still continuing her interest in it. There is a reading-room and a piano, French classes and afternoon tea, a good light and fire, all immensely appreciated by many students who cheerfully do without such luxuries in their own rooms that they may have money to pay for their instruc- tion.
The men's club gives a reception to its members and their lady friends once a month, and the walls are hung with their latest and best studies and sketches. There is music, and often dancing, and once there was a most interesting fancy dress ball, where the costumes were very artistic and where a picture frame was filled in turn by different sets of characters, making them long to produce them instantly in color. All through the spring, the one idea of the many thousand art students of Paris is the "Salon" -- what they shall send and whether it will be accepted. The excitement begins toward the end of March, when all the painting in oil, water-color, enamels, porcelains and miniatures must be sent in to the great palace in the Champs d' Elysée, each artist being allowed to send two works only. The sculptors are allowed until April 3, as their work takes longer than the painting. From that time your soul knows no peace until one of the two things happen-either you receive an envelope containing a slip of green paper which causes your heart to stand still and your spirit to descend into your boots, or else you hear nothing at all for weeks, and are in a condition of nervous excitement, and at last, perhaps two days before the varnishing day, May I, there comes a knock at your studio door and an angel, in the form of a boy in uniform, appears with a square white envelope and a white slip of paper, saying that you are accepted, upon which you tip the boy magnificently to the amount of three cents (a larger tip would cause him to tell everyone that you had suddenly lost your senses ), and can settle to nothing for the rest of the day because you are too happy and you know that the friends at home will be so proud and glad to hear of it.
On varnishing day you have the privilege, as an exhibitor, of taking in two friends -one before 12 o'clock, the other after. The average attendance, if the day is fine, is about forty thousand.
. You see all the great artists and the originals of the portraits on the walls, very often walking about together; the costumes are often very beautiful, and the artist who has painted a fine picture is the hero of the hour.
When we arrive at the point that American art is better than anything we can get in Europe, then we shall stay at home to study, just as the French have donc. They used to think that an artist's education could only be completed in Rome. When their own great masters arose they were only too glad to stay at home and study with them. We can all of us help the quick realization of this, if we encourage our boys and girls to cultivate their artistic tastes instead of scoffing at them as impractical and never likely to make them rich.
It is time that the rich man should cease to look upon the artist as a " poor devil" who can not earn an honest living, and bewail the fact, as I heard a man bewail it, that when he wanted a fine picture of his pet cow, that " the picture cost a's much as the cow." It is well to think of the answer of Meissonier, the great French painter, in answer to a rich man who said: " But you want a large sum for the little album sketch, and it only took you five minutes." "Truc," said Meissonier, " but it took me forty years to learn how to do it in five minutes."
An artist's chief grief is that life is too short for him to accomplish what he wants to do even in his own special line of work, and this is equally true of woman, for talent knows no sex. There is another important consideration, and that is the lack here of studios with living rooms attached, at moderate rents. An artist comes back here from Paris with very little ready money, for he has his way still to make. He has had there a studio with a fine light and all necessary fittings, which he has been able to hire for three months at a time, at a very moderate rent, say fifty dollars for the three months; for six months, then, at an expense of one hundred dollars, he has kept his studio in town, with his sleeping and living room adjoining, as he wanted to work out- doors in the country the other six months.
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What does he find when he comes here, say in New York or Boston, or Philadel- phia or San Francisco, or Chicago? He must take his studio by the year, and it costs a small fortune at that, and there are scarcely any living rooms, except in a very few instances.
We hope that some one will recognize this need of the coming artists, and put up studio buildings with small apartments or living rooms attached, and let them at a moderate rent.
IS WOMAN THE WEAKER VESSEL? By MRS. SARAH EDDY PALMER.
Now, in this ripeness of time, it is interesting to listen to sounds that have ceased and lend an car to voices that are but echoes, and to the tread of centuries of passing feet, and wonder, as the steady march merges into the hurry and fever of today-when will have done this strain upon the wheels of time with groan and threat of doom.
As will be the end, so was the beginning, with woman; since Eve took her place as wife and mother she has found her mission to help, her necessity to suffer. In her beauty lies great power, and in her weakness, strength. Did the first woman, fresh from the hands of her Maker-who stood upon the thresh- old of time bewildered and in awe - see with prophecy beyond the gauzy portières of daybreak? Did she see the stretch of years before her in awful grandeur when the pulse of creation would be beating in fever and pain? Did she hear in the stillness of morning the tramp of hosts over the plain? Did she hear the wailing of women, or "the sea moan for its slain?"
Perhaps she saw in the distance wise men from the east, who came, led by a star, to the manger where Mary and the Babe had lain. God in Ilis wisdom and mercy may even have let her see the MRS. SARAII EDDY PALMER. glorious plan of redemption and blessed immortality. In that day dawn of time, when the spheres were tuned to sweet sounds and the morning stars sang together, Eve raised her voice in thanksgiving and praise for the great gift of motherhood. Her first tears were shed at the bier of her first-born. That funeral train has kept unbroken its weary march, a black band winding down the centuries whose road is paved with broken hearts, and fording rivers of tears. You can look from any window and there the procession is, moving with nodding plumes and trappings of woe, bound for Oak Lawn or for Calvary. Miriam, the priestess, both wept with her oppressed people and sang with timbrel of Jehovah's triumph; and, rejoicing, led them to freedom.
Esther, with the courage of blind faith and strong of purpose, entered and stood unbidden in the presence of her dread King. His heart warmed to her courage, grace and beauty, and a people were saved.
In the year 600, before the Christian era, Whan-onng, the goddess of compas- sion, who is universally pictured by the sacred arts-Japonica-as sitting by the sacred River of Life absorbed in contemplation, represents the feminine attributes of Deity. I will not pause to give her sad, sweet story, as gleaned from their religious traditions, save that she came from the bosom of God to be an earth-born maiden of Japan, a princess of their royal house. She was good and sweet, compassionate and beautiful,
Mrs. Sarah Eddy Palmer is a native of New York. Her parents were the late Dr. John and Mary Rociter Eddy. She was granddaughter of the eminent Judge Charles Dixon Wylee, of Rome, Oneida County, New York. She married Maj. Josiah L. Palmer, and they came to make their home in Arkansas in 1861, where Major Palmer was for years actively connected with temperance and humane work, in which she sympathized. Mrs. Palmer is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Her postoffice address is No. 1515 Rock Street, Little Rock, Ark.
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and sowed the seed of many good works by the shining light of her example, never breaking a law of earth until it conflicted with a law of Heaven; then accepting her punishment, she welcomed her early death, and went to the abode of lost spirits. Borne up by her beauty of soul and noble resolves, unmindful of her own sufferings, she cheered and soothed the wretched creatures about her with such tender pitifulness that the arch fiend banished her from his realm, justly complaining that were she per- initted to remain hell itself would become a heaven. Thus thrust forth she returned to the source of all compassion.
The Kajica, or sacred writings of Japan, after being destroyed in a disastrous con- flagration in 712 B. C., were restored to them verbatim by a peasant woman, who pro- claimed to the priest that she remembered all things that ever she heard.
Tradition, or history, if you prefer, tells of two daughters of Logair, a king of Ire- land. These ladies are chronicled as " fair to look upon." While on the way to their bath they saw St. Patrick sitting on a wall. He expounded to them his mission with its Divine wonders. They eagerly accepted the great truths, put white caps upon their heads, proclaimed themselves dead to the world and brides of Christ, thus founding the Holy Order of Sisterhood in Ireland.
There is living today in England an old woman, whose years exceed three-score and ten. She is small of stature, and her face bears furrows of care; her eyes dimmed and cheeks seamed with widow's tears; her heart lacerated with wounds that time can not heal. This dear, little old lady is prudent to a degree, can make a pudding, is a judge of kine, has the nicest butter on the market, and stands firmly for the best price. Her vegetable garden shows the finest fruits, which are gathered and marketed with admirable frugality. She has as many children as the traditional old lady who lived in her shoe. She is grandmother-three deep. She is kind to the poor, gracious to those about her; a loving mother, faithful in small duties and humble before God. She paints good pictures, writes good books and sings sweetly. Her virtues and example will stand like the pyramids. She wears a royal diadem upon her brow, and as Queen of England and Empress of India she commands the proud homage of the world. The period of her years will be known as the Victorian Age ..
Woman has always had her defenders and oppressors. The divine attributes of womanhood, like the divinity that is said to hedge around a king, have been through all time her shield and buckler. I read somewhere of a young and beautiful virgin being thrown into an arena of wild beasts for the entertainment of some Nero, when the brutes slunk away abashed.
Most of you remember in our nation's civil strife when "the dusk seemed wait- ing for the night" and all nature was " tuned in a minor key," 'twas woman all over the broad land who seamed the stripes and studded the stars of our nation's flag; she gave her jewels like that other queen, wives yielded husbands and fathers, and when she placed her beloved son upon the altar of sacrifice no angel stayed the sword. Maidens sent their best beloved to die for a cause they held most holy. Were our brave men the only heroes of that bloody time?
You may remember the picture of the Arkansas traveler, with the cabin that couldn't be repaired in the rain and didn't need it when the day was dry. In the door- way stood that disheveled woman with a snuff stick in her mouth and her unwashed skillet in her hand. She is not there today, she roused herself at her country's call and sent her indolent husband and sluggish boys to the front, and she helped to change the tune.
But last month the women of Siam, arousing to the conditions that would probably involve their beloved country in war with France anticipated necessity, and with spon- taneous action raised an immense sum of money to be ready when the need came.
All men are not great men, nor is it given to all women to do great things, but feeble hands have done their mighty work, little hands have swayed a scepter.
There are thousands of nameless women in our land who know nothing of women's movements-women in rural homes beyond the sound of the rushing engine or the
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search-lights of electricity, who spin the threads and weave the web that shapes tomorrow. These humble toilers whose names are not blazoned, " whose faces are covered with care like a tattered veil " are, while they toil all the day, living lives of simple Christian faith, mother love untiring and abiding; the poor loving souls are building better than they know, and when the tired hands lie at rest their children will emulate their virtues and rise up and call them blessed.
Woman sees her opportunity and comes, true Amazons, to the call of duty. John L. Woolley says, "Woman is coming right regally to the fore; step aside, crawl under something, climb a tree, you puny men, the women are coming." They are here, Mr. Woolley! From the East and the West the women come at duty's call, from the North come carnest champions for the right, and from the fair South we hear the stir of eagle's wings. Organization is the feature of the age and the imperious future beckons us on.
Having turned my feeble rush-light back into the almost forgotten yesterday, with a glance at holy writ, mythology and tradition, down to this almost apex of the twentieth century, my tongue must yield to better wit, my pen to greater power, if it must be proven that woman is the weaker vessel.
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