Our Philadelphia . ropethat might never come off, was looked upon as a sort ofprodigy—a Philadelphia phenomenon. But to-day I amsure there is not the name of an artist, from Cimabue andGiotto to Matisse and Picasso, that does not go easilyround the table at any Philadelphia dinner; not a writeron art, from Lionardo to Nordau, who cannot fill upawkward pauses at an afternoon crush; not one of thelearned women of Philadelphia who could not tell youwhere every masterpiece in the world hangs and just whather emotions before it should be, who could not play thegame of attributions as gracefully as
Our Philadelphia . ropethat might never come off, was looked upon as a sort ofprodigy—a Philadelphia phenomenon. But to-day I amsure there is not the name of an artist, from Cimabue andGiotto to Matisse and Picasso, that does not go easilyround the table at any Philadelphia dinner; not a writeron art, from Lionardo to Nordau, who cannot fill upawkward pauses at an afternoon crush; not one of thelearned women of Philadelphia who could not tell youwhere every masterpiece in the world hangs and just whather emotions before it should be, who could not play thegame of attributions as gracefully as the game of bridge,who could not dispose of the most abstruse points in artas serenely as she settles the simplest squabble in thenursery. The Academy is no longer abandoned in the wildernessof Broad and Cherry Streets; its receptions and privateviews are social functions, its exhibitions are events ofimportance, the best given in Philadelphia and through-out the land, its collections are the pride of the wealthy. UPPER ROOM, STENTON PHILADELPHIA AND ART 405 Philadelpliians wlio contribute to them, its schools arestifled with scholarships. The other Art Schools have multiplied, not faster,however, than the students whose Iei»ions account for, ifthey do not warrant, the existence not of the AcademySchools alone, but of the School of Industrial Art, theDrexel Institute, the Womans School of Design, theL^ncles old little experiment enlarged into a large PublicIndustrial Art School where, I am told, the Founder iscomfortably forgotten—of more institutes, schools, classesthan I probably have heard of. The Art Galleries have nuiltiplied: there is some reasonfor ^lemorial Hall now that the Wilstach Collection ishoused there, and the Yellow Buskin, one of the finestWhistlers, hangs on its walls, now that the collections ofdecorative art are being added to by JNIrs. John Harrisonand other Philadelphians who are ambitious for their townand its supremacy in all things. Xor does this
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectlithographyamerican
