Our Philadelphia . n more dignified in results than the old standardsthat filled Philadelphia streets with flights of originality,and green stone monsters, and the deplorable Philadel-phia brand of Gothic and Renaissance, Romanesque andVenetian, Tudor and everything except the architecturethat belongs by right and tradition in Penns beautifultown. But interest in art does not create art, and whenPhiladelphia believes in this interest as a creator, Phila-delphia falls into a mistake that it has not even the meritof having originated. I have watched for many years theattempts to make art grow, t
Our Philadelphia . n more dignified in results than the old standardsthat filled Philadelphia streets with flights of originality,and green stone monsters, and the deplorable Philadel-phia brand of Gothic and Renaissance, Romanesque andVenetian, Tudor and everything except the architecturethat belongs by right and tradition in Penns beautifultown. But interest in art does not create art, and whenPhiladelphia believes in this interest as a creator, Phila-delphia falls into a mistake that it has not even the meritof having originated. I have watched for many years theattempts to make art grow, to force it like a hot-houseplant. The same thing is going on everywhere. In Eng-land, South Kensington for more than half a centuryhas had its schools in all parts of the kingdom, the CountyCouncil has added to them, the City Corporation and theCity Guilds have followed suit, artists open private classes,exhibitions have increased in number until they are a drugon the market, art critics flourish, the papers devote. WYCK The doorway from within PHILADELPHIA AND ART 411 columns to their platitudes. And what has England toshow as the outcome of all this care? Go look at the deco-rations in the Royal Exchange and the pictures in theRoyal Academy, examine the official records and learnhow great is the yearly output of art teachers in excess ofschools for them to teach in, and you will have a goodidea of the return made on the money and time and redtape lavished upon the teaching of art. It is no better inParis. Schools and students were never so many, for-eigners arrive in such numbers that they are pushing theFrenchman out of his own Latin Quarter, American stu-dents swagger, play the prince on scholarships, are pre-sented with clubs and homes where they can give after-noon teas and keep on living in a little America of theirown. And what comes of it? Were the two Salons, withthe Salon des Independants and the Salon dAutomnethrown in, ever before such a weariness to the flesh?—w
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectlithographyamerican
