CURRENT NOTES
Follette, Belle Case La
CURRENT NOTES -By BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTEART IN AMERICA. By Suzanne La Follette. Illustrated. New York. Harper & Brother). $5.00. Suzanne La Follette was born in the state of Washington. Her...
...American artists now stand on their awn feet...
...In France and Germany taste Teached a level of abasement unparalleled in - any previous age...
...Among the Colonial aristocrats there existed a degree of good taste and appreciation encouraging to artists...
...but how many of us have heard of him as a first-rate silversmith whose work is among the finest to be found in modern collections of early American silver...
...Her father, first cousin of the late Senator La Follette, was a member of Congress from that State in 1911-1919...
...Coming to the Colonial painters, portraiture was the branch of painting almost exclusively in demand, and painters often attained a high degree of excellence in spite of artistic poverty and the prevailing indifference to art...
...Referring to the tendency to deprecate foreign influence upon the American artist, she remarks that "the important thing is that art shall draw upon the richest available sources...
...I^H book is authoritative and deserv^JH become a standard work in its f^Jfl...
...historical data well mastered...
...her Judgment of artists their work carefully considered...
...and this culture not only sustained the artist, but it prevented industrialism from revolu, tionizing completely the lives of the people and their habits of thought...
...This spirit coincided with the materialism and scramble for wealth that characterized the Westward expansion and the advent of machine-production...
...In England...
...She then points out that de! spite its ugliness the age produced i wonders not only in mechanics and i science, but also in art...
...Continuing, she says, the Puritans J sought to suppress the artistic impulse In order that it might not divert him from spiritual interests...
...Would his work be more Ameri-i can if it were done elsewhere, but I would if it were better work...
...they faoe squarely forward...
...j When it comes to modern painters and sculptors, the reader is made aware that notable men and women are developing a new art unhampered by copying from old modes...
...Beginning with the "era of confusion," its changes are traced through the years of slavish copying from the Classic and Gothic ..modes to the modern period, in which some architects at least are developing an original and indigenous art which recognizes its indebt-I edness to Louis Sullivan's great dic...
...In Europe there was an ancient culture to draw upon...
...One of the notable results of the introduction of machinery was the disappearance of the old handicrafts interestingly discussed in the early chapters of the book, and a sharp decline in the quality of industrial art...
...THE ECONOMIC PROBLEMunderstand the art of a people, we must know something of its social and economic background...
...So long as this spirit dom-I lnates a community, art in any of its ' aspects will find little to nourish it...
...i -! EUROPEAN ART FULL credit to the influence of European art upon the development of our own is given by the author...
...Ruskin inveighed against the cruelty and sordid ugliness of the I industrial age...
...turn that form in architecture should ! follow function...
...Her recent boolr Is very attractive in appearance, and of exceptional makeup even for a Harper and Brothers publication...
...She published her first book, Concerning Women, in 1926...
...The scope of the book is so wide that the reviewer can hardly do more than suggest the author's purpose and method...
...During these years Suzanne lived with her family and took her college training in Washington, D. C. She went to New York in 1919, was connected with The Nation for a year, when she joined the staff of The Freeman, and was one of its editors until it discontinued publication in 1924...
...She shows what strength American artists derived from studying abroad...
...A first-rater, If you please, in a craft that attained a higher artistic standard in the colonies than any-other...
...Its many beautiful illustrations, printed by the new aquatone process, in themselves constitute a comprehensive survey of art in America...
...1 | Having established the economic and j social background, the author proceeds to a fascinating discussion of ) early American architecture and the related Industrial arts...
...And in America its achievements were "worthy of respect...
...and some of the facts brought out give cause for wonderment at the way in which American history is taught in our schools...
...In the treatment of her theme IJ author's approach is unique and b^IJ portant...
...After the Revolution, however, the prejudice against aristocratic refinement that accompanied the repudiation of the 18th century culture, which was preeminently a culture of courts, made the position of the artist more difficult...
...The chapters on architecture are among the best in the book...
...And this perverision, she i remarks, still continues to retard : j American cultural development...
...Not that they disregard the past, but they are not copyists...
...the question, therefore, in regard to the expatriate is not...
...The author begins by defining the economic problem which confronted the early colon-' ists of this country and contrasts their | situation, in an undeveloped country [ inhabited by hostile tribes, with that ¦ of the Spaniards to the south, who had j had the good fortune to preempt the most desirable portion of the New World, a section rich in agricultural and mineral resources and inhabited by a settled population already accustomed to the exactions of a native nobility...
...All artistic pursuits, says the author, reflected those disintegrating forces...
...She makes it clear that this impoverishment of life during the 19th century was not peculiar to America...
...The Puritans, preponderant among the colonists, the uthor states, were unable to understand the essentially religious aspect of the artist's approacn J to the visible world and his attempt j to express Its meaning through form j ' and color...
...It produced in England great literature, in Germany great music, in France great painting and sculpture^—and literature as well...
...Art in America" has great value for artists and laymen alike in that it keeps clearly before the mind of the reader the close relation between American art and American economic and social development...
...Every American, for example, knows of Paul Revere as a notable patriot and horseman, capable of making historic rides at a moment's notice...
...It is not nearly so important that art shall be national as that It shall be good...
...his descendants sought to suppress it in order that it might not divert them from mater- . | ial interests...
...all the more so since the artist . . . worked against rather than with cne spirit of his age and under the handicap of its prevailing cultural poverty...
...Surely American educatl o n would lose nothing if the teaching of j history were extended to cover the arts ! of peace as well as those of war and politics...
Vol. 1 • January 1930 • No. 8
