The Little Review, January-February 1916 (Vol. 2, No. 10) — John Shaqi
The Little Review, January-February 1916 (Vol. 2, No. 10)Various
General
The Little Review, January-February 1916 (Vol. 2, No. 10)
Various
Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals
“My, isn’t that real! Just as it really is! My dear, haven’t you often
seen Grant Park just like that?—a little changed, of course.”... She who
had spoken was considered not a high-brow but just a good normal
cultured woman. Not being a fanatic about art, or anything else, for
that matter, she knew absolutely what she was talking about. The thing
she was talking about was a painting of Grant Park by Frank C. Peyraud
looking east from the top of some Michigan Boulevard office building....
It was indeed “real.” Peyraud’s one-man exhibit at the Art Institute
shows him up for what he is—an imitator without imagination, a
reproducer, a copyist of nature in her most obvious moods. Not an artist
or a creator his landscapes are all “real,” “true-to-life” and they are
all enjoyed.... The Public knows where the originals are and the
association and comparison gives them pleasure and the artist fame....
* * * * *
“Oh, _how_ clever, and can’t you just hear the policemen, and the
buggy-wheels and the bark of the dogs and the grind-organ! Oh, its just
wonderful what they can do in music and with an orchestra. I _would_
like to hear that played again!” A woman speaks—not the one referred to
above but one who holds the same position in her set towards music as
her friend towards “art” in her circle.... Of course, she can appreciate
music, when it is so natural and real.... Carpenter is to be
congratulated: the percussions are given a splendid and unusual chance
to show their versatility—it is they, it seems to me, and they alone who
benefit by this splendid display of music.
“My dear, I just love Stevenson and you know, my dear, those places in
his novels are _so_ real—you can just see them so plainly. Of course,
I’ve never been in Scotland or England or France or, my dear, even in
New York but really Stevenson is so descriptive, his stories are _so_
gripping it really is as good as traveling. And I have a lovely new
book,[3] just out with beautiful pictures and awfully dear binding,
showing how the places Stevenson describes actually exist! You know this
book amounts to a liberal education—it’s just the same as going abroad.
I just adore places and scenes and travel in books—don’t you? And
Stevenson,” she ended with a sigh, “is _so_ romantic.” Which reminds me
of a line of the Intolerable Wilde’s in a letter from Reading—“I see
that romantic surroundings are the worst surroundings possible for
romantic writers.” ... “And, my dear, it brings Art so close to everyday
life, does it not?—to have artists portray for us our everyday
surroundings and show us how nice they are.”
[3] _On the Trail of Stevenson by Clayton Hamilton._ _New York:
Doubleday, Page and Company._
Long, long ago one Woman spoke to an Artist—will her type _never_ become
extinct?
“But, Mr. Turner” (Artist; contemporary of John Ruskin) “I never saw
such colors in a sky in all my life.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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