CHAPTER II
Some "Isms" of Art
Certain terms in art usage we should understand and keep in mind. The best we can do with language is to try to express our meaning with words, yet we all realize at times they are inadequate for wordless thoughts.
Man has an innate liking for expressing what appeals to him in nature, experience, and imagination, and whether it be art, music, literature, or mechanics, he does it in his own way.
We need to remember that from his earliest art beginnings man has pictured to his mind or moulded into forms human or animal his conceptions of the powers of nature, his aspirations and attributes of soul before he knew that he had a soul, thus shaping for his mental eye deities for his reverence. Such art is called paganism.
The grotesque Hindoo idol pictures such to the mind, and serves to show the spirit-hunger of so-called heathen womanhood. Next to self-preservation the religious instinct is the strongest in mankind.
There is genuine pathos in those prostrate women before such horrors in stone, yet theirs is a sincere plea for help, for something to satisfy their longing or need.
Paganism and nature-worship in development gave the world mythology and symbolism, common to all races, proving to us that from the first, primitive art had a religious significance.
Out of symbolism of the first and second centuries of our era was developed so-called Christian art, which in later years evolved from symbolism the ideal.
The Ideal, from those early times to our present, has pictured for the eye the Faith, Hope, and Charity that make life sweet and worth living. The ideal gives us in forms of female loveliness, graces of mind and spirit, till memory, truth, and love become symbols of God-given attributes.
Using ancient dress, architecture, and accessories (as weapons or musical instruments) wherewith to clothe modern people and frame modern incident gave the art world classicism.
To the first American-born artist, Benjamin West, belongs the honor of truth in painting. He had studied and painted the classic in Italy, but being lionized in England, and stimulated to paint American scenes (for the new world was rapidly making history), he refused to paint his "Death of Wolfe" in classic
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