Art for Art's Sake: Its Fallacy and Viciousness

Source: The Art World, Vol. 2, No. 2 (May, 1917), pp. 98-102
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IELDIT

RIALS

ART

FOR

ITS FALLACY
W

ART'S
AND

SAKE

VICIOUSNESS

in all this their world was completely

severed from
that of their fellow-creatures,
with
whom
senti
ment
is mistaken
for poetry."
And says George Moore:
"'Les Palais Nomades'
is a really beautiful
book and it is free from all
the faults
that make
an absolute
and supreme
enjoyment
of great poetry
impossible.
For it is
in the first place free from those pests and parasites
of artistic work-ideas.
. . . Gustave Kahn took
counsel of the past and he has successfully
avoided
everything
that even a hostile
critic might
be
tempted to term an idea, and for this I am grate
ful!" What Moore
refers
to as "great poetry"
is
nothing but clever, empty rhyming.
higher life.
And John C. Vandyke
in his book "Art for Art's
According
to Gautier
and his followers.,an
artist,
Sake" says: "The public sneers at the painter
poet,
painter,
musician,
for
sculptor,
dramatist
or
his lack of ideas and the incensed painter,
in trying
novelist
should believe and teach:
to say that art should exist for its own sake, its
First,
That art has nothing
to do with morals
own ideas and be judged by its own standards
of
in any manner.
That
an artist may
choose any
criticism,
often
lays himself
open to ridicule
by
subject, moral,
unmoral
or immoral,
and that so
extravagantly
saying, with a quoted companion
in a
long
as he expresses
that
subject
with
fine
recent number
of The Atlantic
Monthly:
"An
all is well.
'artistry"
artist has no business
to think at all."
Art-for-art's-sakists
that
an
Second,
preach
According
to this all that any "hobo" has to do,
artist must refrain from attempting
in any manner
to absolve him from thinking, digging
or chopping
to shape the conduct of his fellow-men,
either by
and to permit him to live on the fat of the land,
word or paint or marble
or action upon the stage.
is to paint
over his door
the cabalistic
word
In other words an artist must detach himself
from
"ARTIST"
and then he should by divine right be
his fellow-men
like a hummingbird-be
among men
fed and clothed like a lily in the field!
The funda
but not of them-sucking
all the honey his fellow
mental
is
trouble, I fear, even with Mr. Van Dyke,
men sweat for to lay up, and die for to conserve,
that he has also mistaken
for art.
"artistry"
no concern about their cares, troubles
but having
In October
1866 George Sand wrote
to Flaubert,
and sufferings,
to contributing
his share
indifferent
and who was an art-for-art's
to the common good of counsel and of striving
to who died of neurosis
sake romancer:
"I heard you say 'Iwrite
for only
this earth
make
less a vale of tears and a more
ten or twelve persons.'
One says in careless
chat
glorious world to live in.
ting many
things which are the impressions
of the
That is equivalent
to saying that an artist should
but you were
not the only one to say
moment;
be nothing
but a parasite,
living off his fellows,
that.
It was
the opinion
of those who met* at
who are to plow, to dig, to strain and to sigh so that
on Mondays-it
was
the theory of those
Magny's
at their expense, making
he may disport
himself
I protested within myself.
days.
like Gautier's
own "Enamels
poems
meaningless
"The twelve persons
one writes
and
for whom
a collection
as empty as
of verses
and Cameos,"
who appreciate
no one reads a second
you are equal to you or surpass you.
and which
dead sea-shells,
It was never necessary
for you,
in order
to be
even
or making
if refined,
time,
meaningless,
Therefore
one
to read the other eleven.
yourself,
like Whistler's
or licentious
"Nocturnes"
pictures
for everybody,
for every one who has need
writes
or trivial color-orgies
like Monet,
and
like Manet,
one
of being
initiated.
If one is not understood,
like Rodin.
statuettes
deformed neurotic
over.
If we are under
or begins
of art
resigns oneself
In addition
to Gautier's
insolent definition
is the whole
That
stood, we rejoice and continue.
for art's sake Whistler
says this: "Art (he means
labor and living for art.
secret of our persevering
of all claptrap,
should be independent
artistry)
is art without
the heart and soul one pours
What
sense
should stand alone and appeal to the artistic
its rays
into it? A sun which would not project
this with emotions
of eye or ear without
confounding
to it as devotion, pity, love, patriot
would
give life to nothing."
entirely foreign
her as follows:
"I feel an
answered
Flaubert
of Tintoretto,
ism and the like." And in speaking
to putting
on paper anything
invincible
"No reformers were
and Velasquez:
these
repulsion
Veronese
I find even that a romancer has
. . . from my heart.
great men-no
improvers of the ways of others
is art
HAT
for art's
sake?
Theophile
defined it
Gautier,
poet, critic and essayist,
as follows:
"Art for art's sake means
for
its adepts the pursuit of pure beauty-without
any
other preoccupation.''
On the surface
this seems like a pure flower of
thought.
But fundamentally
it is a poison plant.
Had Gautier
said:
"Art for art's sake means
for
its adepts the pursuit
of pure beauty, physical,
in
tellectual and spiritual,"
it would have been a world
saving benediction;
but his definition
as it stands
has proven a world
evil, for it has worked
toward
the detachment
of art, not only -from life, but the

98

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May

1917

THE

ART WORLD

on anything
not the right to express his opinion
Here we have the abyss of the empti
whatsoever."
ness of the art-for-art's-sake
theory plainly stated.
of this
is the result of the promulgation
What
of mere beauty
A pursuit
false aesthetic theory?
of form in all the arts by those who are unintelli
theory
gent enough to swallow this high-sounding
and who develop a supreme con
without
thinking
or social
above all moral
tempt for the quality,
should go
or thought which
value, of the contents
into a great work of art.
The mere beauty of form in a work of art, as
has only
If a woman
is a poison.
in a woman,
or lofty purpose,
character
beauty and no moral
The same is
she is nothing more than a parasite.
it
how beautiful
true of a work of art, no matter
in spirit,
it is at least also beautiful
is; unless
it is only an aesthetic
chaste and clean in character,
poison.
the slogan "art for art's sake" is modern
While
of Greece
is as old as the decadence
the thing
to the
As
to this listen
and the Renaissance.
"It is thus that history
French critic Brunetiere:
art is left to itself and seeks
when
proves-that
rapidly into a
its law only in itself, it degenerates
Then
to arouse our sensuality.
mass of artifices
we dernand no more of art, it cares for no more
than to please, and at any price and by all means;
it is
or a guide
from a mentor
and, literally,
is the
That
into a species of procuress.
changed
I think of our
fits it when
only name which
of Duclos
the romances
Century with
Eighteenth
and Crebillon, Jr., and of Laclos; with the sculpture
and Fra
of Boucher
of Clodion and the painting
of so many of
gonard and the libertine engravings
furore
with
that neurotic
of the "little masters";
not only the poems of Parny but
which dishonors
finally
Let
us
those
of Andre
Chenier.
even
so highly,
they praise
that which
it-all
recognize
all this art in all its forms has scarcely been any
than a perpetual
thing less during half a century
to debauchery.
excitation
operates
form
of empty
"But
the seduction
insidious
subtle and more
in a more
sometimes
or
by the artists
to comprehend
difficult
fashion
effects are all the
the public, and the disastrous
of art
the principle
in corrupting
greater because
it; for when
of respecting
We have the appearance
impor
form an exaggerated
to mere
we attribute
there follows what
importance,
tance, or a unique
of
of the decadence
in speaking
an Italian critic,
to the contents.'
Italian art, called 'the indifference
there with
it arrives
When art arrives
there-and
its end in itself or in the
seeks
fatal ease-it
I repeat again,
of 'pure beauty,'-then,
realization
are lost but the society
not only art and morality
an idol.
also which has made of mere artistry
this feeling of the 'beautiful,'
"Penetrated
with
The
in crime.
Italy went so far as to find beauty
con
done, boldly
a crime well
respected
Italian
as
avowed
audaciously
executed,
ceived, cleverly
they
to those that
merits
analogous
possessing
It was
in works of art. How was that?
applauded
the
in disassociating
the inseparable,
by separating
the entire merit
form from its contents,
in carrying

of the work of art into its execution. As long as

this tendency found its counter-weight in the
sympathy of the religious sentiments, of the moral
sentiments or of the racial or political feeling,

99

art produced and endowed the world with master

to the Sistine
from the 'Divine Comedy'
pieces
to respect
Chapel.
But as soon as this tendency
of art
as the supreme merit
execution
technical
and to seek its end in itself became pronounced,
we saw the beginning
of the decadence of art."
in 1898.
This warning
to France was written
that when art is in a state
Now, it is incontestable
since
of decadence,
life is in a state of decadence,
art is but a reflection of life. When we observe
of art that is corrupt, there
only a small quantity
the quan
in society, but when
is little corruption
is on the
in spirit
tity of art that is corrupt
is on
of the nation
increase,
then the corruption
that takes place, art
the increase.
And when
if art is
affects
life for the worse
increasingly
For art is dynamic, affected by and react
corrupt.
ing upon life.
scientific
shook the founda
When
agnosticism
tions of faith about 1850, and when the destruction
in 1852 by the traitor
of the Second Republic
a wrave of pessi
Napoleon
III filled France with
mism and social corruption, art became increasingly
This was checked
"art for art's sake" and corrupt.
war
of 1870
it is true by the Franco-Prussian
followed
this war was not "art
and the art which
or social, and the
for art's
sake" but altruistic
crop of good art that France ever did pro
greatest
duce, thanks to the triumph of the moral forces of
fatigued
about
these forces became
France.
But
effort to show
1895 after twenty years of herculean
the
lived.
Then
still
to the world
that France
present
in every individual as
immoral forces-ever
only for
well as in every nation, and ever waiting
of
in the opponents
this moral
to occur
fatigue
powerful
evil-became
active
and soon became
to have- a supreme
until by 1910 they appeared
vogue and art for art's sake and its corrupt flower
forms of "modernistic"
art, with
all
various
-the
of the form, intellectual
of deformation
its varieties
and moral
rooted in
obliquity-all
topsy-turvyism
vicious origins, we again repeat, of drug excesses,
and sex perversion,
clamored
alcoholic drunkenness
its "place in the sun!"
for and obtained
is true of Germany,
is true of France
What
the Cosmic Volition,
And
and England.
Austria
of corruption
in life
seeing the universal Saturnalia
vi:
and art, repeated the words of Genesis
6:
"And
Verse
man
on the
made

it repenteth
and
earth,

the Lord
it grieved

that he had
him at his

heart."
the Lord
I will
7:
"And
Verse
said,
destroy
from
the face, of the
I have
whom
man,
created,
and beast,
and the creeping
both man,
thing,
earth;
me
that
for it repenteth
and the fowls of the air;
them."
I have made

and
smote the nations
And the Cosmic Volition
set them by the ears in a war, of which history
The beggarly,
brag
does not show an example.
will
"art-for-art-sakist"
Bohemian
pooh
gardly,
pooh this. But the wise know.
American
laymen, leaders
Will the common-sense
of thought and of action, take this lesson to heart
and heed it?

The absurd fallacy of art for art's sake resides in

its adepts deny that art is a LAN
this,-that
GUAGE organized by mankind of the past for
communicating thought and emotion, at firstmerely

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100

THE ART WORLD

then
thought,
then religious,
decorative
symbolic
thought,
but always
ethical,
then social thought,
of shaping the life of
ideas and sentiments--capable
This was
never
denied until
those acted upon.
cen
moral abyss of the nineteenth
about 1860-the
lack of faith in even a cosmic
tury-when
through
volition man had fallen to the lowest depths through
even
that would
dishonor
a deadening
pessimism
find the roots of
Mephisto,
and in which we will
this European war.
idea and senti
Therefore
to separate
thought,
from form, and say with
that self-advertiser
ment
that "ideas are the pest of great
George Moore
in
poetry,"
and to insist that form and artistry
divorced
only when
art are supremely
respectable
of
from ideas, is to insult all the men of genius
the past whose art was made great and sublime, not
by form alone, not by ideas alone, but by the close
union of both.
form
ideas from
in
This
attempt
to divorce
to divorce
art is on a parallel with
the attempts
in a painting-to
say that
color from drawing
can
be
to drawing-which
is superior
color
and their
traced back to Delacroix
and Baudelaire
at the height
of the romantic move
supporters
for
in France, men who were
over-hungry
ment
the
started
in art.
These men
something
NEW
divorce
ideas from
two streams
of tendency-to
of
color at the expense
form and to apotheosize
in
have
tendencies
which
finally ended
drawing,
and
ideas and the insane drawing
the immoral
color of the ultra "modernistic"
incomprehensible
art party, whose art is no longer sane but a nega
tion of all that great art of the past, to conserve
which we build costly palaces.
to say that color is more
It is childish
important
or drawing more
impor
in a picture
than drawing
and world-famous
In the great
tant than color.
the
live-we
which
will
figures
paintings-in
drawing
always find a close union of both wonderful
And a work
of art falls
color.
and magnificent
in the ratio of
in the scale of technical greatness
or color or both.
its falling short either in drawing
is contrary
to
To take any other point of view

May 1917

we
talk of art we
do not mean
When
only
or a lady's fan or a
decorative
art, like wall-paper
mean
art involving
Chinese
expressive
carpet-we
art that ideas
To say in expressive
living figures.
is stupid; to say that form alone
alone are important
is idiotic.
It is only when both are
is important
that we have truly
fine and harmoniously
wedded
that to deny it seems
fine art.
This
is so obvious
like insanity.
We repeat: art for art's sake, as a thing, is not
The Greeks
had it in the period
new.
of their
social degeneracy
when Pauson was busy painting
kitchen
herbs, barber
shops, pigs, etc., for which
The
he was called Rhyparographer-"Dirt-Painter."
the death of Raphael
after
Italians
had it when
the
art began to decline and Julio Romano painted
in the Palace at Mantua.
absurd giants
And France
in the lowest degeneracy
of France,
had it when
the Nineteenth
his
Century, Gautier wrote
during
verses.
silly little thoughtless

their mastery
over form and technique-their
"ar
tistry" which
no one ever denied
them-but
they
say that any other kind of art is "literary
punk."
But
the "literary"
quality
of any work
of art
depends not upon the subject, but the way
it is
handled.
For while
"The Last Judgment"
of the
primitive
Orcagna
at Pisa
is "literary"
the "Last
Judgment"
by Michelangelo
in the Sistine Chapel is
"plastic."
art for art's sake is vicious because
SECOND,
its
followers claim that no matter
how immoral a sub
ject may be they have a right to handle it-provided
they act merely
as reporters, merely
describing
the
subject without
expressing
any opinion of approval
or disapproval
of the action portrayed
in the sub
ject and interpreted
by themselves.
to this theory it was perfectly
According
proper
for Baudelaire
to write his "Charogne"
and other
loathsome poems and for Huysman
to "descend into
the gutter,
there to analyse
the various
stratifica
tions of filth" as Huneker
says; "for Rops to etch
things
that the French
Government
will not let
the public see in its great library without
a special
permit"
and for Manet
to paint
his
lecherous
"Olympia," his "Dandy Watching
Nana Dressing"
and his "Lunch on the Grass."
In a recent conversation
in a newspaper,
here
in New York, over Manet's
"Lunch on the Grass,"
one critic
in defending
Manet
contributed
this:
"Manet's
as a great painter
reputation
and land
mark
in history
calls for no defense of him."
(He
was not attacked
as a "Painter,"
even though his
reputation
as a mere
painter
is now declining.)
But the critic continues:
"With his morals
likewise
we should have little to do.* * * If a few of Manet's
pictures
offended
the ephemeral
morality
of the
middle
classes
of this date,
let us not forget
to
give honor where honor is not only due, but cannot
be withheld."
Here we find the art for art's sake theory in full
bloom.
Never mind
about the social poison
in a
so long as its form-its
work
ping
artistry-its
ponging of paint-its
of brush-work
shuttle-cocking
is as clever as clever billiard playing!
Another
critic said:
"As the aesthetic value of a
work depends solely upon form, using the word
in
its broadest
sense, to cover outline,
arrangement,
color, etc., and this form is the basis of emotional
in the work of art, what
pleasure
reason
earthly
is there for bringing
in the story of the picture
and the reasons which
lead to its painting,
in a
criticism
If it gives
thereof?
emotional
pleasure
without
any relation
to the subject,
it is a waste
of breath
to consider
its licentiousness
or the de
cadent attitude
of the painter.
It is probably
true
that the erotic
stimulus
is the most
for
potent
in certain men.
good work
Should
their work be
on that account?"
condemned
Here we have frankly
stated
the crass physical
Hedonism
that rendered Alexandria
the moral cess
pool of history!
Another
one rushed
in where
morally
oblique
"A picture
angels fear to tread, saying:
could be
no more
immoral than a piece of wall-paper,
being
as wall-paper
a decoration.
is merely
A painting

The viciousness of art for art's sake consists in

this-that its adepts claim:
FIRST, that not only have they a right to choose
an idealless subject for the purpose of showing

is simply a rhythm worked out in line, color and

form; in the painting in question the figure is nude
for no reason except that a nude figure presents
some interesting and beautiful lines, shading and

common-sense.

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May 1917
massing.* **

THE ART WORLD

It is this puritanic and Philistine

attitude
towards art which
has already made
of
America
the laughing-stock
of the art world."
This
is the common reply of the morally
obtuse
in the
world of art, but it is untrue.
America
is not the "laughing-stock
of the art
world" neither
in America
nor Europe.
It is the
"laughing-stock"
only of the corrupt and degraded
portion of the world of art, of those who are doing
so much
to ruin that beautiful
world.
"American
prudery
in art" always had the active support of
all the decent
people
in the world
of art, and
Americans
can afford to smile at all those degen
erates who laugh at them for not following
them
in their indifference
to the moral
and aesthetically
ugly, and can regard their railing as grotesque
as
of the degraded
fox in La Fon
is the contempt
taine's delicious
fable who, because he had lost his
tail, railed at his fellow foxes for keeping
theirs,
he had been pitied
by whom
for his ridiculous
degradation.
We are on record as publicly
a love
preaching
for the nude in art, saying
that the human body
of the creator;
is the masterpiece
but we refuse
to sanction that any artist has a moral or aesthetic
in the world of art by
right to defile the Temple
a licentious
work.
have
creating
We
only
the
highest praise for such nudes as are idealized and
devoid
of erotic
and we
could
suggestiveness,
give examples of such which would offend nobody.
What
is exasperating
is that these protagonists
of immoral art have the Machiavellian
insolence
of the tailless
a virile
fox aforesaid
to ridicule
common-sense
artist who
refuses
to follow
them
into the gutter.
As to the whole art for art's sake theory Swin
burne said:
"We refuse
to admit that art of the
highest
kind may
not ally itself with moral
or
religious passion, with
the aesthetics or politics
of
a nation or an age"; and George Sand said: "Talent
Art for art's sake is a vain word.
imposes duties.
Art for the truth, art for the good, art for the
is the religion
beautiful-that
that I seek."
But the worst
condemnation
of it is by Victor
Hugo, who coined the phrase:
"Art for Art."
In
his wonderful
book on Shakespeare
he tells this

story:
"We have
just now recalled a saying
become
famous:
'Art for art.'
Let us, once for all, explain
ourselves on this question.
"If faith can be placed
in an affirmation
very
general
and very
often
repeated
(we believe
these words:
'Art for art,' would have
honestly)
been written
by the author of this book himself.
Written?
Never!
You may
read from the first to
the last line all that we have published;
you will
not find these words.
It is the opposite which
is
written
throughout
our works,
and, we insist on it,
in our entire
life.
"As for these words
in themselves,
how far are
they real? Here
is the fact, which
several of our
contemporaries
remember as well as we do:
"One day, thirty-five
years ago, in a discussion
critics
between
and poets on Voltaire's
tragedies,
the author of this book threw out this suggestion:

101

has since taken, to the

of discussion,
serve wants
it, the pro
great surprize of him who had uttered
limited
It is this opinion,
portions
of a formula.
and
de la Chine,
and to the Orpheline
to Alzire
which
application,
in that restricted
incontestable
of princi
has been turned into a perfect declaration
of
to inscribe on the banner
ples and an axiom
art!
"This point settled, let us go on:
two verses, the one by Pindar, deifying
"Between
the brass nails of the
or glorifying
a coachman
so
the other by Archilochus,
of a chariot,
wheel
powerful
that, after having read it, Jeffreys would
leave off his career of crimes and would hang him
by him for honest
prepared
self on the gallows
these two verses, of equal beauty,
people-between
And elsewhere Hugo
I prefer that of Archilochus."
said:
"Away with art for art's sake and give me
this chance re
sake !" How
art for Humanity's
mark of Augo's was twisted and adopted as a slogan
in the French world of art is one of those mysteries
that may some day be cleared up.
It was not the great artists of Greece who said
"the Dirt-Painter"
should not paint
that Pauson
Nor has any great
his pigs and pots and pans.
should not
artist
of to-day said that a painter
rabbit.
paint a basket of fish or sculp a sleeping
did not say that
of the world
The great artists
artists must, perforce,
guide and stimulate men to
it was
the art for art's sake
action.
But
moral
of
"Art should be independent
people who said:
confound
should stand alone without
all claptrap,
to it as devo
entirely foreign
ing it with emotions
quote
again
love and the like"-to
tion, pity,

Whistler.
As a result the devotees of this cult have failed
to produce one great work of art like such truly
as really are Titian's
sake works
art for art's
and Profane
"Sacred
"Spin
Love," Velasquez's
And instead of paint
ners" and Ingres's "Source."
as Whistler
did
ing at least refined things-such
even though they are empty of lofty contents-they
of "pure
even
the pursuit
sacrificed
gradually
beauty," and art for art's sake became increasingly
in art is the
coarse, ugly, stupid and vulgar, which
the Holy Ghost.
sin against
in the overtolerant
No reasonable man
to-day,
his trivial
to Van Mieris
world,
painting
objects
nor to Teniers
his "Tap
"Fish Sellers,"
painting
a charming piece
Rooms," nor to Morland producing
a sty with a pink-skinned
of color by painting
pig
as they are to parade their
in it-painted
principally
technical skill-so
long as their works are morally
clean.
On the contrary we rather welcome
them,
"Dirt
did call Pauson
even though
the Greeks
the same things, but
for doing exactly
Painter"
ideal of his time
to the highest Greek
contrary
and
the representation
only of Gods and Heroes
their history.
the decent
citizens* of the cultured
But what
insolence of those
world do object to is the cynical
as
of Art
for Art's
Sake who
ridicule
partisans
them
such artists
as, unlike
duffers"
"literary
than
to do more
selves, are both able and willing
and "Dirt
"Dirt Sculptors"
the "Dirt-Painters,"

'This tragedy is not a tragedy. It is not men who Writers," and who aim to produce truly great and
live, it is sentences which speak in it! Rather a enduring works which no combine of charlatan art
hundred times 'Art forArt!' " This remark turned dealers, critics and artists can juggle with-in
the
(doubtless involuntarily) from its true sense to commercial auction rooms of Europe-by a cam

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102

paign
of cunning
and insincere
boosting
in the
press,
backed up by the capital
of more
or less
dishonest
speculators
in the world of art.
The truth
is the world
is too full of neurosis
and inconsequence
too much
admiration
of mere
flip and cleverness
and as a final consequence
too
much ego-mania.
And we agree with Ruskin:

May 1917

THE ART WORLD

"I could show that a nation cannot be affected by

any vice or wickedness
it legibly
without
expressing
and forever,
either
in bad art or by want
of art;
that there is no national virtue small or great which
is not manifestly
expressed
in all the art which
circumstances
enable
the people
possessing
that
virtue
to produce."

INDEPENDENCE
IN ART AND THE
""SALON DES
INDEPENDANTS"
IN PARIS AND NEW
YORK
lW T HEN Mme. Roland at the foot of the guillo
tine cried
"Oh, Liberty,
what
crimes
are
committed
in thy name!"
she uttered a pro
found
truth applicable
both
to the political
and
artistic worlds.
at the birth of Modern
When,
art, through
the
rebellion in 1804 of Baron Gros, Gericault
and others
against
the "tyranny"
of David
and the classic
school, certain
artists
launched the cry-"Liberty
in Art!" which
became
the slogan of the romantic

The origin of the Salon of the Independents

goes
back to the "Salon of the Refused"
of 1863, when
the Jury of that year unceremoniously
kicked out
the works of a number of artists who had ceased to
be simply Modern
and had become
"modernistic,"
which means-romantic
art run to seed. True, their
modernisticness-ness-ness
was
only
slight
com
pared with
the joyous modernistism
of to-day. But
still they were not "independents"
then, they were
rejected beggars
for medals
and honors who had

IE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TI-TE "MASTERPIECE"

OF TI-IE Ass

"BORONALl"

APPLAUDED
(See

page

little did they dream that the "stream

movement,
out
they started would widen
of tendency" which
called "Le
barracks
and end in that mad-house
long,
a quarter
of a mile
Salon des Independants"
wind
and sawdust,
built of cheap slats, canvas
ing its way
like a fakir's fair along the banks of
lnow weird,
now senile,
the Seine
and filled with
Thither
the common
art creations.
now monstrous
go only to laugh, as they do at
sense Frenchmen
or "Ham-Fair,"
their annual "Foire aux Jambons"
at all sorts
of
and laughs
one munches
where
from goat's
sausages made from all sorts of meats,
to mule's meat!

BXY SO"1E OF TILE "MODERNISTIC

PERSUASION

105)

their works
had been
raised such a row because
more
thrown out as unfit for even exhibition-and
they so yearned
unfit for ribbons and medals which
III, then feeling his throne shaky,
for. Napoleon
ordered
the Fine Arts
these
rioters,
to placate
to give them at least a place in which
Department
and in the same
their works,
they could exhibit
This has
housed the official Salon.
building which
been known since as the "Salon of the Refused."
Salons
the last one of these independent
It was
artists
until a certain number of other disgruntled
seceded
and
the official
Salon,
rebelled
against
the system of
organized
a new one, and abolished

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