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Show TARIFF ON WORKS OF ART. The question of removing the tax from imported im-ported works of art is again being discussed. We think the fairest plan is one suggested by a contemporary. On pictures for instance lay a moderate tax, say $100 or $200 on each one. This would keep out the very bad, it would not be inhibitory in-hibitory on the good. Rather it would be a mere bagatelle to pay on a great painting and it would have the effect in ten years to transfer half the great paintings for sale in Europe, to this side. But local artists say this would be unfair to them, that they would have no sale for their own work, for the average American would rather give $500 for an imported picture than $250 for one equally as good produced at home. There is truth in that, but it will always be so until it is finally understood that the arts in America are as nearly perfected as they are in Europe. Had we our way we would have the government build at Washington an art gallery as fine as the Congressional Library building: fill it from the pick of European galleries and then offer premiums for ten of the finest productions produc-tions that could be prepared annually in this country. In that way we should now and then have a native artist and the inducement for him (or her) to remain at home and work would be greater than to go abroad. But real artists are not produced to order. There must be the eye, the hand, the taste, the natural mechanical skill, and we suspect a little heredity. The horse breeder raises fifty blood colts in a year. All are first-class stock. Perhaps five of them will make real racers. The rest will do for saddle horses. It is the same way with artists. A few succeed, the rest make excellent draughtsmen in a print factory or a surveyor's or machinist's office. |