Show The Rogues Rogues' Gallery e Nina Wilcox Putnam in inthe I tIre Higher Realm r ra rd rt d a t r Ss 1 rr Y tr r a I I You Yon cant can't dust under It you rou cant can't put It in another part of the room I without a derrick and nobody else will take it oft off your hands bands By Dy NL NINA A WILCOX PUTNAM THAT is Art and what WHAT can be done to prevent it That is a question which has troubled the average person person person per per- son for more time than it takes to make out a laundry- laundry list in Russian To begin with Art Is the worlds world's best alibi for being unreliable and wearing your hair kinda funny If 11 you have an easel parked in your living room you can throw the dishes around make rude remarks and neglect to pay your bills and andall andall andall all the public does about it is gasp and say its ts t's the artistic tempera tempera- ment Its It's easel lily the simplest method of ot getting your own way about things As soon as this good news got around the easel-business easel was In for a boom The artists that couldn't paint went so far as to paste cutouts cutouts cut cut- outs on their canvases and stick tin cans on em and call the thing Soul of the Canning Factory or something like that And dont don't blame these artists they dont don't take the rap for tor the portraits of ot junk junk- heaps we heaps The who who are we see people are are- really responsible for tor murder of that kind are the vast army who are always alwa s saying I dont don't know anything about Art but I know what I like If you are in the class which doesn't know anything about Art let me give you a few tew hints on how howo to o tell teil what's good How grow to Judge Pictures To begin with lets let's take up paint ing If a painting is pretty or cheerful cheerful cheer cheer- ful tul or pleasant to look at at you can know mow right away its it's an egg But if It its it's the portrait of at some homely old person so dark and dirty you youcan youcan can hardly see it at all an well you youcan youcan youcan can take a chance and say you like it It Its It's probably a Rembrandt If U UIt's its it's of a very fat tat girl with not enough clothes on you can say its it's okey too because its it's a Rubens Not a sandwich you idiot but a Flemish National Institution I But if It the picture looks like one no artist could paint and has looking funny sad-faced sad religious people in it with landscapes which look like second second- rate movie sets you yo can also say its wonderful because it is probably probably ably a Primitive This class of picture pic pie ture was painted when the world was so primitive that there were no cans ash-cans In which to throw them away which is why so many of ot em survived Another safe rule to go by is the Artists Artist's name If It the Artist died over a hundred years ago and you cant can't pronounce his name its it's a good picture If its it's kind of pretty and you enjoy It it be careful Liking Liking Lik- Lik ing or claiming you like the portraits por por- traits of Gloomy Gus makes you a connoisseur From the word con meaning phoney and sewer meaning mean mean- ing tag sewer The French are great at Art and of ot course youve you've heard of ot the of ot Paris The Art of Painting however had an honorable start in the world It was Invented by an Elk At least leas the portrait of at an Elk is the first known drawing and is in a ChromI um urn or Some Kind of ot Crow Cave in France Or maybe it is really the picture of a Moose Then the Egyptians came me along and nH ni Illustrated the first Mummy Songs That's That where Jolson got those stretched out-stretched hands handl be ber emt ber-emt em The Egyptians Egyptian were gerd g gc 1 at Primary colors but they never got beyond the first reader Peek at the Ule Primitive MuS Next came Rome and the early eary Murals These were ye fh the halls Banquet n I generally in hence the knock knock uA A mural gonner Ita stay to After which came the Primitives see above because you cant can't see any lower and then the big guys like ike the one I mentioned who did the sized out-sized ladies ladles in the Misses sized nighties Rubens It was about this time that everyone was singing Ruben Ruben Ive I've been Boy BoyI No After which Art got realistic and began egan to look like people and so forth and oh well if It you like that sort of ot stuff youve you've only got your first million This is the Ice-Creme Ice Epoch in iu Art and few tew millionaires are brave enough to pass up caviar In n favor of a banana split Of course all aU Art is not confined to painting although if It some painters paint paint- ers were confined there wouldn't have been any great popular movement movement move move- ment to get em out But I was really thinking of ot Sculpture Yes lets let's take up Sculpture you Sculpture you bring the truck I IOne One of ot the things which has always always al ways interested me most about classic sculpture is where on earth did the Greeks get all aU those Call Call- to pose for tor their statues The Apollo and old gal Venus diMilo di dl Milo and the Thrower Discus all that Olympic material never came out out-of out ot any any other state Ah well I I 1 suppose its it's one of ot those Historical cal difficulties which will well never be I solved like who threw the lighted i lamp at Mother There are not nearly so many sculptors as painters and one reason reason rea rea- son for this is undoubtedly the difficulty difficulty dif dif- of ot peddling the goods Gee I hate to think of ot the trouble the feller who sculpted the statue of ot Liberty Lib erty must have had before he got it placed Can you imagine the poor man lugging that around Paris from office to office up and down downstairs downstairs downstairs stairs trying to get somebody to take it of oft his hands Well at that I expect he had a cinch compared to the sculptor who finally sold Pharaoh Pharaoh Pha the Sphinx Architecture at a Glance Sculpture can never be as 81 popular popular lar as painting because once you own a piece of sculpture there is practically nothing you can do about it Its It's just there Yo You cant can't dust under it you cant can't put it in another another an an- other part of at the room without a derrick and nobody else will take it off oli your hands Of course there are other branches of ot Art too like Architecture Architecture Archi Archi- you know the guys who built the Fallen Arches in Rome and the busted Lincoln Memorial on top of that hill bill in Athens Greece The Greeks had a word for tor it It Par Par Par- thy-something thy I think In the old days the Architects used to build churches for tor the love of ot it and Forums and and other civic decorations decoration and they were a sort lort of cross between a sculptor and a m mason son Nowadays they are area a cross between an engineer and a financier Bookbinding and badly made jewelry Jewelry Jew jew- elry also try to sneak in under the heading of the Arts Even dodging collectors bill has haa become a tine fine Art and so 10 forth until the word Art Arthas Arthas Arthas has come to mean getting away with something In other words a atrick atrick atrick trick you cant can't quite put your linger finger on like the middle shell in the old carnival game A lot of slang terms founded on Art have gradually become a part of ot the English language What the Dickens For instance the expression sion slon about a man being an Artful Dodger This originally meant one who could get out of ot going with his wife to Art Exhibitions Exhibition and then in natural sequence went on to mean meana a guy who could get out of ot any any- thing Oh well wen I guess maybe after all aU allI I dont don't know anything about Art but I know what I like I like the funny papers papers- e 0 Bell BeD Syndicate Servi Service |