The Independent Exhibition

LUPO DE BRAILA

The rich aunt with whose aid the Chicago Society of Artists has managed, up to the present, to check all artistic impulses in this city, has lost her magic attraction and power. Her golden smiles and soft pillows have failed lately to captivate and hold. There is a new breed of young artists. They seem to be an energetic lot, and decline to live in the future of promises; and, what is more horrible, they decline to flirt with the rich aunt through the aid of the honorable society.

For many years she was the bubbling liquid within the life-giving bottle. The magic corkscrew was in the safe, the combination known to the initiated few. According to these few, young artists had to go through a certain process of taming and self-effacement before they were gradually given the secret. A certain amount of artistic ignorance plus an ability to pull strings was required of every aspirant. A soft backbone bent by many kicks was also one of the main requirements. “Don’t knock, you’ll break the magic bottle” was their watchword. If you dared to ask questions concerning the sacred duty of the initiated few, you aroused a hatred that took years to melt,—a hatred that seemed impossible in such delicate souls. The few artists who refused to be tamed left the city and have settled in other parts.

And the philanthropic aunt, like all true philanthropists, acquired all she could get and paid the minimum price. The paying was usually accompanied by a lot of pompous actions and was supposed to be received like a first-class iron cross by a common soldier. You see, the young talented artist was actually compelled to bribe the art patron to get to the secret of the combination, and was compelled to listen to all kinds of insults besides. Here are a favorite few: “I have discovered him”; “I helped him to get where he is now”; “If it were not for me....” The artist was also used as a rare orchid at their dinner tables and as Chinese embroidery at unusual occasions. I know one of these patrons who even resorted to threats, when a young and independent sculptor refused to be “discovered.” And such creatures pose as art patrons and connoisseurs, and hold the combination to the life-giving bottle of this city.

As a matter of fact, almost all the prestige and almost all the artistic knowledge possessed by these same patrons was given them by their so-called protegees at starvation prices. However, the patrons are hardly to be blamed for this state of affairs. They were made by well-meaning but mediocre artists whose highest ambitions were foggy imitations of a certain kind of realism practiced abroad when my grandmother’s dolls used up most of her time. The saddest or funniest side of this spectacle is that the patrons have, for the last few years, advanced in understanding beyond the possibilities of the artists who have made them. As you can easily see, a most discouraging and impossible state of affairs. It reached its climax at the last Chicago Artists’ exhibition, when those in control, to use a popular saying, rubbed it in. It was a show of the aged and crippled, and prizes were awarded on the basis of an Old-Age Benefit. It was a slow sickness and positive in retarding all artistic endeavor in this city.

But like a clear and promising path in this dark jungle comes the first International Exhibition of Independent Artists. It is a jury-free exhibition, and every man is allowed to hang two paintings, provided he pays for the space. And it was a strong indictment against the old order. It showed how thoroughly it has managed to kill all originality and individuality in the younger artists. In spite of the fact that it was a jury-free exhibition you could easily see that almost everyone had painted with this little thought in the back of his head: This must please Messrs. Albright, Juergens, and Company. To pick out the few who made a good showing this time would be unfair to the rest. The whole show was conceived and arranged in six weeks, and to me it was more interesting and held more promise than any other show held in this city.

It is a young oak whose knotty branches, like playful fists, shoot in unexpected directions. It grows up near a grey solemn mausoleum. The mausoleum acts as if it does not notice the sturdy youngster; but it knows in its heart, if it has one, that it will soon be hidden in the shadow of this tree’s branches. Virile roots will crack the walls and decay will be the deserved fate.