one critic on earth, in regard to any work of art, is of the slightest value except in so far as it reflects the opinions of the vast majority of sane and cultured people across the centuries.

How exasperating is this evil-bird-befouling of our own nest by the shallow art "critics" of our own press who, while "boosting" the degenerate art of Paris and Berlin, speak of our own "mediocrity," and with contempt! These "hyenas of the press," as our friend Vezin recently dubbed them, in the Herald-Tribune, ought to be relegated to Dahomey, there to riot among the Negro art, about which they, so lovingly, perorate. And so we agree with Whistler:

No! let there be no critics! they are not a "necessary evil," but an evil quite unnecessary, though an evil certainly.

This holds good of nearly every newspaper critic in the world. To critics, as sane as Taine, Sainte-Beuve and Scherer, let us give a tentative ear of respect; to the others it should be "cum granis salis!"

The present, 1925, spring Academy exhibition—the centenary of the Academy-is of a higher average than the average found in the Paris Salons of today. But the New York Press critics either spoke of it with "damning faint praise," or open sneers. There was one exception: the Herald-Tribune, of April 5, 1925, did tell the truth:

A good average is maintained. Remarkable works are absent. The first impression is in no wise thrilling. On the other hand, as you go over the collection more and more, you are struck by the number of things that do, after all, detach themselves, in one way or another, from the ruck; and, in the long run, you are particularly conscious of the manner in which a second query is answered. It is that which relates to the broad spirit of American art. Has it suffered any disintegration from the pressure of the so-called “revolutionary" tendencies in "modern" painting? Not in the slightest degree. The American artist who is really representative of our school (and we have a distinct school) goes right on painting with honest, sincere references to authentic principles.

The Academy stands for what is normally characteristic of our own country, and this means, if we are to judge from the present exhibition, that it stands simply for good workmanship. As we have said, there are no remarkable pictures visible. But there are quantities of things that handsomely maintain a high standard. All you have to do is to look for them. (Italics ours.)

This is the plain truth. As regards mere "craftsmanship," "artistry," "finger-workmanship," or "technique" we could have selected from this exhibition a score of works equal to anything now being produced anywhere in Europe in the same line. Paris, of today, can teach us nothing. We are of age. We have arrived! So that the public will be justified in suspecting every critic on the press, male or female, who persistently "knocks” the Academy, as a whole, as an institution, of being in the pay of the dealers in "modernistic," "contemporary," or falsely called "modern" art, most of which is degenerate.

Besides, our Academy is the very best we have. Hence, we should by all means sustain it, and encourage and aid it to ever move on, from high to higher, instead of trying to pull it down. This does not mean that our citizens should not buy any of the real masterpieces of foreign art, when truly great. The only point in which the Academy is weak, is in the painting of the Nude; also in the handling of historical subjects. But why? Because the spirit of America is, today, and always has been and will be, out of sympathy with the naked and rightly so, because, we repeat, Paris produces so many disgusting and indecent nudes-though often extremely clever, as painting, and for that reason all the more demoralizing— that even an uncommonly chaste nude is looked upon askance as a trap of Satan, calculated to corrupt our taste and undermine our love of decency in life and all the arts. Hence, they are not as popular here as in Paris, especially in painting.

And historical pictures are rarely produced because they have been so lampooned by the modernistic artists-because they are utterly incompetent to handle them; and our artists are also discouraged from doing so by the Bolshevistic press of the "Red" art-politicians of Paris, Berlin, and Moscow, whose writers are absurdly echoed here, and who are utterly opposed to the celebration, in art, of any fine historical incidents, since these would inevitably recall the deeds of the great men of the past, who were all members of some aristocracy, and these "Reds" are insanely bent on rooting out even the memory of the great of the past, for fear the vulgar "proletariat" might develop an aristocratic longing for "the flesh-pots of Egypt," and the majesty of the civilizations of the aristocratic past.

CHAPTER XX

CONCLUSION

IN taking leave of the great public, we will again remind it of the fundamental fact that, if mankind hopes to escape sliding backward into Tophet, out of which we have climbed with so much pain and tears, it must ever hold before itself the truth: that, in life and art, Nature abhors everything and finally covers up everything that is not:

True, Good, and Beautiful.

Moreover, if this great trinity, as old as Plato, were inscribed on the front of every public building, from a schoolhouse to a cathedral, for a generation or two, it would, we firmly believe, engender in our people such a distaste for the Ugly, that America would soon be on its way to become the leader in the world movement: to transform this earth into a Paradise of Beauty.

We might stop here. But a few more things remain to be said.

Madame de Staël once remarked:

One cannot arrive at great Power-except by following the tendency of one's century.

That is true for such petty politicians as have not yet learned that every man's rank, in the hierarchy of men, is sometimes determined by the frequency which he refuses to stoop to conquer. But a statesman, worthy of "a world's desire," as Tennyson said, does not follow tendencies-he creates them.

Besides, the lust for Power-instead of a hunger for Beauty --has been the greatest curse of the world. And even the Junkers and Huns of the earth are now seeing more clearly that a nation may conquer by force, but it can triumph only by wisdom.

So that it is dawning upon mankind, that it is more sublime to dominate through the alluring power of Beauty than to tyrannize with brute Power. Men are now asking: Was not diminutive Greece-exponent of aristocratic refinement, elegance, and beauty-more respectable than leviathan Romeincarnation of plebeian vulgarity, clumsiness, and brutality?

Therefore, there is in the aurora of the east a new conception that of a World Leadership in Esthetic Culture.

Will the statesmen of America, its leaders of thought among business men, assume this new leadership of the world and soon -while it is within their grasp? As a mere looker-on-whose course may soon be run-we wonder?

For, America will either have to follow, or lead. And would it not be finer sort of energizing to nobly strive to lead, instead of petulantly trying to keep step, behind some more perspicacious and forward-looking nation, alert enough to grasp this new ideal of world leadership, and thus triumphing in the realm of sublime beauty-creation, while we lose our chance by myopically mucking about in the bog of materialistic financial manipulation?

It is not bigness, numbers, or brute force, that makes a nation great; as it is not size, hugeness, or clumsiness that makes a work of art sublime. To carve up the face of a mountain is easy enough for any bull-necked workman endowed with more energy than sense; but he only insults the mountain unless the result is beautiful and emotion-stirring to men of taste and refinement. Posterity will surely condemn every manifestation of mere brute force, in life as well as in art. We laugh at huge Goliath, while we immortalize in marble his little conqueror, David. It is the deathless beauty alone, of Rheims Cathedral, that will insure its rebuilding, while the thousand-foot Eiffel Tower is already doomed to destruction as an incumbrance on the earth.

It is not in the power of the artists to swing this nation towards this new World Ideal. They can only point it out to those who have the power: the leaders of thought among our business men and laymen-not those in politics; for politicians rarely really lead.

It was the business men of France who, since 1850, have really led the French people. And, while it is true that the