Make Art Contagious
A genuine feeling for art cannot be acquired or bestowed by theoretic teaching. It is rather an unconscious acquisition drawn from the environment. Its secret might be said to lie in the subtle, all surrounding, and all pervasive atmosphere.
The great artistic epochs of the past were sustained and kept alive by an artistic atmosphere. Everybody talked about art; they appreciated, praised and rewarded the artist. The same community feeling for art obtains in many European circles today, as it does not obtain in America, and explains why Rome, Florence, or Paris produces more and better art than any centers in our own country.
The Contadini from around Florence on festas stream through the Bargello, the Belle Arti, the Uffizi, the Pitti, or troop through the streets among the most exquisite examples of sculptural and architectural masterpieces. These people live and breathe art, and beget artists who have the native instinct of artistic feeling.
In our country we have this artistic feeling to develop, and we can do so only by the creation of an artistic atmosphere in which the rising generation may live and move and have its being. Nothing can contribute more effectively to the creation of such an atmosphere than splendid architecture. Architecture is the people’s outdoor art gallery, constantly affecting them for good, whether they know it or not. It is always open and the attendance is involuntary and universal. The architect is thus making a wider appeal all the time than any other artist.
A genuine feeling for art cannot be acquired or bestowed by theoretic teaching. It is rather an unconscious acquisition drawn from the environment. Its secret might be said to lie in the subtle, all surrounding, and all pervasive atmosphere.
The great artistic epochs of the past were sustained and kept alive by an artistic atmosphere. Everybody talked about art; they appreciated, praised and rewarded the artist. The same community feeling for art obtains in many European circles today, as it does not obtain in America, and explains why Rome, Florence, or Paris produces more and better art than any centers in our own country.
The Contadini from around Florence on festas stream through the Bargello, the Belle Arti, the Uffizi, the Pitti, or troop through the streets among the most exquisite examples of sculptural and architectural masterpieces. These people live and breathe art, and beget artists who have the native instinct of artistic feeling.
In our country we have this artistic feeling to develop, and we can do so only by the creation of an artistic atmosphere in which the rising generation may live and move and have its being. Nothing can contribute more effectively to the creation of such an atmosphere than splendid architecture. Architecture is the people’s outdoor art gallery, constantly affecting them for good, whether they know it or not. It is always open and the attendance is involuntary and universal. The architect is thus making a wider appeal all the time than any other artist.