United Artists

“ The Art Students' League, founded in 1875, was incorporated in 1878, and the Society of American Artists was established in the same year. Societies and painters began to spring up all over the country, and as a result there is in the United States to-day an artist body technically as well trained and [268] in spirit as progressive as in almost any country of Europe. ”

“ The French notably excel "in seriousness of purpose and general excellence of work from a technical point of view, especially in the thorough knowledge of construction in both the figure and landscape pictures." On the other hand, the artists of the United States "show more diversity of aim and individuality of expression, as well as colour feeling." Some two or three Canadian artists give examples of those very qualities—especially in their landscapes—which, according to the New York critic, distinguish the illustrations of the art of the United States. ”

“ THE AWAKENING. United Artists. 1928. 9 reels, sd. Credits: Frances Marion; producer and director, Victor Fleming; scenario, Carey Wilson. © Samuel Goldwyn; 5Dec28; LP25887. THE AWAKENING HOUR. 1915. 3 reels. © Essanay Film Mfg. Co.; 6May15; LP5230. THE AWAKENING OF A MAN. 1913. ”

“ THE AMERICANS COME. Tec-Art Corp. United Artists. Presented by Joseph M. Schenck. 1930. 1 reel, sd. Based on the song story by Fay Foster. Credits: Supervision, Alfred Mannon, Elmer Clifton; story, Alfred Mannon. © Feature Productions, Inc. (Alfred Mannon, author) ; 26Jul30; LP1470. AMERICA'S BIGGEST CIRCUS. © 1925. 6,000 ft. © Raymond Forest Bashford; title, descr. & 124 prints, 2Nov25; MU3223. AMERICA'S GREATEST COMPOSERS SERIES. SEE Morton Downey in America's Greatest Composers Series ... AMERICA'S GREATEST DISASTER. SEE The Menace of the Mississippi. ”

“ Credits: Lyons, Moran, director, Harry Edwards, story, Fred Palmer, Harry Edwards. © Universal Film Mfg. Co., Inc.; 19Jun18; LP12593. THE BAD ONE, United Artists Picture, 1930. 8 reels, sd. Credits: Producer and director, George Fitzmaurice; supervision, John W, Considine, Jr.; original story, John Farrow; screen adaptation and dialogue, Carey Wilson, Howard Emmett Rogers; editor, Don Hays; music arrangement, Hugo Riesenfeld. © Joseph M. Schenck (John Farrow, author) ; 22May30; LP1314. BAD OYENHAUSEN, © 1915. © American Correspondent Film Co., Inc, (Tom Bret, author) ; title, descr. ”

“ I should have said, during the days of a certain great political and social upheaval which laid the foundations of modern life in general, and of our gallant ally, the French Republic, in particular. The historic festivals of which I speak were in charge of the great artists and composers of the nation, and their art and music were used to express the common emotion and purpose of the People. So it will be with ours. Our artists will unite to express the new ideals of mankind, and together with each other and with the People, will lay the foundations of a new and democratic art. ”

“ I can imagine the squeezing and intriguing between the friends of applicants and their parliamentary deputies, between the deputies and the Minister of Fine Arts; and I can imagine the art produced to fulfil a popular mandate in the days when private jobbery will be the only check on public taste. Can we not all imagine the sort of man that would be chosen? Have we no experience of what the people love? Comrades, dear democratic ladies and gentlemen, pursue, by all means, your schemes for righting the world, dream your dreams, conceive Utopias, but leave the artists out. ”

“ The noble enthusiasm with which the artists have entered upon the present arrangement, is the best guaranty that the Art-Union will have from each painter one of the happiest efforts of his genius—something done under the direct influence of inspiration. Indeed, we happen to know that several of our most eminent artists intend to lay themselves out on this occasion—resolved to show what artists are, and what they can do, for an institution which commands their confidence. ”

“ There is to-day the inward interest which unites art and society, but that which brought power and glory to those other deep agitations, is destroyed. The social art has gone and has not yet returned. Whom do we principally meet in these days? Sculptors? No, the manufacturers of statues. Painters? No, the manufacturers of pictures. Musicians? No, the manufacturers of music. Everywhere artisans, nowhere artists. ”

“ The odium of the policy which subjects to a high rate of duty the paintings of foreign artists and exempts the productions of American artists residing abroad, and who receive gratuitously advantages and instruction, is visited upon our citizens engaged in art culture in Europe, and has caused them with practical unanimity to favor the abolition of such an ungracious distinction ”

“ The arts lie at the heart of our Nation and of the heritage we cherish. The freedom we enjoy allows our arts to breathe the spirit of liberty and to ennoble, inspire, and nourish us. During National Arts Week, when we celebrate the arts and thank the artists, patrons, and audiences who give them life, we salute a precious dimension of America. ”

“ The explanation is that few Europeans see our lively arts, which are almost secret to us, like the mysteries of a cult. Here the energy of America does break out and finds artistic expression for itself. Here a wholly unrealistic, imaginative presentation of the way we think and feel is accomplished. No single artist has yet been great enough to do the whole thing—but together the minor artists of America have created the American art. And if we could for a moment stop wanting our artistic expression to be necessarily in the great arts—it will be that in time—we should gain infinitely. ”

“ No, we lack not subjects for those who know how to see them; while nothing is more certain than the truth that a national art can only be founded and sustained by those who are wholly in sympathy with the influences of the land whose art they are aiding to establish. Those who are familiar with American art will easily recall a number of our artists, educated both at home and abroad, who have no difficulty in finding material around home, and at the same time take the lead among us in point of artistic strength. ”

“ But America need not be [62] surprised to find that it has a creditable grouping of artists sufficiently interested in the value of modern art as an expression of our time, men and possibly some women, who feel that art is a matter of private aristocratic satisfaction at least, until the public is awakened to the idea that art is an essentially local affair and the more local it becomes by means of comprehension of the international character, the truer it will be to the place in which it is produced. ”

“ And the artists producing art will not be, as now, merely a few people selected from a small section of the nation, members of the upper classes or their hangers-on, but will consist of all those gifted members of the whole people who prove capable of, and are inclined towards, artistic activity. ”

“ If such institutions are important in Europe, abounding in works of art, how much more so in our country, separated as it is by the broad Atlantic from the artistic world, which few comparatively can ever visit: many of our young artists, for the want of such an institution, are obliged to grope their way in the dark, and to spend months and years to find out a few simple principles of art. ”

“ There is no reason whatever for believing that America cannot have as many good artists as any other country. It simply does not have them because the integrity of the artist is trifled with by the intriguing agencies of materialism. Painters find the struggle too keen and it is easy to become the advertising designer, or the merchant in painting, which is what many of our respectable artists have become. The lust for prosperity takes the place of artistic integrity and courage. ”

“ Art to a nation is, I suppose, almost a necessity in some shape or other, but it must be controlled, either by the artists themselves or by the force of public opinion. Now in Karena, which we proposed to make the heart of our art world, public opinion was practically non est. The reasons for this being the want of wealth, and the want of artists. I should have felt much more secure with regard to our scheme, if I had been certain that the people really needed the fine arts to assist them in living. ”

“ First it should be noted that there are very few societies designed for the artistic improvement of artists. The Artists’ Society has already been mentioned; and the Art Workers’ Guild, which meets at Clifford’s Inn Hall, provides meetings, from which the public is excluded, where profitable discussions take place on questions of craft and design. But, as a rule, the art society, of which only artists are members, is organized for exhibition purposes or for the protection of interests. ”

“ The State shall develop Juche-oriented, revolutionary art and literature, national in form and socialist in content. The State shall encourage creative workers and artists to produce works of high ideological and artistic value and enlist the broad sections of the masses in literary and artistic activities. ”

“ But the new society, if not official, included on its executive the strongest outsiders in Great Britain, and had the support of the most distinguished men of his profession throughout the world. Their choice of him was an acknowledgment of his supremacy as artist and an expression of confidence in him as leader, and he took no less pleasure in their tribute than trouble not to disappoint their expectations. His experience with the British Artists was a help in constituting the Society. ”

“ Without this co-operation on our part we may have a better art than we deserve, for noble artists will be born, and they will give us an art noble in its essence however mutilated and shorn of its effectiveness by our neglect. It is only by being worthy of it that we can hope to have an art we may be proud of—an art lofty in its inspiration, consummate in its achievement, disciplined in its strength. ”

“ Such charts it is well to command in as great number as possible, and with all attainable completeness; but the Society cannot be considered as having entered on its true functions until it has obtained the hearty co-operation of European artists, and by the increase of its members, the further power of representing the subtle studies of masterly painters by the aid of exquisite engraving. ”

“ It is a very promising outlook for the future of art in our south and southwestern states that so many of the younger generation of artists are augmenting the growth of the Southern States Art League. That seems to refer to number, but not merely, for there are many sincere, enthusiastic workers, who realize the value of art to a nation, and of work to the highest achievement in art. ”

“ The moderate encouragement given there to art by the state and the people of the country has undoubtedly stimulated original and creative production in sculpture as well as in painting, notwithstanding the apathy once described by Théodore Duret, who declared that “there is nothing sadder to recount in the whole history of art than the persecution inflicted upon truly original and creative artists of the country.” ”

“ Art, all art, has this characteristic, that it unites people. Every art causes those to whom the artist’s feeling is transmitted to unite in soul with the artist, and also with all who receive the same impression. But non-Christian art, while uniting some people together, makes that very union a cause of separation between these united people and others; so that union of this kind is often a source, not only of division, but even of enmity towards others. Such is all patriotic art, with its anthems, poems, and monuments ”

“ Cultural exchanges with Western countries were often used by the government to allow artists more freedom of expression than could be politically justified at home. Artists were allowed to exhibit or perform abroad works that had been highly criticized at home. ”

“ We have heard that a society capable of satisfying the necessities of artists exists abroad. It seems so to us indeed; in Paris, for example, where an American is outside the quarrels of groups and individuals, it seems to him that painters and poets and musicians and critics can meet, without forming rigid groups, and interchange ideas—and even half-ideas. ”

“ I may say this without presumption, because the great question which we are discussing: "How can Art be made most useful to England?" involves the two other questions: "What are the best conditions under which artists can work?" and "How can the best work of artists be made to influence the rest of the community?" ”

“ We submit to the gentlemen connected with the Art-Union, that they should not suffer the hirelings they may sometimes employ upon the Bulletin, thus to refer to such artists and such men as Durand, Wier, Kellogg, Elliott, and many others, who have ventured to think that their Association does not present altogether the best means to be devised for the promotion of the fine arts. ”

“ Dilling, and Canadians have almost suffocated theirs.”
Obviously, the spark of interest she had ignited had turned to ashes. He was silent, so she hurried on.
“We need Art—the medium through which spirituality flows into the life of man. We want to hear the symphonies of our composers, the songs of our poets, as well as the throb and thunder of motor factories and power plants. I would ask the Government to recognise the organisations that are endeavouring to promote artistic creation, and to give financial assistance to the conspicuously talented artists throughout the Dominion!” ”