Evening star. [volume], March 19, 1933, Page 5, Image 63

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
AMERICA IN ACTION, AS ARTIST SEES IT
But Critics Disagree
Over Thomas Benton's
"Too Realistic** Treat
ment of Modern
American Life.
IP you want to see lite In action all you
have to do is look at the Benton murals.
It Is all there. People drinking, dancing,
singing, playing craps, pitching hone
shoes, driving mules, forging furnaces,
getting religion, making love
Name your ticket and Thomas Benton win
paint you a picture.
For Benton, who has been acclaimed as
one of the world's greatest painters of mu
rals, has come so close to realism that people
began to ask where he had learned so much
when his latest series, "The Arts of life in
America," was unveiled not so long ago at
the Whitney Museum of American Art in New
York.
It isn't accidental at all that Benton in
dulges in pictures of people doing things as
the spirit moves them. He got the urge to
do it when he was a barefoot youngster out
in Missouri. His father decided that it would
be much wiser if his son studied law. The
father was an attorney. So were most of the
men in the family.
Benton thought the matter over while he
was growing up in NeoEho. He had no desire
to paint pictures of round, red apples and wild
Thomas Benton, the artist.
pink rows, such as hung in the neighbors'
parlors. Making out briefs in a law office
would be better than that, he thought.
n\ A/HEN I was IS I joined a surveying gang
VV in Missouri." he reminisce*. T grew
tired of itr though. When I was 1? I applied
for a job on a little Missouri paper. I wanted
to be a cartoonist
"The editor took me to a window and asked
me to look at a town character who was loafing
next door.
"'See what you can do about drawing him,
and if it suits me I'll give you a Job, be said.
"Evidently it suited, for he took me on and
I was assigned to draw town characters at
their occupations."
The cartooning, which served as a basic prep
aration for the reproductions from life that
Benton does today, didn't please hi* family.
They persuaded their son to put aside his
sketches and go to a military school near St
Louis. He stayed four months. By that time
his father decided that his chances at the presi
dency were slender anyway, and maybe It
would be better to let the boy be an artist.
BENTON attended the ArUau' School in Chi
cago, and then studied in Prance for four
years. In 1912 he returned to tbe United States.
He was only 33. He did portrait* and designs
for tbe movies.
Then tbe war cane along.
"I was given a post in the Intelligence De
partment at Norfolk, where I was to make
drawings of tbe manipulations taking place at
that center," he says. "It was a good break.
I had been merely painting pictures before.
Now I saw blimps, airplanes, machinery In
operation, and had to catch Ha spirit.''
He caught the spirit so well he was asked to
give an exhibition.
"From then on my interest in American
scenes began," the tale goes. "In 1919 I began
to construct a history of the United States, lay
ing stress oil the change of characters and en
vironment. It cost too much. I had to aban
don it."
But he didnt a'ive up his idea. He knew
exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to
show the progression of historical and oultural
development in the United States through his
gay pictures. He wanted to use colors, rhythm,
Jaa, noise, solitude, loneliness—anything that
urnft needed.
"Pure unreflective play," he calls it.
His chance came. Now he could <fc> a series
Mural depicting "The Arts of Life in America," painted for the Whitney Museum of American Art by Thomas Benton.
of pictures, dramatic, vital, story-telling I The
New York Public Library had asked for murals
which would present New York history. There
were to be 22 pictures in the series.
But when the artist finished the last one he
was tcld that they weren't wanted. He didnt
say anything, fee took them home and hung
them up in his studio, where they still decorate
the high walls.
But he gritted his teeth even while his eyes
laughed.
Some place, some time, somehow, somebody
would hang his murals showing the progression
of American life!
Until then—
So he kept right on getting up at 6 o'clock
svery morning and working until 10 every night.
He wasn't always sketching. There was much
research to be done.
Every Summer he took his sketch book and
knapsack and started across the country, just
as any student artist might have gone bum
ming. When he caw a character typical of a
phase of life, he sketched him.
First he got acquainted. It is necessary to
know your subject If you are going to find out
just why he is pitching horseshoes or fishing
or singisg a spiritual, he says. Otherwise the
painting may he nice—bat it wont be a picture!
■ VA/AY back in 1S19 Benton had formed the
V V habit of sketching the people he saw on
the sidewalks of New York. His pilgrimages
through America were Jn line with this mood.
"The New School for Social Research asked
for murals showing the jazz age." he explains.
"I did the series. I had so much material left
over that I was prepared when I was asked to
do the series of murals on the arts of life for
the Whitney Museum.
All his life had been a preparation. It had
started that day he looked through the drug
store window and sketched the village charac
ter for the little Missouri paper. Today bis
murals are world-famous, and he is the talk
of the art world.
"Ttx> vital, too realistic," some say.
"But It's healthy and strong and robust,"
they all agree.
NOW his whole dream is coming true. He
always wanted to show the complete pro
gression of American history in a series of
murals. It can be done by depicting just one
State, he says. Indiana Is giving him his
chance to do just what he has wanted to do.
He has been commissioned by the Indiana
World Fair Commission to do the murals that
are to compose the whole Indiana exhibit at
the World Pair. This is the first time that
a State has ever given such a commission to
an artist, who It could be sure would be utterly
unconventional, he asserts.
"I must have leeway when I work," he in
sist*. ' I can't be restricted."
If It's a blues singer making love to a
Broadway playboy, a lustful butter-and-egg
One of the strikingly vivid panels of modern American life, from the murals at
the New School for Socisd Remarch.
He went into Arkansas when be wanted to
sketch people who would fit into the pictures
of the days of Andrew Jackson. He knew
that be would find Americans there In certain
rural sections who hadn't changed very much.
So it went. Sketching, sketching sketching!
Some day 1
Three years ago another chance came. This
time it materialized.
But he wouldn't have been discouragad if it
hadn't. He was going to have an opportunity
to tell the story of American history in his own
way some day, he had always said. If this
didn't go through, there would be some other
way.
But it did go through, this time, and be
promptly made the most of it.
man fi|ta| Us dine for a dance, a gM ar
ranging a ootffure, or something about prohl
bitioo. Ion, comic atrip* or bostansa. be it going
to depict It his w*jr.
nth* uta of HI* are the popular arts and
' are undisciplined," be maintains. "They
run into pore unrefiective play.
"Hie real subject of this group of murals
at tbe Whitney Museum—the group which
has caused so much comment—is really a con
glomerate of things experienced in America;
tbe subject is a pair of pants, a hand, a face,
a gesture, some physical revelation of intention,
a sound, even a song.
"Tbe real subject is wh^t an individual has
known and felt about things encountered in a
. real world of real people and actual doings."
American art is growing more realistic and
lew photographic, Bentcn declares. Artists are
going deeper into their subjects rather than
relying on a surface acquaintance.
A cotton picker in a Georgia field, a cow
hand on a Texas ranch, a hurdy-gurdy player
on a Manhattan street—you must know them
it you are going to paint them, be affirms.
Benton is a recognized authority as a lec
turer and teacher of art. He taught the his
tory of art and similar subjects at the Art
Students' League for seven years. For one
Winter he was a member of the teaching staff
at Bryn Mawr, and two years a lecturer at
Dartmouth. He also taught at the New School
for Social Research.
It is his belief that the character and en
vironment of any period usually suggest the
artist's treatment of his subject. The person
alities in the sacred Renaissance paintings va
ried according to the nationality of the painter,
he asserts. He mentions the point, he adds,
"mainly for those who have notions about the
traditional dignity of mural art."
What Is It ?
THERE is k creature In the world which ku
do nose, eyes, ears, or feet. It digs tunnels
although it has no paws or snout. It can crawl
backward as well as forward. It breathe*
through its skin. Can you guess what it tof
Right you are. It's an earthworm. Do jw
know why the early bird catches the worm?
It is because earthworms come out at night
to feed, and sleep during the day. Although
they have no eyes, they dislike the daytime
because their skin is sensitive to light, so
when the tun gets up the worm goes to bed.
That's why the bird which sleeps late is likely
to hare to go without any breakfast.
Although the earthworm seems to possess'
no tools with which to dig, it is a wonderful
tunneler. You may have wondered how so soft
• creature could dig its way into the hard
ground It eats Its way. It works for all the
world like a ditch-digger on a small scale; it
swallows the dirt and passes it entirely through
its body.
The earthworm is smarter than it looks. IW
body can feel the slightest Jarring of the earth,
and you will have to tiptoe very carefully to
come upon It before it crawls into its burrow.
It knows enough to conceal Its home. Yew
may have noticed small bunches of leave*
standing up in holes in the ground, and won*
dered how they got there. They were the earth
worm's way of hiding the doorway to its
house. It drags the leaves into the top of tho
tunnel, small end first, and pulls in enough
to ptug the opening.
When the weather is warm the earthworm
lives close to the surface; when it becomes
oold it sinks Its tunnel deeper and deeper until
It is safe from the frost. In Winter, worms
have larger caves floored with tiny seeds or
pebbles upon which they rest. Sometimes sevw
end arorma roil *p in balls aad sleep In the
hum den. f
ParthwonM jm an. good friends of men.
*rt*T 'fexgera j>towlng sround
r nelp plants to grow
"at the roots.
Why Not f
Hie little girl «u reading laboriously. "See
Mary and the lamb," ahe read slowly. "Does
Mary love the Iamb, button-hook?"
"Why do you say button-hook?" asked the
teacher.
"Picture of a button-hoc* here," replied tne
child, pointing triumphantly to the question
mark.