Evening Star Newspaper, January 31, 1932, Page 79

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY. 31, -1932. cglect of Sports by American Art a Tragedy By R. S. I'IL.NDRICK. B WOULD bet almost anything that l/ Albie Booth's kick in the Yale-Harvard game will never be immortalized in marble or bro and put on a high pedestal to i Yale men for ages to come, as the ancient Greeks would Bave done. “Isn’t it a tragedy that we are not grasping the opportunity to glorify our race and our sports in masterpieces of sculpture? “We rave over the figures of the Greek ath- letes, like ‘The Discus Thrower,” and talk as though such marvclous models had never been seen before or since. What pifie! On a thousand base ball diamonds, foot ball grid- irons, running tracks, tennis courts, swimming pools and prize rings we Americans daily see flaming, triumphant youth of both sexes in attitudes that for power, virility and victory surpass anything evir known before. “The great men of the Renaissance who made stone almost flush and vibrate with life would have been enthralled to live in our times. In a flash they would have picked out athletes as the most characteristic phase of our life, our temperament—the thing that is the truest mirror of our feelings. In their hands a Helen Wills, a Johnny Weissmuller, a Gene Tunney and a legion of foot ball and track stars would be demi-gods and goddesses, held up as shining examples of physical grace or fitness or skill. And a nation prospers on hero worship, for people imitate the models held before them. 11 [NSTEAD of that, we chisel out an old politician wagging his whiskers, or a lan- guid lady contemplating a rose, or, worse still, g0 to Europe for our ideas, and then every one wonders why America has few, if any, great sculptors. “I know that a few bold souls have done some athletic subjects, mostly in miniature, but how man ities and schools have really outstanding w Wt if the United States were destroyed today and archeologists came along in several thousand years and began digging up our monuments to see what kind of queer folk we we would find few indi- cations, as far as ues are concerned, that sports had ever yed the slightest role in our life. The Greel letes in the museums will live forever to s the glory of Greece, but no one will ever k 1 Or r two hundred years that Albie Booth r ! Andrew O'Connor, ti American sculptor, recently returned studio here from a visit to the with indignation. . He has b Paris for 25 years, and althoug! t home every few months to set up a monu he seldom has time %0 study all th le changes. Somehow or Helen Wills Moody would be a goddess and held up as a shining example of physical fitness, grace and skill by sculptors of the Renaissance, says An- drew O’Connor. esws. Modtern Sculptors Missing Vital and Pictur- esque Stde of National Life in I'ailure to Render the Sport Kings in Marble and Bronze, Even as Ancient Greeks Im- mortalized Their Athletic Heroes. “I should like to walk into the Yale bowl in a few years and see life-size figures in bronze of a hundred of the greatest athletes in Yale's history, in their togs and in forceful attitudes.” other, he had got it in his mind that his fondest dream was coming true—that the im- mortals of American playing fields were at last being done in stone and bronze as a shining example to generations of bdys who have not yet been born. He has no objection to profes- sional ball players being perpetuated in the same way, but he particularly had in mind prep school, college and university fellows. And so Mr. O'Connor took a few days off on his last trip and visited some of the prin- cipal universities in the eastern part of the United States. He had a picture of stepping down an alley of majestic old oaks, his body tingling with excitement as hurtling young men, in track, base ball or foot ball togs, tore and strained at the marble to free their souls and leap at him. Not one but a hundred, a hundred of the purest glories of that particular school, standing day after day as a shining light, a driving force, a challenge to an unending pro- cession of boys. Disappointed everywhere, he visited the athletic fields. “If the athletic heroes are barred from the campuses,” he said to himself, “I will surely find a row looking down from their pedestals on some playing field. I can’t believe that the stars of yesterday are already forgotten.” Alas, he has been misinformed. A few gloomy-looking pedants and benefactors in bronze were scattered about, and that was all. There was nothing like a plunging halfback in sight, except the living, ephemeral ones. 11| WONDER if the sculptors of , America realize that they are missing the most vital, palpitating, picturesque side of the na- tional life and the most gorgeous chances for themselves by largely neglecting sport,” Mr. O'Connor demanded. ‘“One has to live abroad and make a contrast with other countries to appreciate it. Sculpture should be the mirror of a particular time and people, and notably of their activity, vision and imagination. It was fitting in Athens twenty centuries ago to make the bust of a meditating sage. It is fit- ting in almost any European country today to make pretty things that don’t mean anything, for that expresses Europe's state of mind. But the United States is living today in a golden age—I speak of the epoch and not of a brief moment of hard times—of terrific virility, struggle and expansion. By the play of world forces we have suddenly émerged in the last few months as the principal Power, if we were not already so. Americans, themselves, being too close up, don’t know how stirring the times are. But our great momentum is not operating through dramatic agencies, like war, for ex- ample, which makes it less exciting. “Our art, music, sculpture and literature should, but doesn't, reflect this titanic energy. Unfortunately, we have slavishly adopted Euro- pean ideas, for Europe does its utmost to en- force her standards upon us and discourage us from creating anything of our own. “We are hypnotized by alleged European superiority in the arts right up to the eyes. 11 TO MY mind, we sculptors can best capture and immortalize this characteristic spirit of America by turning to sport. It is in our playing fields that one finds .Lhe highlights, the superb attitudes which symbolize and per- sonify the people's driving force. “Do you suppose that Donatello, Michelangelo and the other great artists of the Renaissance would have achieved eternal fame if they had spent their time carving out pretty little triv- jalities instead of letting themselves be avenues for manifesti® the dynamic awakening of their epoch? Their works live because there was life in them, and not merely in them, but surging in them. “It was the same with Rembrandt and the school of Dutch painters. They lived in Hol- land’s golden age. The little nation was roar- ing with activity, imagination, accomplishment in every domain, and these painters were swayed, uplifted, inspired by gigantic mental forces. Their work represented far more than any mere individual genius. They became the mouthpieces of the dynamic imagination of their epoch. “It was the same kind of influence that helped to develop the great school of English portrait painters of the eighteenth century. We Americans are living in such a golden age today. We ought to be preserving the image of our time in all the arts of posterity, for the entire world as the others have done, but are we? Certainly not. To a great extent our art expresses the listless, slow-time, lady-in-the= boudoir European state of msdnd. “To sum it up, a lot of vaxue or pretty things that signify nothing except futility. It's per- fectly obvious why we are not producing art- istic geniuses. “America has an art inferiority complex that defies description. The average person doesn't seem to understand that the European painters, musicians and sculptors are backed by gigantic propaganda. Big companies, with stock issues, have been formed around many to exploit them. Prices are worked up to astronomical figures by manipulating the supply and bidding up prices in auction sales. Americans are as innocent of this game as little lambs.” Mr. O'Connor not only helds a high place in Amercian sculpture, but, having had such a long experience in Europe, he is is in a unique position to study the forces which operate to prevent America expressing its own life. Born in Worcester, Mass., of Irish-born pa=- rents, he had the good fortune to study paint- ing and ‘sculpture under John Sargent in Lon- don from 1894 to 1897 Returning to the United States, he worked in Danield Chester French's studio and designed the well-known Vanderbilt Memorial on the facade of St. Bar- tholomew's Church in New York. This led to him becoming the instructor of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney. He has works today in virtually all the lead- ing American cities and museums as well as in the National Gallery of London and the Lux- embourg in Paris. His busts of Lincoln at Springfield, Ill, and Providence, R. I., are par- ticularly well known. A superb design. Tristan and Yseult, received the gold medal of the Paris Salon two years ago. He is now doing a gigantic statue of Christ, to be erected on the Irish coast, and a figure of Dani 121l for Dublin, as well as many i : A statue of Joh y, originally designed for gton, D. C., may also be put up in Ire- ulptors, Mr. O'Con- h is purely , of striving xterior be riect of 1t, to em- letter of his idea to Continued on Eleventh Page Ernie Schaff, American boxer, is rec- ognized as being one of the finest spec- imens of physical manhood.