Judge, 1923-08-04 · page 14 of 36
Judge — August 4, 1923 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
Ralph Barton's cartoon satirizes the 1920s trend of adding "high art" to popular entertainment. The caption references cinema directors infusing art into movies, then sarcastically asks why other entertainments shouldn't do the same. Each panel mocks this pretension by pairing lowbrow activities with famous artists or sophisticated styles: a dime novel with Walter Pater's ornate prose; prize-fighting reimagined as Russian ballet; baseball "improved" by Delsarte (a movement theorist); and poker played "à la Grecque" (in the Greek manner). The joke: applying elite artistic treatment to vulgar entertainment is absurd. It's cultural snobbery taken to ridiculous extremes. The cartoon criticizes both cinema's pretentious artistic aspirations and, implicitly, the arbitrariness of class-based taste distinctions—what's "art" versus "entertainment" is arbitrary and subjective.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WHY NOT DRAG IN ART?~—by RALPH BARTON THE DIME-NOVEL ’ TexT 6Y WALTER PATER | f \A CoveR BY WATTEAU PRIZE-FIGHTING ELEVATED To THE k RUSSIAN BALLET LEVEL se Dl at W WITH THE NEW AND FINER ROLLER-COASTER f POKER | A LA GRECQUE THE AMUSEMENT PARIK i Row’ SN | AE OE o SS / SASEBALL IMPROVED BY DEL SARTE Since the Cinema Dictators have decided to infuse more Art into the Movies, it seems a shame not to infuse a little into the Movies’ Sister Arts. 12 comicbooks.com