Judge — February 6, 1926 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Hire Art" - Satirical Commentary on Art Commercialization This page satirizes the commercialization and debasement of fine art in early 20th-century America. The opening panels reference Praxiteles (ancient Greek sculptor), suggesting even classical masterpieces couldn't sell without being repurposed as commercial displays. The cartoons mock art's degradation into advertising and window dressing: statues become props for plumbers, sport shops, tobacconists, and funeral homes. One panel shows art as "a lazy fare decoy" (likely "taxi fare decoy"). The final panels escalate the absurdity—a nude statue becomes a traffic cop instructing pedestrians, then generates wealth for dealers ("The world is now his"). The satire critiques how artists must commercialize their work for survival, and how high art becomes mere merchandise divorced from aesthetic value. The humor depends on recognizing the gap between art's supposed dignity and its practical, mundane applications in commerce.