Life, 1884-07-10 · page 3 of 16
Life — July 10, 1884 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis: "The Encouragement of Art" The top cartoon satirizes wealthy amateur art collectors. Two wealthy men discuss purchasing a painting from "Cadmium," a struggling artist. One proposes they gamble for it—"the one that loses takes the picture"—revealing their actual disinterest in art itself. The joke exposes how wealthy dilettantes treat art acquisitions as casual wagers rather than genuine patronage or appreciation. Below, Clinton Scollard's poem "To a Chinese Idol" laments the decline of a once-revered religious statue, now reduced to a decorative "paper-weight" in a wealthy person's home. The verses contrast the idol's former spiritual significance with its current status as mere ornament, criticizing the commodification and trivialization of sacred objects by affluent collectors indifferent to their cultural meaning.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ART. Wealthy Amateur: SINCE YOU SPOKE TO JONES AND ME ABOUT THIS PICTURE, CADMIUM, WE HAVE ARRANGED THAT ONE OF US SHALL HAVE IT, Cadmium (brightening): 1 AM GLAD OF THAT, VERY GLAD; GLAD ON YOUR ACCOUNT, TOO. WHICH OF YOU HAS IT? W. Amateur; WELL, WE ARE GOING TO PITCH UP FOR IT, AND THE ONE THAT LOSES TAKES THE PICTURE. TO A CHINESE IDOL. NCE you ruled, a god divine, In a sacred, steady shrine Near a river dark as mine, ’Mid the trees, And to you the mandarins, With their smooth, unshaven chins, Prayed absolvence from their sins On their knees. Tiny-footed Chinese maids, With their raven hair in braids, Sought you in your quiet shades ’Neath the boughs ; Haply, for a thousand years, You beheld their smiles and tears, Listened to their hopes and fears, And their rows. Now above her escritoire In my lady’s pink boudoir, Ever dumbly pining for Last repose, You sit stolid day by day, With your cheeks so gaunt and gray, Stony eyes and retroussé Little nose. . Where the sunlight glinteth o’er Persian rug and polished floor You will frown forevermore, Grim as hate ; A divinity cast down, Having neither shrine nor crown, Once a god, but now a brown Paper-weight ! CLINTON SCOLLARD. comicbooks.com