Life, 1885-12-03 · page 12 of 16
Life — December 3, 1885 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Desparing Artist" — Life Magazine Satire This fable mocks pretentious artists and society's indifference to "high" art. An ass (donkey, used as a figure of ridicule) creates two sculptures: a beggar figure so realistic it deceives people into giving money, and a painting of Limburger cheese so lifelike people hold their noses. The satire targets multiple targets simultaneously: the artist faces legal prosecution for his first work's success, then health department censorship for the second—suggesting authorities care nothing for artistic merit. The moral—that genius struggles in an "ignoble age" focused on "baseball and the stock market"—is itself mocked. The artist's dramatic suicide over these trivial setbacks parodies Romantic notions of tortured genius. The cartoon suggests that claims of artistic victimization ring hollow, and that artists blaming society for their failures are ridiculous. It's a jab at both pretentious artists and the sentimental cult of misunderstood genius.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘LIFE: FABLES FOR THE TIMES. Pro wei LS GIFTED Ass having studied painting and sculpture in Europe for ten years came home and began business as a professional artist. His first work was a clay figure of a blind beggar holding out his hat for alms, which was placed on the sidewalk in front of the Ass’s house, and looked so much like a genuine Central Park tramp that it soon collected enough money from the passers-by to purchase a bale of hay. For this exploit the artist was arraigned for obtaining money under false pre- tences and fined ten dollars. But the undismayed genius went to work again with a lofty hope and a corsair gloom, and painted a life-like picture of alump of Limburger cheese. The painting was hung on the yard-fence and was such a perfect likeness that people would hold their noses as they passed by, and a newly-landed German immi- grant who saw it began to sing “The Watch on the Rhine" with riotous enthusiasm: On the next day the Ass was warned by the Board of Health to take in the painting, as it might breed cholera. The artist was re- duced to despair, and cried out bit- terly, “O tempora! O Moses! what chance is there for a careering genius in this ignoble age when people think of nothing but base- ball and the stock market ?” Then he went sorrowfully to the woods and hanged himself with a grape- vine. MorAL: This Fable suggests the hard lot of low-born genius, and the difficulties that must be over- come by the philosopher in advance of his age. BITS OF NEWS. URIOUS investigators have ~ discovered that the Siamese twins were well connected. THERE seems to be no founda- tion for the rumor that Miss An- thony was used as an Algonquin idol in Colonial times. TENNYSON’S next volume will contain a ballad in the Bostonese with an accompanying IN these days the words of dead men seem to be terrible things. THE Parnellites are boycotting English soap. A WELL-KNOWN magazine has made a contract with Sitting Bull for the exclusive products of his pen, THE rapid rate at which Mr. Gladstone is cutting down trees in- duces the belief that his bark is worse than his bite; while there are not lacking persons who accuse him of having an axe to grind. A COLONY of Asiatic hermits have decided to settle in Philadel- phia. THE author of “The Bantling Baw!” is writing a revival hymn. M. AFTER a rough ocean voyage an epicure is glad enough to exchange his sea legs for terra-pins. comicbooks.com