DuPont presents the Cavalcade of America. This evening's program in the Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont relates some interesting stories about American artists, especially appropriate at this time because this is Art Week in the state of Delaware and in many other communities. Art Week activities include exhibits of paintings, lectures on various art subjects, concerts, operettas, and dramatic presentations. Everyone has the urge to create, to express artistic talent. This whole movement for a keener appreciation of things that are beautiful and for the development of good taste in all the art is very much in keeping with the spirit of the creative work of DuPont people throughout the country as expressed in their pledge, better things for a better living through chemistry. In this evening's episode of the Cavalcade of America, we hear of the mothers of two famous American artists and as Mother's Day will be celebrated next Sunday, May 10th, the DuPont Cavalcade Orchestra plays as an overture a special arrangement of Dvorak's songs, My Mother Tommy and Brahms Lullaby. In America, the artistic impulse first found expression in the spirit of a man who spent his boyhood in a beautiful country where the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware join. His birthplace still stands on what is now the campus of Swarthmore College. In 1738, in this gray fieldstone farmhouse, the Quaker Benjamin West, America's first great artist, was born. At the age of six, we find him watching a friendly Indian who was busily engaged decorating himself and his wigwam with colors. What are you doing, Lake Homa? Can I watch? Will you show me how to do that? Boy, talk too much. But I want to know. How can I find out if I don't ask questions? Watch. I didn't know an Indian could draw pictures too. You're putting the same war paint on your wigwam you put on yourself. Brown, black, white, red and yellow. What are they made of? How do you get them? They come from ground. They part of earth, part of stone. Sometimes make picture, you stick. Sometimes use hair tied together like this. That's a brush. Show me how to make one. You take this. Me make another. Oh, thanks, Lake Homa. Will you show me how to make colors too? Me busy. You take some you like. Me make more later. Me much busy now. I won't bother you anymore, Lake Homa. I'm going to make pictures myself. Good. A boy of six is usually very much in evidence around the house. When Mrs. West does not hear her son's happy voice and running feet, she becomes alarmed. And seeing Wake Homa passing, calls to him from the steps of the house. Wake Homa, Wake Homa, have you seen my son Benjamin? No, I haven't seen him in a long time. Oh, he must be up to some mischief. I haven't heard a sound from him in the past hour. Maybe he's going first. Lake Homa, will you look for him while I go inside and see how my baby does? Yes, me look. Why, Benjamin, what does thee hear with the baby? Nothing, Mother. Would thee tell me a false thing? What has thee there behind thy back? Will thee punish me, Mother? Hand it to me and thee will see. Here it is, Mother. Well, thee sees it's nothing but... Benjamin, what has thee done? You fine boy? Yes, and look, Wake Homa, look what he has done. Oh, he makes pictures of babies. Good pictures. Look, the shape of the head, the mouth. Why, Ben, where did thee learn to paint and draw? I watched Wake Homa, then I wanted to do it. I don't know what our friend's meeting would say to this. But what does thee say, Mother? I say I like it well, Benjamin, and I'll keep it always. So Benjamin West was allowed to develop his talent for drawing and painting. At the age of 22, he was given a scholarship and sent to Italy to study art. Three years later, he arrived in London, and his work was admired by the king and by the great English portrait painter, Joshua Reynolds. Gilbert Stuart, later called the painter of presidents, and our historic artist, John Trumbull, were two of his pupils. One evening in his studio in London, Gilbert Stuart brings another young American artist to call on West. Good evening, Mr. West. Good evening, Mr. Stuart. I'd like to present a friend of mine from the colonies, Mr. Charles Wilson Peale of Maryland. He's an artist too, and I... Then he's very welcome. Come in, Mr. Peale. My home is yours. Thank you, sir. You're very kind. Won't you sit down? Thank you. Do you intend to stay long in London, Mr. Peale? Long enough, sir, to show you my work and benefit by your criticism, if you'll be good enough to give it. I'll be delighted to help a fellow American all I can. I'd see your work this very evening if there weren't another matter on my mind. You mean the academy you've started, sir? Yes, Stuart. The Royal Academy, we call it. Isn't that wonderful, Peale? The first British art academy founded by an American. Yes, indeed. But I never could understand why you were not elected as first president, Mr. West. They spoke of it, but I believed we should have the greatest of us for our first president. And that meant only one artist in England, Joshua Reynolds. The inspiration and purpose of this art school fired the imagination of Charles Wilson Peale. He tried in 1791 to found an art school in Philadelphia, but the project failed. He had a remarkable gallery of historical portraits which were assembled and exhibited to the public in the Philosophical Society's building on Independence Square. In 1802, the museum outgrew its old quarters and moved to a new home, Independence Hall itself. We find Charles Peale arranging his enlarged collection with the help of his talented son Rembrandt. But where are you going to hang your portraits, father? The whole long wall is covered with the cases of your rare birds and animals. Well, bring the ladder over here, son. We'll hang them above the cases at the far end of the room. Well, how about this end of the room, father? That's where I'm going to have my new art school. Oh, father, I should think you've had enough of that. And anyway, where are you going to find models to pose for life class? This is the Quaker city, you know. If I have to, I'll pose myself. I'm determined, son, that America should have an art school like Benjamin West in London. You know, I'm with you, father, all the time, but just the two of us aren't enough. William Rush is with us. Oh, well, even though he is the first American sculptor, isn't he too busy with city affairs? I hope not. Charles! Charles! Well, Will? Hello, Mr. Rush. We were just speaking on your side. I've got great news. A commission for a new statue? No, a whole gallery of them. For you? For me? Yes. I've just been to see Judge Hopkinson and Mr. Clymer. George Clymer? Yes. And he's with us. He's going to get a group of his lawyer friends and merchants to contribute to a fund for buying a lot of casts from the antique. Wonderful! Oh, but we'll have to have a school and a gallery. Well, they'll help us to organize one. With a man of Clymer's prestige, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, why, we ought to be able to organize anything. We'll make him first president of our academy. Our father, go easy. We haven't even a name for it yet. Oh, yes, I have. What is it? The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The Minnesota Academy of the Fine Arts. Good. Charles Wilson Peagle, with the aid of George Clymer, was instrumental in founding the first art academy in the United States. And at its first meeting, an honorary membership was voted to the American who was responsible for the founding of the British Royal Academy, Benjamin West. The cavalcade of America presented by DuPont moves on. For a long time, most American artists were obliged to find their inspiration and make their livings in London and Paris. But always in their exile, the American traits and their personalities and work were distinctive and set them apart from all others. This was especially so in the case of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. In 1871, Whistler lives in his home called the White House in Chelsea, London. He is beginning a new painting. His colors are spread on the table beside the easel, for he never used a palette. And he is placing the sitter in position. There now. Are you quite comfortable, Mother? The chair is a little high, Jimmy. Could I have a footstool? Why, safely. Just a minute. There we are. Now, is that better? Yes, thank you. But Jimmy, you've got your canvas wrong with your bow. You're going to paint on the back of it. Why not? It's a good surface. Besides, there's a girl painted on the front of it. I don't know why you want to paint an old lady like me at all. Well, I'll tell you, Mother. Your black dress and nice new lace make such a lovely arrangement against the gray of the wall, I couldn't resist it. Oh, I see. I'm just another arrangement. Doesn't make any difference what I look like. Not a bit. Because a fellow can't help making his mother look just as nice as he possibly can. Well, if you paint me like one of your arrangements of the River Thames by moonlight, no one will know who I am. Ah, but they'll know who did it. Why do you make them so vague and hazy, Jimmy? Because there's usually a haze over the water. Anyone can see it except those blind academic painters. That's why I don't give the canvases any definite titles, but call them my moonlights. Your friend Leyland was in today and saw one. Oh? He called it a nocturne. Well, Mother, that's perfect. So shall I. And I'll compose a whole series of them. Now, what? Now just relax, Mother. Be quite as comfortable as you can. Oh, yes, Jimmy. But no one will buy your nocturnes. They don't tell any story. Of course not. But they'll be beautiful harmonies of form and color. The critics will not think of them as pictures at all. The critics, huh? Those pen wipers. Of course they won't think about them at all. They can't possibly understand. Because my pictures are works of art. We know that, dear. What are you thinking of, Mommy? Is my expression disturbing you, Jimmy? I want to understand it. So millions of people can learn to love it just as it is. Just as I do now. Ah, Jimmy. I wish you'd show this lovable side of yourself to the world. Oh, they'd lose interest in me if I did. They'd rather think of me as the bell fly with a scorpion sting. Oh, but is that what you were thinking about? No. I was thinking about the past. About you, Jimmy. Long ago. When you used to draw pictures of people on the maps you were making for the American Government Post Survey. And got fired for it. No, Jimmy. You were discharged because you never went to work on time. In fact, often you never went to work at all. Well, now, if you were a good mother, that ought to make you laugh or cry instead of looking so contented and peaceful. And thankful, Jimmy. Thankful? What on earth for? To be the mother of such a great artist and such a dear son. When Whistler sent a painting to the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy, they either rejected it or hung it obscurely. In 1872, he sent them the portrait of his mother. As usual, a storm of protest broke out in the consulate of the Academy. Whistler's old friend and a great portrait painter, Sir William Boxall, dares to speak in its favor. I consider it a work of genius, gentlemen. But, Sir William, you cannot hang anything as revolutionary as that. The Academy must stand only for the best in art and good taste. Would you call it bad art if it had the name of a Dutch master on it? It is in the same spirit. It's a great painting. I for one positively refuse to approve it in this impudent American upstart. He hasn't even the common decency to honor his own mother. How can you possibly look at the old lady's face and think such a thing? But look at the title he sends with it. Jibberish. Calls it an arrangement in gray and black. And so it is. In its high time, we thought again in terms of color instead of turning out pictures for picture books. It's no use, Sir William. We're all opposed. Let's throw it out and waste no more time. There are rather more important canvases. Well, I think not. And I'll never have it said I voted against this great painting. If it is not accepted and hung, I will resign from the Council. Sir William, surely, Sir William, you're not serious. I am not only serious. I am right. It's not worth the price of Sir William's resignation, gentlemen. I vote we hang it. We'll hang it, Sir William. Gentlemen, someday you'll find you have done yourselves great honor. Sir William Boxall was right. For today, the portrait of Whistler's mother, loved and admired all over the world, hangs in the National Gallery of France, the first work of an American artist to hang in the Louvre. In 1877, Whistler was invited to send eight paintings to a special exhibition at the Grosvenor Galleries in London. The exhibition created great excitement for it contained the first of the great nocturnes. To most people who thought of paintings only as pictures of Mostella's story, these little paintings seemed lacking in sense. They especially infuriated one self-appointed custodian of the public taste, a professor at Oxford, a writer of great power and venom, John Ruskin. He hated Whistler, whom he refused to meet with a bitterness that comes from intolerance. While the exhibition is on, Whistler drops in one evening at his club. I see there, Whistler. Oh, hello, Barton. Have you seen the latest number of Paul's clavichera? Isn't that the sheet Ruskin puts out? Yes. His dirty linen? Robert, he has a few smudges in it about you. Oh, splendid. It shows I'm still in form. Otherwise, I'm not interested. I think you might be. Let me read a bit of it to you. Yes, do. Ruskin says, Succots, Lindsay, ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approaches the aspect of willful imposter. I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now, but never expected to hear a coxcomb art, 200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. Well, what do you say to that, eh? I think it's the most debased style of criticism I've had thrown at me yet. Sounds rather like libel, don't you think? Well, that is what I mean to find out. Whistler was in deadly earnest. He meant to make a test case of how far a critic can go in robbing an artist of his daily bread. He sued Ruskin for libel and claimed damages. The English artists were in a panic and excused themselves from bearing witness on either side, except a staunch, embarrassed few. The famous case comes to trial in the Exchequer chamber of Westminster, London, in the court of Queen's Bench before Baron Huddleston. Order, please. Order. Continue for the plaintiff, Mr. Perry. Only one more word, my lord. My main point is that Mr. Ruskin not only criticised the art qualities of my client's paintings, but its price as well, which is none of a critic's business. That is all. Sir John Holker, you may proceed with the cross-examination. Mr. Whistler. Sir. What do you call these knight paintings? Nukterds. What's your definition of that word? It's an arrangement of line, form and colour first. And I make use of any incident of it which will bring about a symmetrical result. Is this the one you call Nocturne in black and gold, the falling rocket? Yes. And the one Mr. Ruskin called a pot of paint flung at the pub. Order, please. Order. Where was it painted? At Cremorne. Oh, but holding it upside down. Oh. It's not a view of Cremorne. If I called it a view of Cremorne, it would only disappoint all beholders. No, it is an artistic arrangement. Why do you call Mr. Irving an arrangement in black? Oh, but I don't. That's what I call the picture. Order. Did you take much time to paint the Nocturne in black and gold? About two days. End for that. The work of two days? You dare ask 200 guineas? No. I ask that for the knowledge of a lifetime. Do you offer this picture to the public as one of particular beauty, fairly worth 200 guineas? I have sold others for that amount. I offer this as a work conscientiously executed. I think it's worth the money. And I'd hold my reputation on it as I would upon any of my other works. As, for example, this Nocturne in blue and silver? Yes. What does it represent? That is Sea Bridge by Moonlight. Order, please. Mr. Whistler. Sir? I can't tell whether those are people on top of the bridge and how in the name of heaven they could get off it. My Lord, the picture is simply a representation of moonlight. My whole scheme was only to bring about a certain harmony of color. How long did it take you to paint that picture? I completed it in one day after having arranged the idea in my mind. Order, please. My Lord, my Lord, I protest. As a painter and artist, Mr. Whistler has earned a reputation in the United States. He is not merely a painter. He has likewise distinguished himself as a nature. And why he should be subjected to this ignominious... The trial made art history of first importance. So many people did not take it seriously at the time. The jury brought in a verdict for Whistler. The damages were nominal, only one farthing. But it was a complete moral victory for Whistler. Some years later, Whistler met Holker, Ruskin's lawyer, at the club, and asked him about the case. You know, I never could understand, Holker, why Ruskin didn't appear in person against me. I wouldn't let him, Jimmy. It was hard enough as it was to save him from paying you heavy damages. Yes, yes, why didn't the jury award me more? You know, Ruskin singled out for attack the only picture in the lot I had for sale. It hurt my prices for years. Yes, but your lawyer didn't emphasize that for the jury, which is too bad. Because Ruskin was wrong and should have been punished. Oh, then why did you appear for it? Because he asked me to, and you didn't. I see. The only reason was because I couldn't afford you. What a pity you didn't try. I'd gladly have been on your side for nothing. A little late to find that out. I don't know, here's Boxwell. He seems excited about something. Jimmy, Jimmy, I've just got the greatest news. Hello, Holker. Well, well, what's the burning rice, Sir William? It's about your picture, the Tennessee Bridge by moonlight. What, again? Yes, we were just discussing it. What's the matter with it now? Nothing's the matter with it. Haven't you heard the news? No. Well, I'm glad I'm the one to tell you. It's been sold. What? The National Fund bought it. The National Fund? Why? To hang in the National Gallery. Yeah, I hope, Jimmy, you got your 200 guineas for it. 200? They paid 2,000. What's that? And got a bargain. Blended. Well, how do you like that, Jimmy? Well, there's something I'd like better. What's that? I'd like to see Ruskin's face when he hears of it. Whistler's victory was complete, and in our own capital, Washington, D.C., there is an entire building dedicated to Whistler's memory. In it is the famous Peacock Room he designed for Leyland and contains many of his beautiful arrangements and nocturnes. Notable among those who brought American art to international fame and glory, we accord him his place in the cavalcade of America. The phrase, better things for better living, used by DuPont chemists, has true application for the art of making books. The chemist, through his efforts to create more beautiful and lasting paper, inks, and binding material, has helped to make books fitting and long enduring vehicles for the genius of authors. Not far from Washington's revolutionary headquarters in historical Newburgh on Hudson, New York, are made DuPont Fabricoid and PX cloth, two of the best known materials for binding books. Through this plant and laboratory have come on annual pilgrimages the leading book binders of America, each one a master craftsman in his own right, to see what is new in the way of DuPont contributions to better books. Both Fabricoid and PX cloth book binding materials are composed of a woven textile base coated with durable cellulose compound. An almost limitless range of color and surface effects afford the book designer ample scope for his talent. Important too is the fact that books bound in these DuPont materials are washable and resist the attacks of heat, moisture, and hunger insects. More and more public schools of America are coming to see the wisdom of furnishing students with books bound in these washable, beautiful, and enduring materials. The unsanitary pen and finger marked school book bindings of the past are rapidly disappearing thanks to the chemists. A man made material possessing all of these assets naturally finds broad uses than in book binding. Fabricoid also serves long and well as furniture upholstery, luggage covering in women's handbags, and as cleanable tablecloths. In a slightly different form, this coated textile is known as DuPont Tomteen, the finest of all washable window shade materials. Fabricoid represents one more achievement of modern chemical research and illustrates the phrase used by DuPont chemists, better things for better living through chemistry. Tillers of the Soil, a story of American farming, will be heard next week at the same time when DuPont again presents the Cavalcade of America. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System. W-A-B-C, New York.
