No one
would say that all American civic sculpture is good. There is a gigantic
bust of Washington Irving behind New York's Public Library which would
be better away; nor are the lions that guard that splendid institution
superabundantly leonine; but the traveller is more charmed than
depressed by the marble and bronze effigies that meet his eye--and few
witnesses have been able to say that of England. Among the more
remarkable public works I might name the symbolical figures on the steps
of the Boston Free Library, and the frieze in deep relief on the
Romanesque church on Park Avenue in New York, and I found something big
and impressive in the Barnard groups at Harrisburg. Many of the little
bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum--at the other extreme--are exquisite.
THE MOVIES
We have our cinema theatres in England in some abundance, but the cinema
is not yet in the blood here as in America. In America picture-palaces
are palaces indeed--with gold and marble, and mural decorations, built
to seat thousands--and every newspaper has its cinema page, where the
activities of the movie stars in their courses are chronicled every
morning. Moreover, America is the home of the industry; and rightly so,
for it has, I should say, been abundantly proved that Americans are the
only people who really understand both cinema acting and cinema
production. Italy, France and England make a few pictures, but their
efforts are half-hearted: not only because acting for the film is a new
and separate art, but because atmospheric conditions are better in
America than in Europe.
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