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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 11, 1953)
Fifty-third year of publication "' , SIVKKMfv 1,1 ««**, "m'Ka.nr,,,;'., ,953 NLMBCK „ A PERSONAL MATTER— Man's Art Imitates Nature, Adler Tells Crowd liiwiu LUtt.ii line art” and what is and Isn’t art is !'■ personal matter, Mortimer J. Adler, Chicago university profes sor of philosophy of law, told nearly 1,000 persons Tuesday in tlie SU ballroom. Adler presented what he termed a cure for artiness by relating how things look from the- point of view of man and the view of God. A painting by Mlchaelangelo and one by a child are very close from God's point of view, he said, but from-man’s point of view, they are very far apart. Both views are true, he said. Art and Nuture “Art must imitate nature or it is unintelligible,’’ Adler empha sized. He contrasted contemporary art, which has become divorced from human form or imitation of it, with older art forms. Ai t should be broader than just fine arts, Adler said, and should lnf.juae ovory human undertaking. He .laid he detested the use of the word “creation” in referring to what man made. “Man does not create,” Adler said, in the sense that he takes nothing and makes something out of it. Only God does that, the speaker said; and this is the difference be tween God and man. Two Kinds Adler defined the two types of art as cooperative art and fully operative art. The cooperative arts are farm ing, healing and teaching, he said. These artists work on living sub stance, helping nature do what she tends to do herself. It is a type of imitation and therefore art, he said. The farm er, doctor and teacher act as na ture acts after observing nature, d he doctor heals after observing how nature heals. In the operative arts the artist works on dead matter, making forms which nature herself would never tend to make. There are two types of operat ive arts, he said, those that are ends in themselves and those which are means to ends. Shoe and automobile making are useful operative arts, but fine arts are an end in themselves. Fine arts are given proper names, Adler observed, and each piece of fine art has an individu ality, while useful objects are not given this distinction. Free and Enslaved Adler differentiated between “free” and “enslaved” fine arts. “Free” art, like music has be«n liberated by the written symbol. The plastic arts are enslaved by matter. Adler emphasized that all these arts are imitations; the useful arts imitating natural functions. The Ross to Speak On Architecture Marion Ross, associate professor' of architecture, will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the browsing room on “Con temporary American Architec ture.” Ross will discuss the character isli<of American architecture and ( review the significant buildings that have been erected since 1915. He will show slides representing examples of residential, education al and commercial buildings. This lecture is one of the fea tures of the 1953 Festival of Con temporary Arts which is in its sec ond week on the campus and will run through March 13. Ross is the third lecturer to speak here this week. Hill-Billy Music On Capitol Hill What this country needs is a national hill-billy day, according to Democratic Congressman Ar thur \\ instead of Mississippi. The representative, a great lov er of mountain music, asked Con gress to set aside May 26 of each year in recognition of the contri butions made to American music by the writers, singers and play ers of hill-billy music. Award Error Made; SAM's Get Tea Set Sigma Alpha Mu, not Alpha Tau Omega, won the silver tea set for second place in the number of dads registered for Dads Day, John Gamiles, general chairman has announced. LEO HARRIS Who Runs the UO? Leo A. Harris, athletic director, was appointed in 1947 to his pres ent position. ^ Harris graduated from Stanford university with a bachelor of arts degree in 1026 and a master of arts degree in education administra tion in 1929. At Stanford he played football, | basketball, water polo and also boxed. After graduation he coached football, basketball and baseball at Fresno high school for five years. He was varsity basket ball coach at Fresno State college for one year and football coach t for four years. | Harris then returned to Fresno I high school and served as prin | cipal for six years. After two years in the Navy and the National Guard, he was then appointed su | perintendent of schools at Carmel, Calif. He was at Carmel for two years before coming to the UO. As director of athletics, Harris makes all sports schedules and is responsible for the athletic budget, all physical facilities and the pur chase of all equipment. He also maintains inter-institutional rela tions through the PCC and NCAA. Ballet to Feature Dance Favorites Selections from “Swan Lake,’’ “The Blue Bird’’ and other popu lar ballet numbers will be fea tured by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at its Friday evening program at McArthur Court. Admission to the concert, which is to be held at 8 p.m., is by stu dent body card or Civic Music As sociation membership card. The CMA is the organization sponsor ing the appearance of the 15 dancers. Gounod’s “Faust’’ is the basis for the finale number' of the troupe. Entitled “Cirque de Deux,” 01 Circus for Two,’’ the produc tion is a satire on the graces of foreign balerinas. Friday Deadline For Billiard Team The deadline for students to sign up for the Oregon billiards team to compete in the Inter-Collegiate Billiards tournament, March 5 through 19 in the Student Union, is Friday, according to John Shaf fer, committee chairman. There will be four teams com peting in the tournament—Pocket, straight rail, three cushion and co-ed. Students picked for the teams will receive free use of the SU pool tables and instruction from Louis Bellisimo, recreation director, Shaffer said. Direct news wires will be kept open from the SU to Chicago to cover this national college tourna ment. Students interested in working on committees should contact John Shaffer. Publicity, promotion, ar rangements and contract commit tee members and chairmen are needed, he said. Order of 0 Meets The Order of the O will meet Thursday at noon in the Sigma C'hi fraternity house for Oregana pictures. shoe, for instance, copies the cal lous of an unshod foot. The fine arts also imitate hu man characteristics, Adler said. Aristotle's definition of fine art, ho said, was that all art imitated actions of men. Nature and Passion Adler said that fine art imitated human nature and specifically hu man action and passion. This ex planation would cover music, lyric poetry and the dance. Modern art, however, does not fit the pattern and is not an imi tation of anything human, he said: He described modern art as a revolt against nature, a “pure art”—“purified of nature.” The finest art imitates man, he said, and the more human it is, the better art it Is. It is when art goes to the other extremes and loses its human form entirely that it is unintelligible. "But this does not exclude the bananas entirely,” he said.in ref erence to still life painting, hove and Desire Human minds need a mixture of nature and pure form, Adler said, and he felt modem art needed to ■ be reminded of that fact. He urged a compromise between the two extremes. Adler also discussed beauty, de ♦ « MORTIMER ADLER Aesthete fining it as something which pleases upon apprehension, and need not be seen. Something beau tiful must have integrity, propor tion and clarity, he said. A beautiful thing which brings pleasure satisfies a desire, de9ire being a wish to know, he said. Something too simple gives no pleasure and a thing, too hard to understand also will not. be plea surable. When a thing is in .pro portion to your skill and ability to understand, it -is then pleasurable. He differentiated love and de sire, -stating that desire was the wish to consume but - that 1 ove meant wanting to know. Art Includes Freedom “Art is all the things that would j not exist without human interven tion,” according to the definition of Mortimer Adler who spoke at the coffee hour forum Tuesday aft ernoon in the Dads' Lounge of the SU. The idea of freedom must also be included in one’s definition of j art, he continued. Since the bea-1 ver s dam is not constructedj through a sense of freedom, its cannot be classified as art, he said. “Modern” art is the result of an I attempt to escape from the imita tion of nature, Adler stated. Al though the resultant art may be more complex than its convention-' al predecessors, he remarked that1 its very “unintelligibility” may1 add to the appreciation of the' viewers “It is a greater challenge to the intellect,” he added. Turning to the field of educa tion, Adler stated his belief that the only great teacher in the his tory of the world was Socrates. Socrates was a teacher in the sense of a midwife, he stated. “Just as a midwife makes it eas ier for the laboring mother to have a child, the good teacher facili tates the birth of ideas in his stu dents.” Adler concluded the coffee hour forum with his opinion on present motion pitcures. “Movies have tried to discard entertainment in a conscious attempt to become ar tistic.” They have now lost both qualities and have become merely dull, he declared. Demos Hear Lawyer The Rosenbergs received a fair trial and sentence under the law, but there is reason to doubt the , appropriateness of the death pen ! alty declared Charles Porter, Eu gene attorney. Porter spoke to Young Demo crats Tuesday night on “The Legal Aspects of the Rosenberg Case.” The attorney, who formerly prac ticed law in Boston, told the club that the Rosenbergs legally have no loophole because they are be yond a doubt guilty of espionage. “Treason has been proved to be easy,” said Porter, “but it is doubt ful that the death penalty will de ter future spies.” Porter felt that the responsibil ity for selling secrets should be shared by all of the atom spies, and held that it was fallacious to hold only the Rosenbergs respon sible. “The statement by Judge Kauf man that the spying of the Rosen bergs led to aggression in Korea was broad and has little founda tion,” he said. He believed that this statement has caused some of the reaction against the harsh sentence. Porter commended the courts in New York that tried the case as “some of the finest and fairest in the country.” Judge Kaufman, he believes, acted only after long and thoughtful deliberation. Air Force Films Open to Public Two films will be shown by the Air Force ROTC in the main- lec ture room of the. Science building Friday at 3 p.m., according to Capt. M. A. Salemi, assistant pro fessor of air science. The first film, about the Con stellation, illustrates Air Force equipment and its use. Subject of the other film is air safety. Pre cautions taken with flight equip ment is shown in this movie. All interested persons are in vited, Capt. Salemi said. What Do You Think... ... of Student Government? George YVeseman, senior in Spanish, said: “It’s too remote from the students. Just a few people take part and only a few are interested in it and participate in it.”