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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1908)
A I 5 artf jo many dwerces tn the United States is because the men dq not 'know how to make love. Alas I if this is true- if in seeking the wherewithal to clothe our wives in silks or to buy roset for our sweethearts, we have : iost the oldest of all arts! i -, They knew how to make love in , the old times, and some American women aversome foreigners know now, . Let us see how art has pictured love-muking in the f ast. That I might crash the out of life and dl Die of thy delight and my delight and be -Mixed with thy blood and molten Into thee. , Swinburne. A MAN is either a lover or not a lover. 1 Love is a thing that is not lukewarm, - and lovemaking cannot, be done in, a ' half-hearted way. It is to love or not to love. Tou can't win a bride by kissing her on the fingers and you cannot keep , a wife's af fection by lightly brushing the tip of her -nose. Love has been the inspiration of some of the neatest works of art of all history. The ' ' 4 1 4 a. HIV , if.: ; ) t ft " i i THE1 OREGON SUNDAY v.: HOUI ART AND VDUflMfl HAVE DEPICTED THETENDER EMOTIOR J . i - - P?: i c ' ' P ill M -rrr-s. I 1 If.. ; I : : kv M-nVutoM? i: -1 I- :. ft is r j-sf j' -JJ -& - I t A if 2JY -s ;C - 1 (MKuvdBKit.m. ii.immMiiiiiij. j iiihiiiii i " i .i iSt . J'iss.ei'L.J 'jm hx - I i f ' M a t mm.r, At - - I J. I " f III I v V Jr I n n &yrA i ; III I . I i 1 I , .. JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY, HORNING, . NOVEMBER 15, . 1903 , lib old, old story has been' delineated in, colors by the greatest masters of -the world. Raphael, Titian," Millais,' Eosetti, Alma-Tadema the greatest artists of all time have, found the eter nal theme the dominant note "of, art. - In ' ancient Greece sculptors ; wove their fancies in stone, ' and the loves of -Eros and Psyche, Venus and Adonis,- Orpheus and Euryd ice, were conjured t' of pure marble, as today Rodin moulds in stone the story (- of burning hearts. ; .In art there are, as in music, many notes in the scale of love ;, but the motif is. the same. In' one age the lover is the poet, reading impas sioned verses to his sweetheart a Catullus rav ing of his adored; in another, he is the ardent serenader beneath his; lady's window, a Romeo . courting beneath the moon, ' a Baolo stealing a forbidden kissin another age he is the gay and debonair knight,', waving farewell to ' his lady as he goes to war; and again he is the soldier holding yarn while Jus lady darns. But in all ages, in. all art, the love story is : the lame. Some lovers are diffident in life and -art, and others, impetuous and bold.', v , The Huguenot lover leaving bis sweetheart loveJ"no differently than the ill-fated Paolo; the passion4 of ; Romeo, his yearning and pain,:no diflerent,- perhaps, than the impatience of the lover of early France beneath 'the eyes , of a Of course, a gallant lover can make love just as romantically while he drives in -an4 auto- Ark ftrtEA v . ?t ; . ,jt i,v ' ii v i iui r ; "iii.i i life . 7? y 7,' tf- ' II.- I V Jfl f ,f r-rfl -MtfW?!. V life Mk.,-':- ( ; A WAWfifluf WllJnl 1 mobile as a gay cavalier of the time of Louis XVL who would cast ardent glances while he held the yarn for his demure sweetheart, who 'sat knitting under the, vigilant eyes, of the parents. ', Buf bow" many nien nowadays know the nice little tricks of the art as well as the " glorious abandon to the tempest that sweeps, stormlike, oyer the heart t- Hpw many maids, reading their first love romance, sigh disconsolately for such lovers as the heroes depicted ther.e; how many fair ones read breathlessly the dauntless demi god of a lover who saves Flossie, the mill girl, from being swept over the dam, or of the noble Englishman who pours love ecata- sies as burning as the summer into the sea shell ears of - a tremulous Thelmal Oh, those days when gay knights rode off to war bearing the ribbons of their ladies! Do men . m ake love " like ' that nowadays I Does the young broker, taking Miss Sylvie out for an auto spin, clasp her in his arms and tell -her he would ride into the jaws of death for .such love as hersf Does the gray-haired banker, returning home at night, take his wife into his arms and, kissing her, tell her that heaven lies in her eyes! , v - '., t LIYES FOR PRINCE CHARMING i f If they don't, they ought. -From the time she reads .the first dizzy, strophe of Byron the average maid looks forward to, and lives for. the day; when her Prince Charming shall step into, her life. All her dreams, ; all her fancies weave about this expected ideal. . - -And when he comes!:. "I've got ? some money saved, Adeune; -suppose, we tie upi Isn't it of ten that way! Or if, after visiting her formally a year or two he gets up courage to move shyly toward her and takes her hand v .doesn t she feel a humiliating shattering of ner hopes ! Doesn't she ask herself .why. he doesn't,:' like a man should, simply pick her up from the floor and tfell her he'll cast her into, the briny - sea if she won't ' be his, or something : of ' that sort! . ' Every young woman has dreams of -being asked to be some one's in the fervid language u v 1 - : -1 ft i of a Lord Byron or in Borneo fashion. And when it devolves into a 'meek, uncertain, com monplace request, with the remark that he knows where a nice house may he rented" wouldn't it make any romantio maiden mad! On the modern stage, modem lovera still make love in the good old-fashioned way. The love scene in a popular drama, pictuied here, " done in true Western fashion, possesses all the ardor of the romances of the days of the trou badours. How women flock to see popular actors play Romeo, and how many, sitting beside their unresponsive, rather phlegmatic mates, feel a surge of regret and irritation that hubby never did it that way! How many have gazed with delight upon Rettigs famous painting of "Love and Art1 and thrilled at the story! Here is a woman one of the first of the really modern women who rivals men in her art, whose name has been made, whose fame perhaps surpasses that of her lover. But when he comes, treating her as lovers did princesses in fairy tales, with un speakable tenderness, with unbounded love then what is fame, what is art! He sweeps all before him, and love rises triumphant over art, NOT A PASTORAL AGE How many men today consider lovemaking more important than their business ! But then, you say, this is a prosaio age. How could men love maidens as they did is the marvelous poems of Schiller! " In those days a pastoral people lived in a romantio and beautiful country. Maidens were wont to go flower gathering in the fields. And the ardent swain, with bunches of flower, would pursue her and falling on his knees pre sent them, declaring his love. Wonder yon that the skies sang above them and the birds caroled of their faith! j Yes, today many men .send flowers by the boxes to their sweethearts. But how many select just the blooms she admires ! How many men there ire who, at Christmas, rush into a store and order $10 ... worth of novels--leaving the selection to Hhe tradesman for the maids they intend to wed 1 ' - " What tenderness is depicted in Millais charming painting of the Huguenot lovers. They are about to part troubles threaten them; and the young .woman is endeavoring to save him from the impending massacre. As he faces her, what tenderness, what regret, what heart iching in that glance 1 . That lover, surely, would, not order jewels or flowers or books by the wholesale, s He'd netod " his maiden one flower, one . symbolie Jower, and he'd write a poem a poem palpitat , ing with the love " beating in his heart to go with it. . ' ' A CHARMING DELINEATION j ' One of the , most charming delineations of young love is Vogler's painting, ""Thine is My Heart." Who fails to see that-the lover has just asked her. to be his to have and to hold; " that he has poured into his beloved's ars the "old, old story"! Her downcast eyes give no reply, but her : hand her hknd resting unre sistingly in his tells him thai her heart is hi In the old days Cleopatra received Marj Antony in a gilded barge, and the world hai, sung of that romance. . Hundreds of years' be fore Pericles began a war because of the love of. a woman. One of the most wonderful of ro mances is that of Romeo and Juliet. Who has . not thrilled over - the balcony - scene, , and who has not wept at a love ending so tragically! ' " Today, possibly, our romances are not staged ; so. picturesquely. Our kings and-, queens no ' lomrer . sair the seas in Curnle and eolden sral- , leons. jnignra no. longer go 10 war zor ineir ladies , But. is not love just the same! - Our . age may be commercial; we may lack the fire of the troubadours. We may not sing beneath our lady's window. . But does not the same passioa burn as of old! Some men may court formally and marry perfunctorily. But there are others rV. n nan lAtrA in 4ha Aln rn vov. . TlrvAa Iaim. . love - m the old, old n change with time! Love, a poet says, is the same "yesterday, today and forever." i TbeV-aln who tell tia love can die: WlthJlfe all -other passlona fly, . k , All others are but vanity. . u v Love la Indestructible,. 4 iA . . Its holy flame forever burneth, ". From heaves It came, to heaven 1 returoeUk 1
