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after all prove a sound and workable compact. Much will depend upon the successful operation of the new federal and truly representative government in Belgrade, and upon the peaceful development of the kingdom's resources. If sufficient capital can be found to construct the standard-gauge railway lines which the American Technical Mission has planned for the linking of the interior of Serbia with the coast, through Montenegro, Bosnia, and Dalmatia, the new kingdom may easily afford to overlook the loss of Fiume and Zara, while Italy may well develop such a vast commerce with her new neighbor across the sea that she will no longer yearn for the acquisition of a foreign coast, which, far from promoting commercial intercourse with the interior, would serve as a fresh barrier in its restraint, and would involve an enormous and continuous expenditure of money in works of fortification and defense.

THE PLACE OF THE CRITIC

STEPHEN C. PEPPER

There is the public that wants beautiful things to enjoy. And as social demand invariably breeds a supply, there appear artists who produce beautiful works to be enjoyed. Here are the two poles of economic factsupply and demand. The artists furnish the supply, the public creates the demand. In artist and public the economic situation is complete. Where, then, is the place for the critic?

When the public wants bread, the farmer appears to furnish the wheat, and between the farmer and the public there are many middlemen-the wheat merchant, the flour manufacturer, the grocer, the baker, intervening links in the chain of distribution. But the critic corresponds to none of these. He is not a necessary link between the artist and the public. For what in art correspond to the merchant, the manufacturer, and the grocer, are the publisher and the dealer. Yet the critic is not totally aloof from economic forces. He is paid for his services, a fact that shows he is supplying some demand. Now, what is this demand, a demand that does not find its satisfaction in the artist, and yet is intimately connected with the production of art? Why do we have critics, and what is their function?

I realize that artist and critic and public would all vehemently object to being compared with farmers and

grocers and bakers. The artist is expressing himself, the public is enjoying itself, and the critic is fulfilling a social obligation. I know that perfectly well, and admit the objection is well grounded. Nevertheless, I also know that artists occasionally sell, that the public buys, and that critics receive pecuniary remunerations. And though all this exchange of money is a purely economic fact and consequently exactly opposite in nature to the aesthetic fact accompanying it, still the economic fact may serve as a clue to the aesthetic fact just because the one does accompany the other. If we knew nothing about the nature of artists, we might do worse than study their economic status, find out what they sold, for how much, and to whom. Now, we do happen to be greatly puzzled as to the nature of critics, and therefore I propose to examine, as a first clue, their economic status.

Let us take as our example for the present the most common species of the genus, the newspaper critic. Why are there newspaper critics? A newspaper is an economic institution run on purely business principlesrun, that is, for the money in it. Its success depends on its ability to get money out of people, and that in turn depends on its ability to supply what people want and are willing to pay for. People want the news and will pay for it, so there is a news section. People want to hear opinions about the news, so there is an editorial section. Men want to know about the sports, so there is a sporting section. Women want to know about the styles, so there is a fashion section. Society wants to know about itself, so there is a society section. But who is it that wants to know about art, so that it pays a newspaper to have an art section, with a staff of art critics?

It is striking that the newspapers with the finest art sections are published in the busiest centers of art exchange. I say centers of art exchange, not art centers,

designedly. It is in the centers where art is bought and sold that we find the newspapers with the largest and finest art sections; in the centers where are the most publishers and sales houses, galleries, concert halls, and theaters; centers like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago. Places where art is produced but where little art is exchanged do not have remarkable art sections in their newspapers. I am thinking of places like Provincetown and Gloucester, in Massachusetts. There is a great deal of very able art produced in these towns, but nearly all of it comes for sale before the public in Boston and New York, and is criticized in the Boston and New York papers. It is not centers of art production that make it profitable for newspapers to have art critics, but centers of art exchange. This is an important point, for it shows that the function of the newspaper critic is bound up with the selling of works of art.

Now why do people want art criticism? I suppose it is safe to say that more money is spent in the city of New York in one year on vegetables than on works of art, yet I have never heard of a vegetable critic. It is not the process of exchange itself that brings critics into existence, but only certain kinds of exchange. Are there any other examples of exchange that bring critics into existence? Yes, the buying and selling of clothes. Newspapers have fashion sections which perform a function somewhat similar to the art sections. They are less serious, more impersonal, and-perhaps !-more dictatorial, but they are bred from a similar situation, a situation in which it is felt that there is some standard superior to the vagaries of individual taste.

Here is the key to the problem. When people buy vegetables, they wish merely to satisfy their hunger, and they buy what pleases them. But when people buy clothes, they want not only to be clothed but to be clothed correctly. They want two things. They want clothes,

and they want knowledge of what is the right thing in clothes. These two wants are satisfied from two different sources. The dressmaker furnishes the clothes, but the newspaper (including, of course, publications like Vogue) furnishes the knowledge of what is the right thing.

The situation is even more complicated than this. For the entrance of a standard affects not only the buying public but the dressmaker who wants to sell. When the farmer puts his vegetables on the market, all he need think of is the tastes of the public. But the dressmaker must think not only of the tastes of her public but of the standard; for however much people may like her dresses, she will not be able to sell them unless they are in style. So, the dressmakers are as much interested in fashion sections of the newspapers as the purchasing public. We have thus a curiously involved threecornered relationship of buyer, dressmaker, and fashion section of the newspaper, with the fashion section in the position of keystone. For the buyer will not buy unless the fashions permit, and the dressmaker cannot sell unless the fashions permit, and yet the concrete relation supporting the whole situation is that somebody wants to buy a dress which somebody else wants to sell. The buyer wants to buy, and the dressmaker wants to sell. Then why don't they come to terms? Because the buyer has grown to distrust her taste. She has lost confidence in her judgment and seeks the support of authority, and thus a new want is created for the newspapers to supply. Furthermore, the buyer's loss of confidence is immediately reflected to the dressmaker, who also loses confidence and also wants the support of authority. Thus the fashion section of the newspaper appeals to two classes of people, to the buying public and to the dressmakers. And the simple, two-ended relationship of buyer and seller becomes, through the entrance of a standard and the need of authority, a complicated three-cornered relationship of buyer, seller, and authority.

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