Page:Clarence S. Darrow - Realism in Literature and Art (1899).djvu/25

 Rh a statue into life and make living flesh and coursing blood, and each true picture that he paints or draws makes the world a better place in which to live.

The artists of the realistic school have a sense so fine that they cannot help but catch the inspiration that is filling all the world's best minds with the hope of greater justice and more equal social life. With the vision of the seer they see the coming dawn, when true equality shall reign upon the earth; the time when democracy shall no more be confined to constitutions and to laws, but will be a part of human life. The greatest artists of the world to-day are telling facts and painting scenes that cause humanity to stop and think and ask why one should be a master and another be a serf; why a portion of the world should toil and spin, should wear away its strength and life, that the rest should live in idleness and ease.

The old-time artists thought they served humanity by painting saints and madonnas and angels from the myths they conjured in their brains. They painted war with long lines of soldiers dressed in uniforms and looking plump and gay; and a battle scene was always drawn from the side of the victorious camp, with the ensign proudly planting his bright colors on the rampart of the foe. One or two were dying,