The Green Uniform

The latest wearer of the green uniform of the Academie des Beaux Arts, one of the five subdivisions of the ancient Institut de France, is J. L. Forain, famous cartoonist of Le Figaro. He was a pupil of Honore Daumier, greatest of all users of the satiric brush of the political cartoonist. Daumier was a great artist from any point of view. Forain has never equalled him, but his position is very important, not only in journalism, but in " straight" etching and painting as well.

" Election to the Institut will add nothing to the fame of J. L. Forain," says one Paris paper, which adds that " he owes almost nothing to the Ecole des Beaux Arts, child of the Institut."

Yet public honors and recognitions are not necessarily empty things, especially if they break down in the public "mind the conception of certain arts as minor or insignificant. Would a green uniform help to forward the art of political and social commentary (as expressed in drawn, rather than spoken lines) in this country? We have innumerable competent political artists (Darling, Rollin Kirby, McCutcheon) a few with streaks of genius, none of the stature of Daumier or even of some of the lesser men abroad. If a green uniform would help, let some benefactor import one.

However, when our journalistic art comes of age (which there are signs that it is already beginning to do) it will no doubt take an entirely different form from that of France. French cartoons tend to make the observer wince or smile, the American to make him laugh or frown. Forain is of the first type of French cartoonist; sombre, mordant, much wit and little humor.