Newspaper Page Text
The Campus Mirror
Published by the Students of Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia
During the College Year
VOL. V.
MAY, 1929
Number 8
INTELLECTUAL
RELISH
By Thelma B. Brown, '29
Every human I)eiiiK is horn
with desires and capacities
for recognizing and enjoying
the beautiful. What is the
process which results in a
power of discernment, a
scale of true values, or a re
fined judgement?
The little girl who ate a
piece of cake baked by her
mother, an expert baker, and
felt the desire to assist her
mother in the process next
time, was experiencing what
might be called a first step
in the development of taste.
And perhaps one day she goes through the
process alone, is interested in it, and event-
becomcs a producer, a creator, an artist.
()r. she may not take this second step. She
may fall into the class, who, through culti
vation and refinement, acquire taste.
Taste comes by habit. The little girl ate
constantly the breads of her expert mother.
She formed the habit of liking the very
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REPARATIONS AGAIN
By Myrtle Daphne Clarke, ’29
Early in the year 1929, a second Repara
tion' Conference, called at the request of
Germany and granted by the Allies, met in
Paris for the purpose of arriving at a settle
ment of Germany’s debt to the creditor na
tions. The German Reparations problem is a
child of eleven years, having come into being
with the Armistice of the memorable No
vember 11, 1918. The claims which the Al
lies hold against the Germans are clearly
stated in Article 231 of the Treaty of Ver
sailles, which is as follows: “The Allies and
Associated Governments affirm and Germany
accepts the responsibility of Germany and
her Allies for causing all the loss and dam
age to which the Allied and Associated Gov
ernments and their nationals have been sub-
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EXHIBIT OF FINE ART BY
AMERICAN NEGRO
ARTISTS
2,800 People Visit Exhibit at
Spelman College
By Gaston A. Bradford, ’29
THE OPERA
By Aquilla L. Jones. '29
An opera is a drama set
to music. The forerunners
of this form of composition
were the morality, mystery
and miracle plays of the
middle ages. The opera had
its earliest beginnings in the
attempts of a small band of
enthusiasts who were united
in their attempts to repro
duce Greek forms of art.
The title of the oldest ex
tant opera is Euryrice which
was produced on the occa
sion of the marriage of
Henry IV, and Maria de
Medici at Florence, in 1600.
As the opera, appearing first as a diver
sion of the wealthy, developed, it became
popularized, and in 1637, the first opera
house for a public audience was opened in
Venice, which city became the scene of ac
tivity of such composers of the opera as
Cavalli and Cesti. As the opera became pop-
• ular in the different countries of Europe, the
musicians of each began to compose in a style
that expressed the peculiarities of their own
people. Thus, there grew up the German,
French, English and Italian opera. Side In
side w r ith the opera grew the opera buffa
from which has developed the light musical
comedies of today.
Some of the greatest contributors to the
development of the opera are Cavalli, Cesti.
Lully, Purcell, Gluck, Cherubini, Rossini. Don
izetti, Meyerbeer, Wagner, Verdi, Gounod
and Jacques Offenbach.
\ very interesting opera is Lohengrin, writ-
Froin April 28 to May 6, 2,800 visitors regis
tered, in the improvised art gallery provided in
Laura Spelman Hall on Spelman Campus, where
there were on display sixty-four beautiful paint
ings by Negro artists—a traveling exhibit of
fine art, sponsored by the Harmon Founda
tion and the committee on Church and Race
Relations of the Federal Council of Churches.
This exhibit was recently displayed at In
ternational House in New York City and went
from Spelman to the Atlanta Y. W. C. A. The
purpose of it is to interest the public in the
accomplishments of Negroes in this branch of I ten by Richard Wagner. It was first pre-
GOOD ROADS IN GEORGIA
By Florence n. Jones, ’29
Georgia is behind many other states in the
building of good roads, with the result that she
is behind in many other things that good roads
make possible. Her cities are growing and
providing more and more markets within easy
distance of farms if only good roads lay
between farm and market place. With hard
roads and an automobile, fresh eggs can be taken
directly from the poultry farm for the buyers’
breakfasts before they arc cold; fresh veg-
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the fine arts.
Several faculty members with the help of
the students, acted as hostesses. Each class
was assigned a day to show visitors about the
art gallery. To simplify the work the classes
were further divided so that at every hour in
the day some were on duty to receive the
visitors who came. Various types of people
came to see the pictures; school children, busy
professional men and women, laborers, and shy,
timid persons who got a new experience.
The majority of the paintings are in oil with
the brush as Motley’s Octoroon Girl, or with
the palette knife as is Johnson’s Sunny Low,
sented in Weimar, August 28, 1850, under the
direction of Liszt. Its story is the blend
ing of three legends, but its basic one is that
of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. The scene
of this opera is laid in Antwerp during the
first half of the tenth century. The plot is
as follows: Henry I of Germany has come
to Antwerp to raise an army to send against
the Huns, who are on the eve of an invasion.
He finds Brabant almost in a state of an
archy as a result of the news that Elsa, the
daughter of the late Duke, while strolling in
| the woods with her brother, Gottfried, has
murdered him in order to gain the sovereign
ty for herself. Telramund, the guardian of
Elsa and Gottfried, who has been rejected
by Elsa, marries Ortrud, daughter of the
1-
Su'cct Chariot. Others are in charcoal, water
colors, or pastels. They treat of a variety of
subjects: religious, as shown in Hardwick’s
Jesus of Aazareth, and Dillons Christ Blessing Prince of Friesland. After the marriage,
Little Children; nature, as seen in the painting ramund claims the dukedom which is Elsa’s,
of Jones, I he (iiiardian of the If ood, and Free- The king, who is much disturbed, sends for
Ion’s Autumn and Gloucester Coast; landscape, Elsa and kindly asks her to defend herself
as seen in Freelon’s Rocky Seek Road—Glou- of the charge of murdering her brother. In
cester, and Hayden's Saint Scrvan. There are stead of doing this she begins to sin^ of her
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