A century ago, we were more culturally and artistically advanced. Magazines in the 1920s shined a very bright light on art and culture. One such magazine, albeit short lived, Art Lovers’ Magazine, is but one example of a cultural and artistic publication from 100 years ago when magazines ruled the media world. Here is its story:
Bringing God as the Defense Attorney
Under the headline “Tolerance” the editorial of Art Studio Life’s April 1926 stated, “In the Art field more than in any other may we find a wealth of beauty and inspiration that will soften life for everyone. WE do not claim that everything perpetrated in the name of Art is beautiful, but we do claim that nothing in true art can possibly offend any but those who, having tainted minds and questionable morals themselves, seek to smear the world with their personal tar of iniquity.”
The editorial concluded by stating, “They launch their attacks against all. In the name of religion, they seek to cover themselves by persecuting lovers of beauty. They purposely lose track of the fact that the greatest figure in history of the world was the incarnation of Tolerance, Christ. They seek to reform His world and His children, contrary to His Will.”
In another magazine, Art and Vanities, the editors didn’t stop at the necessity of nudity to the artist, but they went one step further bringing God into the equation of art and nudity. In the September 17, 1926 issue of Arts and Vanities, the editors wrote “In order to create beautiful statuary, soul stirring canvases, and monumental works, he must grasp the significance of each line in the human body. To him the human form spells perfection. No one can improve on the works of our Creator. We do not try. We seek only to understand and appreciate what he has given us in order that our lives and our hopes and aspirations may reach upward to the source of all good.”
And here is that powerful conclusion that sets the stage for all the nude art magazines of 1920s, “God was the first artist, he created plants, trees, animals, birds, and last but most beautiful, he created woman to adorn the universe. Man in order to elevate the ideals of his brother man endeavors to interpret these works for the Master. May we always do our share to help the artists in their struggle for the highest and most idealistic interpretations of Nature.”
In fact, Arts and Vanities went as far as placing a bible verse on its center spread of the October 17, 1926 issue that was displaying a picture of a half-naked woman. (Yes, there were centerfolds before Hugh Hefner’s Playboy of the 1950s, the only difference they were only one spread).
Arts and Vanities was not the only magazine using God as its defense attorney, Art and Life was doing the same. Art and Life’s motto was The Body Beautiful, The Mind Intellectual, and The Soul Intuitional. The editor wrote in the November 1925 issue, “This magazine stands consistently for the above program (their moto above). That the body may be beautiful it must be healthy, athletic, vibrant with life and action. The editor of this magazine believes that the nude body is inherently decent, the noblest work of the Creator, and those who look upon it as indecent, and to be hid from sight, have indecent minds; that nudeness and lewdness are in no way synonymous terms.”
In fact, earlier in the year, Art and Life magazine, raised the same topic in its July 1925 issue. In an editorial written by the magazine’s editor Guy Lockwood under the title “Concerning The Nude. What Is All The Fuss About?” He wrote “While we have strenuously defended the nude body as the highest work not only of art, but of the Creator, as well yet we are no more in favor of lewdness and real indecency than are those who are behind the movement to rid the news stands of objectionable publications.”
Lockwood added, “Real art magazines have endeavored to supply real needs in the line of figure study by publishing studies of the human body that give a knowledge of basic form and structure, proportions and action. These photographs or drawings, as the case may be, have necessarily often been nude, and Art and Life Magazine has published this kind of photographs and drawings, believing that in doing so this magazine was rendering a valuable assistance to real art advancement.”
Keep in mind that the aforementioned magazines were all in line with the tag line of Hesser’s magazine Arts Monthly Pictorial, “The Magazine of Pictures for Artists and Art Students.” A lot of these magazines did not accept subscriptions, “but Art Clubs or similar organizations may order twelve copies or more shipped by express each month, to be used for instructional purposes,” stated the masthead in ARTS Monthly Pictorial. Those art clubs and the newsstands were the major outlets of the art magazines of the 1920s.
To be continued…
Mr. Magazine 