OUTDOOR LIFE AND THE 

 FINE ARTS 



BY JOHN GALEN HOWARD 



Director, School of Architecture, 

 University of California 



PEOPLE have been busy so long making shelter 

 for themselves that nouses of one sort or an- 

 other have come to seem a necessary condition 

 of life. Doubtless they are. But Californians believe 

 that a good many things can be done just as well or 

 better out of doors. In this favored region every- 

 thing contributes to make outdoor life not only 

 readily possible but enchantingly agreeable, and 

 those who live here manage to spend a large portion 

 of their time in the open air. All existence is affected 

 by this. You admire the brilliant complexion of the 

 women; they have their fresh-air life to thank for it. 

 You honor the breezy down-rightness of the men; 

 it comes from camp and ranch and mountain for- 

 est. You wonder at the proportion of talent in writ- 

 ing and in other arts which California has sent out 

 to fame and fortune; it is the natural result of plenty 

 of room. It seems hardly 109 much to say that a 

 new type of civilization is being developed on this 

 coast, one which is built up out of much the same 

 cosmopolitan elements as the rest of the country, 

 but under conditions of rare isolation and freedom, 

 new as compared with the earlier American life, 

 along the eastern seaboard, new in contrast with 

 later European history, but strangely like the old 

 Greek life, in its isolation, its place over against the 

 Orient and in touch therewith, its study of problems 

 on its own account and without precedent. But, 

 most of all, this life resembles Hellas in its combina- 

 tion of open-air existence with fresh intensity of 

 feeling. Californians are not jaded. The world is 

 new and keen for them. And whencesoever it may 

 come, the art impulse, the impulse to express emo- 

 tion, is supreme. 



Everywhere up and down the State, and in only 

 a less degree northward to Puget Sound and beyond, 

 the people are extraordinarily fond of celebrations. 

 These are not considered religious rites, naturally, 

 as the festivals of the Greeks mostly were; but they 

 arouse and satisfy the spirit of the people in much 

 the same way, and perhaps they arise from not un- 

 like psychological causes. Joy of existence, impulse 

 for expression, freedom from the trammels of prece- 

 dent these are classical conditions. And similar 

 252 



