HALF SPEED AHEAD

There was more truth than poetry in Professor Opdycke's announcement in the opening lecture of Fine Arts 1d that half the course would concern architecture, half painting, and a quarter sculpture. Every lecture in the course is necessarily presented at a speed rivaling Floyd Gibbons and Ted Husing at their best. The consequence is that only a few salient suggestions can be scribbled down by the student concerning even the most significant works of art, and the chances of a man's choosing the most important features for notation are at best slim.

The course, entitled History of Medieval, Renaissance and Modern Art, is one of the most outstandingly useful and important in the Department or in the College. Fleeting study is attempted of all the great masters and monuments since the Roman era, and Professor Opdycke's conduct of the course is masterly. There is no necessity, however, other than considerations of economy, for the compression of such significant subject matter into the scope of a single half-year. No course in the College could be more deserving of further attention, and few men would begrudge the extra hours spent in handling this as a full-year course. Numberless small but interesting facts could be added to the skeleton which is now presented. Some more fundamental sections of art history, notably German and Spanish Gothic architecture, medieval stained glass, and American colonial architecture now omitted entirely, could also be studied profitably.

The reinstatement of the old Fine Arts 1b or its equivalent would satisfy this need for an enlargement of the cramped quarters of Fine Arts 1d as it now exists. The Fine Arts Department must recognize the failure of its attempt to confine the attention given to such an important field.