The Permanent Art Exhibition at the Eagles' Club

... They claimed — and in their claim they spoke truly — that art in Lebanon is a wretched orphan, with none to show it tenderness and none to care for it. And artists are the last people to meet with encouragement, or with an understanding of the value of their works, in spirit or in substance.

... And they claimed too — and in their claim they spoke truly — that in the world of art we are still infants crawling; we open our eyes upon a painting to taste it, and perhaps we understand something of it, and perhaps we understand nothing at all...

And art among us, for a time now past, had no value. Did not our greatest artists fail, or nearly fail, to make a profession of art — for no reason but that our rich have not learned to spend their money along this road? And was not the flowering of art in Europe the fruit of its princes' passion, of their exalting of artists and their estimating them, in their day, at their true worth?...

Often I ask myself, between me and my own soul: what artistic renaissance would bud here in Lebanon, if men versed in art rose to power — men who would give it a place in the agendas of their work??

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... Despite this state of despair, we are not altogether bankrupt; there are good tidings that greet us from here and from there, and in them a gleam of hope in a brighter future...

We came to know it at the "Eagles' Club" — a modest club in Ras Beirut, whose founding goes back a few years, made up of a handful of university youth who believe in spiritual values — serving them and fostering them, if it is not granted them to march in their train...

And this Eagles' Club, besides organizing family gatherings at which the young people listen to debates and instructive lectures — literary, poetic, social, and political... has in recent years taken to holding permanent art exhibitions, to encourage rising artists and to refine people's tastes. These permanent art exhibitions caught the attention of the cultivated class, those to whom it is not given to visit artists in their homes or in their studios; and their patrons were soon streaming to the club on regular visits, repeated every two weeks at the opening of the new showing... discovering on each visit new seats of beauty, and talents cutting their way with difficulty, opening at times into buds astir with loveliness...

... And everything ran its natural course, until the beginning of last May, when behold, the art exhibition was something new of its kind... something of the utmost novelty... It was an exhibition of the productions — or the "attempts" — of children under ten, from the various kindergartens of Beirut, and all the drawings were inspired by "the circus."... I went around the exhibition hall seeking out the personalities of these children through their works: here a strong personality that knows what it wants... here confusion and muddle, and there an individual bent toward freedom... here a beautiful clarity, and there a plain disorder in form and in color...

And a great artist who was in my company whispered in my ear: "I attach great importance to this exhibition. It is the best thing this club has done so far..." And under his guidance I set about gathering samples of these naive drawings... to include them with this article...

And as I thank the "Eagles' Club" for adopting the project of "introducing artists to those who ought to know them" — and this is a truly noble work — I appeal to it to redouble its care for these dewy buds, that one day they may become flowers in full bloom, whose beauty dazzles the eyes!