THE SECOND FLOOR

MODERN AMERICAN PAINTINGS

The American painters of the Colonial period and of the first fifty years following the Revolution were followed by a group of landscape painters, known as the Hudson River school, who were more indigenous and original than their predecessors. These men enthusiastically transcribed the scenery of their native America, especially the Catskill Mountains and the valley of the Hudson.

With George Inness began what might be called the middle school of American landscape, which came to be one of the most important contributions that America has made to painting. Inness discarded the humble literalism of Kensett and the grandiloquence of Bierstadt. Like his contemporaries at Barbizon, he preferred more intimate subjects, and of their detail he aimed to give only enough to reproduce the single, synthetic emotion into which his poetic fire could fuse the scene. Among his able contemporaries and successors were Wyant, Homer Martin, Tryon, Eaton, Ranger, Blakelock and Horatio Walker. To this tradition in landscape was added a virile foundation of marine painting in the works of Winslow Homer.

Artists of power and individuality, whose influence on the development of American painting would be difficult to trace, include the great, perhaps rather un-American, Whistler, revealer of subtle tone relations; Vedder, master of rhythmic line; La Farge, rich colorist and decorator; Albert P. Ryder, with his glowing color and romantic imagination; George Fuller, whose tender poetry and mellow, golden-brown tone were his native gift; William Morris Hunt, whose enthusiasm as teacher, more than whose example as artist, revealed to younger men the new breadth and insight of their contemporaries in France.

The seventies and eighties of the century were marked in general by a dependence upon the art of Europe. A group of men, including Duveneck, Chase and Shirlaw, went to Munich whence they brought home a solid, painter-like technique and a sober tonality. These qualities became a factor in the early development of such artists in America as John W. Alexander and Joseph De Camp. Edwin A. Abbey, painting in England, developed the romantic anecdote. The strongest influence, however, came out of Paris, mother of modern art movements. The teachings of such masters as Gerome, Bonnat and Carolus-Duran were assimilated without sacrifice of individuality. Fresher, breezier color and a more brilliant technique came into American figure painting. To this group belong Thayer, Volk, Dewing and Brush, refined painters of figures; Low and Cox, followers of a more classic tradition; Gari Melchers, whose greater directness comes partly out of Holland, Mary Cassatt, influenced by Manet and Degas; and Sargent, whose gusto, spontaneity, and brilliant technique have made him one of America's four or five greatest painters.

Weir, Twachtman and Hassam imported the new enthusiasm for Impressionism, for the use of pure colors in reproducing high-keyed effects of ephemeral sunlight. Tarbell, Reid, Little, C. H. Davis, Symons, Redfield and Frieseke show to varying extent the same influences. The present tendency in American painting seems to be toward greater diversity and a more unfettered assertion of personality, as exemplified by such men as Davies, Henri, Hawthorne and Bellows.

No member of the Hudson River school, probably, imbibed so much of the qualities of the Dusseldorf masters as did Bierstadt. He chose for his big canvases panoramas from impressive scenes in Yellowstone Park and in the Rockies. He attempted to give the illusion of reality to these by a minutely detailed rendition of foreground, while the subject itself, with his favorite lowering clouds and romantic haze, was to produce the desired grandeur. The result made his paintings popular in America of his own time; but today his grandeur seems a little theatrical.

It is rare that an artist uses with equal success both water color and oil. With Winslow Homer one hardly knows which to admire more, his oil paintings or his water colors. His oils are, perhaps, more bare, more elemental than the water colors, but the tones are harsher and often less true. In the winter of 1885-1886, Homer visited the Bahama Islands, where a new world of color was opened to his eyes. The water colors which he made during this and subsequent voyages are among the finest things he ever did. Among these is The Conch Divers: negroes on the deck of a sloop are watching the reappearance of a diver who has just come up alongside with some shells in his hand. The Island of New Providence with its palms is seen in the distance at the right. The composition is admirable; the figures are drawn with great power.

“It is Winslow Homer's distinction that he was the first American painter to use an American idiom,” writes William Howe Downes. “Not only his subjects, but his manner of treating them; not only his motives, but his point of view; not only his material, but the style and sentiment in which he clothes it, have the stamp of Americanism indelibly impressed upon them.” This spirited statement might be qualified by the observation that it is George Inness and Fuller who express more truly the spirit of American rural life; while it is Homer who expresses the spirit of the frontiersman, the deep-sea fisherman, and all those whose lives bring them face to face with the bare facts of the unmitigated elements.

A contemporary American painter of rocks and sea who may be considered to be in a sense a successor to Winslow Homer, is Paul Dougherty. He is thoroughly American in spirit, and mainly self-taught. After a brief career in the law, he turned to painting. With a knowledge of drawing and perspective as a foundation upon which to proceed, he went to Europe where he spent several years studying without masters in Paris, London, Florence, Venice and Munich.

He returned to his native country more American than ever. Our artists, he said, walked too near the sterile soil of eclecticism, deferred too much to established codes. Like Winslow Homer, he scorned the nicer subtleties of personal moods. He rejoiced in nature's more vigorous aspects and he looked at her impersonally, objectively. This passion for puttmg things down as they are rather than using them as a means of expressing his individual moods, is, curiously enough, the key to the individual note which stamps his canvases. At the same time this literal tendency seems to some critics to be his greatest weakness.

He has devoted himself almost exclusively to chronicling the moods of the sea, to transcribing the profound surging billows, the swirling of eddies, the resistless pounding of waves against cliffs, the dash of spray upward into the light. A good example of these fresh sea-pieces is Moonlit Surf. It is a comparatively recent work, and shows the sea striking against rocks and sweeping into their crevices, while a warm moonlight, glancing over the crests of waves, gives color.

In this canvas, Sargent has shown the hushed pensiveness of mood, the perfection of sensitively modulated color of which his many-sided genius is capable, but which it has, in fact, rarely attained to such a degree as here. The subject of the painting is the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris at twilight, with the moon rising above the trees. In the distance may be seen the dome of the Pantheon. Various groups of figures lend the scene a measured animation. The picture is hardly more than a sketch, but its justness of values conveys an impression of reality which is characteristic of the artist. Particularly attractive is the mellow tone of the painting. The soft tawny grays of the foreground, the sombre green of the thickly-massed trees; the note of rose in the woman's costume, form an exquisite harmony, accentuated by occasional touches of black. It was presented by Sargent to his friend Charles Pollen McKim, the celebrated architect, who died in 1909. It is signed, “To my friend McKim, John S. Sargent.” A replica of this painting, in the John G. Johnson Collection, is dated 1879.—The Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection.

At the time of Twachtman's death, fear was expressed by a fellow artist that the canvases he had left behind might prove too fine a food for the general palate. In the intervening years, however, general taste has become better accustomed to the impressionist mode of expression; and today anyone must be in harassed and impatient mood who does not respond to the sensitive appeal of Twachtman's vague landscapes. These carry to the last degree of refinement the idea that spiritual rather than physical facts are properly the subject matter of art.

In the White Bridge we sense the very essence of soft spring-time. The yellow-green of young grass and tender foliage gives the general tone of the painting. In the foreground, on the bank of a stream, a crooked tree reaches out its sappy young branches, which form, together with the latticed railing of an intimate white bridge, a delicate pattern against some evergreens behind. In the foreground on the quiet surface of the stream the reflection of the bridge forms a tracery in pale lilac.—The Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection.

A fine and characteristic example of the work of John W. Alexander, is A Ray of Sunlight. The appeal of the work is felt immediately. It represents a young woman playing a violincello. One can imaging emotional strains of Chopin. There is extraordinary breadth in the treatment of the musician's gown, yet the coarse absorbent canvas gives a soft and interesting surface to the broad planes. The most lasting attraction of the picture is due to the artist's treatment of light. A soft, glowing, effulgence flows in from the right, and envelops the graceful figure, a direct ray falling across the forearm and reflecting in the polished surface of the instrument.

Gardner Symons, an important member of the modern group of American landscape painters, is fond of representing winter scenes with snow covering the ground and softening its contours. In River in Winter he has produced a cheerful scene, treated with much beauty of color. Late afternoon sunlight slants across the snow, casting rosy lights and violet shadows. Between sparsely wooded banks, a river flows toward the spectator. In the distance are low opalescent hills beneath a transparent greenish sky.—The Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection.

It may be interesting to compare River in Winter by Symons with the painting in the same collection and bearing the same title by Edward W. Redfield. Redfield is a well known American painter noted for his winter landscapes. Our example of Redfield's work is highly characteristic. Compared with Symons' painting, we find it less warm in color, characterized by a more brittle and restless handling of surfaces, and a less sedate and simple feeling for composition, but quite as convincing as a portrayal of nature.

Frederick Carl Frieseke is one of the most delightful among the younger American painters who revel in the sunlight of Impressionism. He studied at the Chicago Art Institute, at the Art Students' League, and, in Paris, under Constant, Laurens and Whistler; but Claude Monet has been the important influence. Frieseke's interest is in the color effect of the things in his chosen field of vision, in the effect things make at a single glance upon an eye trained to see the transient color of shadows and of objects in sunlight. For the detailed study of form, he cares little; yet his drawing is adequate, and his spots of bright color are always worked together into a pleasing and balanced pattern, as we see it in the Garden in June.

Lately, a more diffused light and less dazzling color has appealed to Frieseke, and he has given us a series of lovely impressions of ladies at their various domestic pursuits. The painting entitled The Toilet in the Institute's collection is an example of the later studies.—The Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection.

The consummate workmanship of Emil Carlsen in covering a canvas with pigments gives the illusion of appealing to more senses than the sense of vision. The delicious handling of color and the creamy texture of his paint seem to tickle the palate and to please the finger tips. The Open Sea is the sea at its most alluring. A fair breeze gives the water vivacity without making it threaten. It seems friendly, with its subtle endless shifting of blues and pale greens; one's face welcomes the dash of spray from the crest of such a wave.

Emil Carlsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1853, and came to America in 1872. He studied architecture in his native city, but subsequently devoted himself to painting, in which he soon achieved unusual success. He has received many awards and is represented in the Metropolitan Museum, the National Gallery in Washington, and other important collections.

A Woodland Interior in the Institute's collection is another work by Carlsen, revealing similar charms to those found in The Open Sea.—The Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection.

The favorite subject of Robert Reid's study is the gracefully clad figure of woman, enveloped in the soft atmosphere of the studio or out of doors. His treatment is purely decorative, and his color contrasts slight. He poses his model quietly, engaged in unpurposeful occupations such as gazing at a bowl of goldfish, dreaming before a bit of bright porcelain, or seated placidly in a meadow, as in The Yellow Flower. In this pleasing painting, the filmy blouse, the yellow skirt, the golden skin and hair almost melt into the yellowish green of the grass in which the figure is Placed.—The Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection.

A psychologist has pointed out somewhere that if it were not for the artists among us pointing out the beauties of landscape, very few of us would ever appreciate them. One finds no landscapes painted on Greek vases. The early European painters used landscapes only as backgrounds for portraits or religious subjects. Certainly there exist in nature charms of color in shadow, rich varieties of pure tone in sunlight which none of us suspected until the Impressionist painters insisted upon them.

In Midsummer by R. Sloan Bredin one finds not only an unusually pleasing piece of diagonal composition, not only a lyrical mood undisturbed by disharmony, but also a way of seeing things which, if we could make it a part of ourselves, would much enhance our own visual enjoyment of nature. The beautiful play of color through the foliage of the big tree at the left of the canal, the subtle effects produced by the faint haze of a July noonday, the fresh tones of the nearer foliage drooping across the larger tree beyond, should prove a lesson as well as a joy.

One of the most personal and interesting painters in America today is Arthur B. Davies. His painting ignores the commonplaces and unessentials of life. “Never once does he wander from his dream, his vision,” writes Samuel Isham. “His enchanted garden is not visited at rare intervals; it is not one of many resorts, it is his home, his retreat from which he never departs. It is a wonderful land of which he gives us glimpses—of flowery meadows and bosky groves peopled by youth and childhood.” His visions are naive, tender, whimsical, often vaguely allegorical, sometimes a little unintelligible, but never trite nor sentimental. In his recent work he seems to tend more and more toward the unintelligible, as his love of the allegorical and the purely spiritual grows.

To Night's Overture much of these remarks may seem not to apply. Here is nothing of the naive, the whimsical, the allegorical. And yet this landscape is characteristic of Davies' art. It is a highly spiritualized and individual treatment of landscape, wonderfully decorative in color and arrangement, and highly endowed with feeling.—The Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection.

MODERN EUROPEAN PAINTINGS

To trace the history of painting in the XIX century in France, is to trace the main stem of its recent developments throughout the western world. Germany has grafted something of her own national spirit upon the parent art forms of the French; England has contributed some original impulses; Holland and Spain have looked back to their own past as well as across to the contemporary painting of the French. Yet it is France, with her bewildering crowding in of new ideas and crowding out of old, which during the past century, has led the way in painting, and in the opening of the XX century continues to lead.

In the beginning of the XIX century, the longing of intellectual France for a return to the poise and civic virtues of republican Rome had found its visual expression in the classical paintings of David (1748-1825) and Ingres (1780-1867). The beginnings of Romanticism are seen in the paintings of Gros, who dared to paint his characters in clothes more modern than the toga. Gericault and Delacroix (1799-1863) completed the development in their impassioned color and movement and their searching out of romantic and exotic subject matter.

A group of mid-century artists who combined many of the qualities of the Classic and Romantic schools included Cabanel, Lefebvre, Bouguereau and Gerome. The military painters, Meissonier, Detaille, and de Neuville, might conveniently be grouped with them, they alike treating romantic subjects in a precise and academic manner. Reflections of this group in Germany are seen in Piloty, Menzel and Max; in Great Britain in Alma-Tadema, Leighton and Orchardson. Such painters as these expressed the Academic attitude with which, from 1850 to 1885, the ideas of the Barbizon painters, the Realists, the rising Impressionists, and, in England, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (unrelated to any Continental movement) had to compete.

The Barbizon School, including Rousseau, Corot, Millet, Daubigny, Troyon, and others, owed much to the Dutch landscape painters of the XVII century and to the influence of the Englishman Constable (1776-1837), who had gone directly to nature and represented what he saw with a fidelity rare since the time of Ruisdael and Hobbema. The spirit of this group inspired Mauve and Jacob Maris in Holland, while Israels was influenced rather by the old Dutch masters of figure painting.

Modern Impressionism is a mixture of two streams of influence. One arose in the direct vision of Courbet, and the realistic painting of enveloping atmosphere as invented by Velasquez and rediscovered by Manet. The other stream springs from the poetic impressionistic methods of Corot and the fiery Turner. Influenced by these two currents, Monet and Renoir produced the high-keyed externality of Luminism, which has strongly affected contemporary American painters; while in Europe, [pg 91] Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, Sorolla, Zuloaga, Zorn and Liebermann have drawn in varying degrees from the same two streams. Defying all classification, stands the one great decorator of the century, Puvis de Chavannes; while initiating the most modern art movement are Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse, who revolt against objectivism, and strive in visual forms to express the abiding verities.

To those who asked him why he did not go to Italy for his subjects, Georges Michel would answer: “The man who can not find enough to paint during his whole life in a circuit of four miles is in reality no artist.” This artistic creed was nothing less than revolutionary at that time, in the early days of the XIX century, when the landscape painter regarded nature as unworthy of his brush unless it was bedecked with ancient temples and peopled with gods and goddesses, or at least suggested Italy or some distant land. Georges Michel lived on the heights of Montmartre in Paris. He walked out into the country and painted what he saw. His landscapes are actual studies of nature painted in the open air. As one of the first painters of paysage intime, Michel was a forerunner of Rousseau and the men of 1830. His narrow, subdued scheme of color establishes his relationship with the great Dutch masters of the XVII century. In France, however, his was pioneer work; he did not cater to the popular demand, and it was not until the World Exhibition in 1889 that his genius was generally recognized.—Gift of James J. Hill.

The most popular figure paintings of the mid-nineteenth century in France were those of the group of compromisers or semi-classicists. Their compositions were the natural successors to the classicism of the academicians David and Ingres, modified by a new vogue in France for romantic types and for modern history. One of the important men of this group was Bouguereau. He had much skill in drawing and in composition. He makes his appeal, however, chiefly through his choice of themes, employing usually either sentimental religious subjects or pretty children.—From the Bequest of Mrs. W. H. Dunwoody.

The bright Turkish interior, which Gerome has chosen for his scene, gives it a colorful setting. The walls are covered with rich blue-green tiles. The brilliant garment thrown over the seat at the right, and the towel hanging above it give the complementary colors. Against this vivid ground are played the cool flesh tones of the seated woman and the sleek, dusky skin of the negro attendant. Further color and exotic interest are given by the gaudy bangles and kerchief of the slave.

Gerome is usually classed with Bouguereau among the semi-classicists of the XIX century in France. In his work, we find the strong interest in contours, in reposeful composition, and in smooth finish for which the academy stood, while his subjects take us to the romantic Orient and spread before us the pageantry of history.—Gift of Mrs. Frederick B. Wells in memory of her father, Frank H. Peavey.

This battle scene by the French military painter de Neuville depicts the crucial moment in a hard campaign undertaken to crush a rebellion among the Egyptians. In the gray dawn of September 13, 1882, a British force with bayonets fixed stormed the entrenched natives; and in a few minutes hard fighting decided the supremacy of Great Britain in Egypt.

The Polish painter Chelminski was contemporary with the military painters working in France, and his work is similar, although his training was that of Munich, not Paris. In Napoleon's Retreat from Russia, he suggests in the tragic sunset lighting of the sky, the frightful demoralization and suffering of Napoleon's army, defeated by boundless steppes and relentless winter.—Gift of James J. Hill.

Few great artists have been so little influenced by their great forerunners as Courbet was. A man of strong peasant instincts, of incomparable forcefulness and initiative, he looked at the works of the great romanticists of his time and laughed with a titantic contempt. He looked at the works of Raphael and Michelangelo and laughed again. Their power and beauty were nothing to Courbet because they were afraid of the unvarnished truth. The Spaniards he admired. He was instinctively the “painter of raw material.” Moreover, he was a truculent propagandist, an “individualist with strong elbows.”

In his own time, he was a subject of ridicule; but we now know that he was a great painter as well as a blunt pioneer. His great artistry is inescabable when we see in such a painting as The Roe Covert, the bold naturalism of vision, and directness of brushing combined with such a fine power of harmonizing tones, and through all, such a tender feeling for the subject. He is as a young savage might be in his element; he can love Nature without first making romantic literature of her.—Gift of James J. Hill.

Rousseau, the founder of the Barbizon school, had the landscapes of such XVII century Hollanders as Ruisdael and of the English Constable as precedents. Diaz, one of Rousseau's followers, was fond of painting landscapes dark with sullen skies or forest shade, enlivened with bright spots where human figures are introduced or where the sun penetrates the trees. Daubigny, younger and less romantic, introduces with his freer handling, a yet more modern spirit. These two paintings are part of the memorial gift of Mrs. Frederick B. Wells.

Troyon, a member of the Barbizon group, was fascinated by the pastoral aspect of cattle in landscapes. While Ruisdael was the principal example for Rousseau and Diaz, it was to Cuyp, the Dutch cattle painter, that Troyon went for inspiration. These two paintings are part of the bequest of Mrs. W. H. Dunwoody.

Historically, Boudin is important as a link between the Men of 1830 and the Impressionists—more specifically, between Corot and Monet. If the public and the conservatives of the Academy ignored him, his art was understood and admired by his greatest confreres. “King of the skies,” Corot called him. Courbet, after watching him paint a canvas, exclaimed, “Truly you are one of the seraphim, for you alone understand the heavens!” Monet, in a letter to him in 1889, wrote “in recognition of the advice which has made me what I am.” The modest Boudin in turn gives much credit to Corot, Courbet and Jongkind for his own insight into the subtle truths of atmosphere.

Born at Honfleur, the son of a steamboat pilot, Boudin was a cabin-boy until the age of fourteen. In spare moments, he began to make sketches which revealed talent. Later he was able to devote more time to painting, although even beyond the age of fifty there were periods when he was obliged to turn day-laborer to keep himself alive. The greater part of his paintings represent scenes in Norman and Breton harbors showing quais and jetties with the bare masts of square-riggers fretted against gray skies. Some time after 1868 Isabey persuaded him to paint the fashionable watering places, and it was several years later that our Beach at Trouville must have been produced. Yet in reality his subject was always sky and atmosphere. The charm of his water, the depth and reach of his skies, with that marvelous subtlety of silvery grays, and violet grays, and leaden grays, his habit of painting always “en plein-air,” his way of using the brush, these things must indeed have influenced the younger Monet, and Monet's canvases dated around 1870 show a clear parallelism.

Albert Andre is known especially for his charming flower pieces. These show the artist as a master of technique, gifted with a peculiar sensitiveness to value relations and an unusual color sense. He is particularly happy in securing an agreeable texture. He is a realist in intention, but combines truth of representation with beauty of design. In the Geranium, the emphasis is rather more upon decoration of the rectangular surface of the canvas than upon the representation of tri-dimensional form. The clear note of the salmon pink blossoms against the accompaniment of the carefully distinguished grays and the Venetian red in leaves, wall, and draperies is finely felt. Andre holds a distinguished position among painters of the contemporary French school.

The Conversion is an excellent example of the work of Gabriel Max, one of the well-known painters of Germany in the XIX century. It represents a scene apparently laid in the catacombs of Rome early in the Christian era. A woman seated on some stone steps is trying to persuade three men standing opposite her to embrace the new religion to which she has already become a convert. It is a good piece of psychological illustration. The woman's figure is painted much in the style of Bouguereau, but there is a deeper sincerity in her face, her mouth betraying the neurotic sensitiveness not uncommon among religious mystics. The group of three men is well painted and fine in color. The two nearer men seem to have been completely won over by the gentle teachings, while the young man at the right, though much moved, still resists conversion. The strong interest in the literary or illustrative aspect of the subject is characteristic of this period of painting in Germany.—Given in memory of Mrs. Thomas Lowry by Mrs. Gustav Schwyzer, Mrs. Percy Hagerman and Horace Lowry.

The exotic quality of this painting of Arab horsemen appeals quickly to one's love of travel and romance—the great extent of the untamed surroundings, the quivering refinement of the horses, the bizarre barbarity of the costumes and accoutrements, the fascination of these fierce handsome Arab faces, the rich color of the whole! Schreyer was the German reflection of the French Orientalist-romanticists, Delacroix and Decamps, although his less fiery spirit is perhaps closer to his refined contemporary Fromentin.—Given in memory of Mrs. Thomas Lowry.

This little village is painted with a love of sunlight and color, breathes a mountain quality in the sharp, clear atmosphere.

Zugel shows a brilliance in his work which suggests paintings by the American Sargent. One might hunt long for a truer animal study, or for a more beautiful rendering of sunlight and beguiling purple shadow.

These two paintings are the foundation of a collection belonging to the Scandinavian Art Society, and deposited in the Institute. The figure of the old peasant is instinct with character. The complex planes of the weather-beaten face and gnarled hands are established with the minimum of means. The painting by Fjaestad owes its fascination mainly to the almost Chinese sense of style and pattern. The movement of the water's swirling lines is interesting, well schemed, and perfectly balanced.

The art of Israels, with its straightforward and sympathetic portrayal of the emotions of the common folk, makes a direct and wholesome appeal to all. Its democratic, ethical purport would have satisfied the demands of Tolstoy. Without theatricality, or morbid invention of horrible and ironic situations, he interprets the lives of poor people. The types he chooses are strong and simple. Sometimes he tenderly portrays young men and girls in the fields, or happy peasant mothers with their children, as in our painting; and when poverty or tragedy are the theme, as they in much of his later work, he sees no demoralization nor degradation—only fortitude and sadness. The spirit of man triumphs.—Gift of Mrs. Frederick B. Wells.

Sorolla, born at Valencia in the warm sunshine of southern Spain, is one of the most joyous and spontaneous artists who ever slapped paint onto canvas. The first exhibition of his work in this country was held at the Hispanic Museum in New York in 1909; and there has probably never been in America an exhibition of paintings crowded with such enthusiastic thousands of people. As one came into the exhibition gallery, one was fairly dazzled by the high key and the headlong virtuosity of the paintings which lined the walls; one felt a sense of heightened vitality.

We are told that Sorolla studied in the Academies of Valencia and Rome, and finally that he was influenced by Bastien Lepage, Menzel, and by the old Spanish and Italian masters whom he copied. It is hard to think of him in connection with any such schools or painters. His bold brushwork, his unaffected and individual handling of bright sunlight, his high animal spirits, are like no other painter we know, unless it be the Scandinavian Zorn.

The subjects chosen by Sorolla are varied. He paints fashionable portraits, and occasionally landscape. Mostly he paints scenes on the sunny Mediterranean shores of Spain. Into these he introduces figures, sometimes subordinated to the sea, more often as the principal interest of the picture. Sometimes he shows fishermen working at their boats, as in the stunning canvas in the Metropolitan Museum. When he does, they are no bent-backed toilers, but joyous, active, triumphant creatures. More often Sorolla loves to paint people playing on the beach, their light clothes spotted cleverly against the bright sand or waves; or best of all, children! Healthy and full of vivid glee, they race along the beach, lie on the sand in the wash of reaching breakers, or swim frog-like in the green transparency of sheltered water.

This landscape by the Scotch painter, Alexander Nasmyth, is so unobtrusive as to be easily overlooked by the visitor. For those who feel the spirit of the little picture, however, it has an abiding charm. The artist was a man of extraordinary versatility and enterprise, an able scene painter and architect, and an inventor and engineer of eminence. In our painting one sees little of the boldness expected from a mind given credit for originating principles of steamboat propulsion and bridge construction. The touch is formal, almost shy, in its reserve; the drawing is precise, and the lighting and color conventional. Much of the charm of the work is probably due to this reticence. The scene presents a restful tranquility, and a quaint homeliness. The interest plays back and forth between the romantic old ruin and the contrasting rural and domestic life which has put past splendors to such strange modern uses. The theme is reminiscent of Piranesi's etchings of classical ruins. Out of death springs life; from the decayed tree come strange fungus growths. After hundreds of years, the castle wall of a feudal lord gives support to a peasant cottage; his hall serves to shelter cattle.

Alexander Nasmyth was a pupil of the portraitist, Allan Ramsay (1713-1784). Ramsay discovered him in Edinburgh painting armorial bearings on carriage doors, and took him to London. Upon his return to Edinburgh, he painted portraits, including a famous portrait of Robert Burns; but turned his attention, after 1793, exclusively to landscapes.

The story of Psyche's Wedding is a myth of Greek origin, and runs as follows: A certain king in the west country had three beautiful daughters. The youngest was by far the most beautiful; so beautiful, indeed, that she received homage from men which was due to Venus alone. The anger of the goddess was aroused against her, and the maiden herself became unhappy because, due to her awesome beauty, no one sought her in marriage. The King, her father, inquired of the Oracle of Apollo what should be done. The story is told in Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean, from which the following extract is taken:

“And Apollo answered him thus: ‘Let the damsel be placed on the top of a certain mountain, adorned as for the bed of marriage and of death. Look not for a son-in-law of mortal birth but for that evil serpent-thing by reason of whom even the gods tremble and the shades of Styx are afraid.’ So the king returned home and made known the oracle to his wife. For many days she lamented, but at last the fulfillment of the divine precept is urgent upon her, and the company make ready to conduct the maiden to her deadly bridal. And now the nuptial torch gathers dark smoke and ashes, the pleasant sound of the pipe is changed into a cry, the marriage hymn concludes in a sorrowful wailing, below her yellow wedding veil, the bride shook away her tears; insomuch that the whole city was afflicted together at the ill-luck of the stricken household.... she was silent, and with firm step went on her way, and they proceeded to the appointed place on a steep mountain and left there the maiden alone and took their way homeward dejectedly.” It was Cupid, however, not a monster, who welcomed the sorrowful maiden, and after many adventures, Psyche found happiness.

In this cheerful painting, representing two little girls seated at a breakfast table flooded with the bright, clear light of a summer morning, the real theme which has engaged the artist is nothing more nor less than light itself. The tablecloth and window curtains half in sunlight, half in luminous shadow, and the shining glassware and silver urn are ably painted. The green of the garden and the yellow-green of sundrenched lawn are seen through the window echoed in the interior by daffodills, lemons and lime juice bottle, while happy touches of blue appear in the china and one of the frocks. Silver and Green was painted 1913, and was awarded Honorable Mention at the International Exhibition in Pittsburg in 1914.

MODERN DRAWINGS

Our Burne-Jones sketch book belonged formerly to the artist's son, Sir Philip Burne-Jones. In a letter Sir Philip writes: “This book of studies and designs by my father is an important example of his work and methods. Before starting upon the actual painting of a large composition, it was my father's custom to make innumerable careful studies of limbs, draperies, etc., in chalk and pencil, and from these he worked upon the picture. The book which is now in your possession exemplifies this system.” The sketch book contains 113 original drawings. Some of these are on both sides of a leaf, and frequently two or more drawings on a page. For the greater part, they are executed in lead pencil, although several of the most interesting are in colored chalk. Sir Edward Burne-Jones was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which sought to displace the conventionality of English art of the period by detailed naturalism and the mystical sincerity of the Italian primitives.

What can be done with lead pencil by a man who has sureness of hand and the power of rapid decision is shown in this fine characterization, in light and shade, of the ruins of a row of buildings that remain in desolation after fire has spent its fury.

Cameron's fine emotional quality would be inexpressible without his sure draughtsmanship and power to compose. Wedmore writes of Cameron: “He is certainly, of living British etchers, the one whose work excites among the generally cultivated public the keenest curiosity and evokes the highest admiration.”

MODERN SCULPTURE

Gifted, as he is, with an exceptional sense of style, the young American sculptor, Paul Manship, has well deserved the prizes and praises which have been awarded him. He has a genius for the construction of forms which are highly generalized without thereby losing compactness and vivacity. His power in creating designs that are alive is hardly more original and personal than his use of antique and exotic formulae in rendering details such as hair, eyes and draperies. For, though these conventions are borrowed from archaic Greek, Assyrian, and Japanese sculpture, they are in Manship's art perfectly assimilated and put to novel uses full of fresh spirit and often touched with an elfish humor.

THE BRADSTREET ROOM

In accordance with wishes expressed by the late John Scott Bradstreet, who was deeply interested in the work of the Society of Fine Arts, his sisters, Mrs. Elizabeth B. Carleton and Mrs. Margaret Kimball, at the opening of the new building, presented to the Society a collection of Japanese objects collected by Mr. Bradstreet, and arranged for the installation of them in the gallery now known as the John Scott Bradstreet Memorial Room. The room is much appreciated by visitors to the Institute. Restful and marked by delightful harmony of color and form, it is a room such as all the friends of Mr. Bradstreet feel sure he would have approved, if he had been spared to witness the success of the movement for which he cared so much.

The visitor, entering the gallery, will probably notice first of all the large bronze bowl with a dragon coiling about the base, exhibited in the center of the room. On the right-hand wall, the central space is occupied by a large cupboard of sugi wood (Japanese cedar). The sliding doors are decorated with a continuous design of blossoming plum branches. Above the cabinet, on four panels, is painted a splendid design of lotus flowers and leaves in green, black, white, and gold on the natural surface of the wood. A stone garden ornament representing a cock perched on a drum stands to the right of the cupboard. To the left is a screen of [pg 117] carved wood, topped by the upward curving horizontal, symbol of Shintoism, and decorated by delightfully fantastic carvings showing kylins among cloud scrolls. Against the wall opposite the door stands an elaborate temple table covered with gold lacquer and decorations in color, including a band, beneath the top, of pleasing little panels in pierced carving based on bird and flower motives. On the left-hand side of the room are two cabinets made of richly grained sugi, the sliding doors decorated with painted lotus and crysanthemum designs. On the cabinets stand a musical instrument, a carved wood Buddha of benignly spiritual expression, and other objects. On the wall are two carved wood panels and a few woodblock prints of the early XIX century. A case contains some rich examples of brocade, including two priest's robes. Near the door hangs a bronze portrait relief of Mr. Bradstreet, which was executed by Paul Fjelde, the son of Jacob Fjelde, known to the people of Minneapolis through his statues of Ole Bull and Hiawatha. It is the gift of about one hundred of Mr. Bradstreet's friends. The portrait is modeled in low relief, and the decorative element of the Japanese tree introduced on one side suggests Mr. Bradstreet's fondness for Oriental Art. The relief has received high commendation both as a likeness and as a work of art.