The Galleries of the Exposition Part 3

His small canvas in the adjoining gallery is technically superb, and to my mind the best canvas in the whole Dutch show. In the middle of the same wall Gorter's very decorative autumnal landscape, of a group of beech-trees, commends itself by an unusual feeling for colour and design, so lacking in the two almost monochromatic, untemperamental Witsens on either side. Almost opposite in the same gallery, the most western in the Netherlands section, hangs a broadly painted canvas by Breitner, of the timber harbor of Amsterdam. It is not so original a subject as one is accustomed to see from Breitner, but fully deserving of the best place on the wall. Therese van Duyl-Schwartze's portrait alongside is equal to her usual performances, and very broad in style and full of vigor. Jurres' "Don Quixote", Goedvriend's little canvas, and Bauer's "Oriental Equestrian" should all be mentioned in this gallery.

In the middle gallery, on the right of the big Mastenbroek, Christian Add.i.c.ks' "Mother and Child" charms by its richness of colouring, while in the left corner hangs a very decorative still-life in the best manner of such old Dutch painters as Hondekoeter. Nicolaas Bastert has a typical Dutch ca.n.a.l, and w.i.l.l.y Sluiter a good study of a Volendam fisherman. One gallery is entirely devoted to etchings, woodcuts, and mezzotints, and the standard maintained in this gallery is high.

Martinus Bauer's three etchings are among the finest to be seen anywhere in the exhibition, and the work of Harting, van Hoytema, and Haverman do not fall much below his standard. There is young Israels (Isaac) with some very snappy sketches. Nieuwenkamp is intensely interesting in the few things he has there, with a certain sense of humor which is conspicuous for its absence in most Dutch work. The woodcuts of Veldheer are vital and unusually free from any academic feeling. Considering the relative size of the Netherlands, they have a remarkably large number of artists, but scarcely of sufficient bigness of caliber and independence of character to live up to the traditions of this people.

Germany

Very modestly tucked away and surrounded by art of the few remaining neutral nations, in a small gallery adjoining Holland and Sweden, Germany unofficially and probably even without her knowledge is represented by a small group of pictures which after many adventures reached the hospitable sh.o.r.es of California. Originally exhibited at the last Carnegie Inst.i.tute Exhibition at Pittsburgh, they found themselves on the high seas on their return voyage at the beginning of the war, only to be captured by an English cruiser whose captain was so painfully struck by the undeniable evidences of German Kultur that instead of taking them to England he returned them to the United States, to be included eventually in our exhibition. It would be very wrong to generalize upon the standard of German art from this small display, but a number of these pictures can well afford to go entirely upon their own merit.

Zugel's cattle picture is a canvas of the first order, by one of the very important modern animal painters, a man whose fame has penetrated into all lands where art is at all cultivated. The silvery light of a summer morning, filtering through overhanging willow-trees upon the backs of a few Holstein cows, is full of life and admirably loose in its treatment. Above Zugel, Leo Putz, another Munich man, has a lady near a pond, broadly painted, and executed in the peculiar Putz method of square, mosaic-like paint areas which melt into a soft harmony of tender grays and greens. Stuck's "Nocturne" is affected and unconvincing and scarcely representative of this master's style. The many other men give a good account of themselves, particularly Curt Agthe, whose cla.s.sic "Nude at the Spring" is of wonderful surface quality. Wenk has an Italian marine and Benno Becker a landscape from the same country.

Gohler's "Castle Terrace" has a particularly fine sky and a true rococo atmosphere. Hans von Volkmann's "Field of Ripe Grain" is typical of this Karlsruhe painter, whose stone lithographs have given German art a unique place in the art world.

The United States

Almost one-third of the entire Fine Arts Palace is occupied by the art of the United States, and considering the privileges it enjoys, we have no reason to offer any excuses. One thing should be said, a fact which must force itself immediately upon any careful observer - that we have been very hospitable to the foreign nations at the loss of our own physical comfort. The growing demand from some of the foreign nations for more s.p.a.ce than originally applied for has crowded the American section in some instances into rather uncomfortable conditions. On the other hand we do not seem to have acquired such attractive ways of hanging our pictures as the Swedes, Hollanders, or Italians practice; probably for lack of funds. At any rate the American section looks very businesslike and very democratic, without all the frills and fancies of other nations, where every psychological advantage has been taken in order to make things palatable. We have even been criticized for our lack of s.p.a.ciousness in hanging, but let us not grieve over this, since it does at least save steps in walking from one picture to the next.

Gallery 60.

Our historical section is largely a mausoleum of portraits which really have no other excuse for existence than historical interest, unless one excepts the always excellent portraits of Gilbert Stuart, who certainly stands out in all that dull company of his fellow-painters of his own time. He is about the only one who can claim professional standards of workmanship as well as lifelike characterization of his sitters. His group of pictures on wall A does his great talent full justice. The mellow richness of the portrait of General Dearborn stands out as a fine painting among the many hard and black historical doc.u.ments in this gallery. The Captain Anthony portrait above is not less important. I think his technical superiority and breadth of manner must be doubly appreciated when one considers the absence of any artistic inspiration in this country in Stuart's time, although he had the advantage of several lengthy visits abroad, where he was received with approval by profession and public alike. Most other portraits in this gallery are lacking in any individual note and are hopelessly stiff and academic in colour. Not even the very apparent influence of the great English portrait masters of their time could save them from mediocrity. The only pictures worth excepting from this cla.s.sification, outside of the Stuarts, are Charles Elliott's "Colonel McKenney" and S. B. Waugh's portrait of Thorwaldsen, the Danish sculptor.

Gallery 59.

In an adjoining gallery toward the north, our chronological investigations bring us into an atmosphere of story-telling pictures of the most p.r.o.nounced Dusseldorf and Munich styles. This period has always been the source of delight to the populace, which has no concern in the technical qualities of a picture, a contention which led, more than anything else, to the healthy reaction we now enjoy as the modern school. The sentimental tone of most of these pictures and their self-explanatory ill.u.s.trative motives no doubt make them easily the lazy man's delight, but I cannot help feeling that most of their themes could much more successfully be approached through literature than through the painter's art. Most of them explain themselves immediately, and those which do not are helped along by descriptive t.i.tles fastened to the frames, as the taste of that school demands. The great men of this school in Germany were primarily great painters. Men like Defregger, Knaus, Vautier, Grutzner, Kaulbach, and others will always command high respect by their technical achievements, no matter how we may disagree with their choice of subjects. The really worthy ones we have produced in this field of genre painting are to be found in other galleries and are represented by men like Hovenden, Currier, and Johnson. The only real painting among the many figure pictures in this gallery is Peter Frederick Rothermel's "Martyrdom of St. Agnes." Very rich in colour and big in composition, it compels great respect.

We have now reached the middle of the last century, when the influence of the Barbizon school a.s.serted itself and caused increasing interest in landscape painting, a field which up to that time had been mixed up with historical motives, as in a typical composite canvas by Cole (Thomas), who generally ranks as the most important of the Hudson River School of landscape painters. There is really not enough artistic moment to this American group to dignify it by the name of a school. For historical reasons, however, this cla.s.sification is very convenient. Cole's four sketches for the "Voyage of Life" show strong imagination, giving the impression, however, that he was more interested in mythology than in the art of painting.

The first intimation of a really original step in American outdoor painting, as based on the discoveries of the school of 1825, the Barbizon school, one receives in this gallery in a number of small canvases by some of the men we have chosen to cla.s.sify as the painters of the Great West. Into this group are put Thomas Moran, Thomas Hill, and Albert Bierstadt. They are so very closely identified with the West that they are of particular interest to us. Their artistic careers were as spectacular as their subjects. Stirred by the marvelous tales of the great scenic wonders of the West, they heroically threw themselves into a task that no artist could possibly master. They approached their gigantic subjects with correspondingly large canvases, without ever giving the essential element, of their huge motives, namely, a certain feeling of scale, of monumentality, as compared to the pigmy size of the human figure. Really great pictures of the Yellowstone, the Grand Canon, and the lofty mountain-tops still remain to be painted. The daring and courage of these men has benefited our art very much in a technical sense. The study of panoramic distances and the necessity for closely observing out-of-doors new subjects which could not be studied in the work of other painters, led to a facility in the handling of paint which really const.i.tutes the chief merit of these artists. In this gallery (59) two small outdoor sketches by Thomas Hill give a good suggestion of this Californian's great dexterity in handling paint. His career has been so closely identified with the Yosemite Valley, where he lived and died, that these two sketches will serve as a reminder of the very faithfully studied larger pictures he for many years produced. Peter Moran, a brother of Thomas, has a cattle picture in this gallery which needs the backing up of the reputation of the whole Moran family to be accepted.

Gallery 58.

Chronological order is not entirely maintained in gallery 58, where two large Bierstadt pictures are in control. Bierstadt, with all of his good painting, does not get any nearer the real spirit of the lofty mountaintops than all the others of this school. Big and earnest as his efforts were, they fall short of real achievement, not so much for his lack of outdoor colour as for the misunderstanding of what is possible in art and what is impossible. Another landscape in this gallery, belonging to the contemporary school, however, is Henry Joseph Breuer's "Santa Inez Mountains". It is a faithful study of a most difficult subject and very successful in its big feeling, in spite of the introduction of great detail. It is easily the best Breuer in the collection. The note of variety in this gallery is maintained in several portraits and genre pictures of unusual merit. On the right of the Breuer, Thomas Hicks' "Friendly Warning" atones for a mult.i.tude of mediocre genre pictures in the preceding gallery. Eastman Johnson's "Drummer Boy" shows good composition, and J. H. E. Partington's study of a man's head is as fine a piece of painting as was ever done in the eighties.

Gallery 64.

In a big central gallery we meet the more meritorious work of our painters dependent upon foreign influence. Portraits, genre pictures, landscapes, and marines tell the story of many individual men working out their salvation in more or less original fashion. I have spoken at some length about the pitfall of genre painting, but Thomas Hovenden's "Breaking Home Ties" redeems the entire school. Irrespective of the fact that it is a picture very popular with the large public by reason of its sentimental appeal, it is well painted, and it will always be considered a good painting. It is devoid of colour, in the sense of the modern painter, but its very fluent and simple technical character recommends it highly. Hovenden was a master of his trade. Anybody who doubts this from his large canvas can easily be convinced by studying the "Peonies"

to the left of it on wall C. The large area of this wall is covered with six canvases by Thomas Eakins, showing a variety of subjects. His "Crucifixion" is very good as an academic study but of no other interest. In the "Concert Singer" he added an interesting subject to very admirable painting. His other canvases are all sincerely studied and well done, and they will always be sure of their place in the history of American painting. Opposite the "Crucifixion," Church's "Niagara" reminds one that the painting of water involves more than mere photographic facility. All that one can say about this serious effort is that if it had been painted under a different star than that which guided the painters of his time in outdoor studies, it would doubtless look more like water. Another canvas on the right, a marine by Richards, has the same feeling for drawing without showing any understanding of either texture or atmosphere. The old and the new overlap in this gallery by the inclusion of some of Remington's paintings and also of a few pieces of sculpture. Remington's paintings will never be cla.s.sified as anything but very good ill.u.s.trations, and in the company of easel pictures they look much out of place. Their interest is only of a pa.s.sing kind. His sculpture is lacking in repose and looks wild and ill-mannered in the presence of the older things. Homer Martin's appeal, in two big landscapes on the same wall, may not be very immediate, but a serious contemplation of these big and n.o.ble landscapes will make them rea.s.suringly sympathetic. Martin's pictures are not exhibition pictures.

They suffer in an exhibition which is after all as much of a specimen show of conflicting varieties as a display of canned goods in the Food Palace. Martin, while never having enjoyed the popularity of an Inness, will always rank as high as any of our best interpreters of the Barbizon school.

Gallery 54.

We have to go over into this gallery in order to get the full meaning of that great company of men who had something which is so difficult to discover in many artists, namely, style. Inness and Wyant above everything have style, a quality which carried their otherwise not very original work above that of their fellow-painters. We shall never tire of such canvases as "The Coming Storm," "The Clouded Sun," and the limpid pastorals by Wyant. They maintain their position as cla.s.sics.

Winslow Homer occupies a position all by himself. An entire wall full of specimens by him shows the evolution of the man, his struggle with the problem of the choice of subjects, and his technical development, culminating in that one really great theme in the center, showing his studio in an afternoon fog. Homer's colour is always disappointing, even in his best, but his sense of design and a certain simple restriction to a few essentials make up his chief claim upon distinction. Dennis Bunker's "Lady with a Mirror" would scarcely be believed to belong to the older period of American art. One of the finest pictures ever produced by an American painter, it yields a most unusual degree of artistic pleasure. There is real distinction about this picture, not only in the graceful idealization of the lady, but also in the refined colour scheme. Currier's art is very much like Duveneck's, an observation which is made emphatic by the fact that each one's masterpiece is a whistling boy, of great simplicity. After a discussion of Duveneck's work, Currier's artistic antecedents will easily be established, so no more need be said of his work.

Gallery 85.

Across the hall more of our academic school of painters are grouped.

There is George de Forest Brush, the painter of the "Boston Madonna", in some of his earlier ill.u.s.trative canvases and a very fine pre-Raphaelite "Andromeda". Brush is so contradictory at times that this small group is quite insufficient to do him full justice. Horatio Walker clings persistently to his conviction of the supremacy of the older methods, without giving any indication of contact with modern art. His superiority depends largely upon the human-interest stories he tells with wonderful breadth and sympathetic understanding. Charles W.

Hawthorne's canvases seem fumbled rather than painted. They are very hesitating in a technical way and are not sufficiently endowed with interest to grip one.

Gallery 57.

In another gallery in this neighborhood, Edwin Abbey's art is presented very comprehensively in a number of large and small ill.u.s.trations - canvases of more than pa.s.sing interest. While they are largely ill.u.s.trations, their interest is made permanent by reason of the subjective note which all of them have. Abbey's intense imagination allowed him to carry a convincingness into his work which is largely responsible for the very high rank he attained. His art is not the art of an American in any sense. It is true he was born in Philadelphia, but a long and successful life spent in Europe has left on his work the imprint of an aristocracy foreign to our interest. In design, in colour, Abbey's work is always supremely interesting, and with the astonishing development of ill.u.s.tration in America, it seems incredible that we should not have been able to make him return to the land of his birth.

Galleries fifty-five and fifty-six are modern in aspect and their contents came into this part of the building for practical reasons.

Wedged in between older periods, it is difficult to combine them with the rest of modern American art, largely represented in the north side of the Palace.

Gallery 56.

Here two interiors in distinctly different styles stand out among the mult.i.tude. Marion Powers and Elizabeth Nourse add considerably to the achievement of our women artists in these well-painted canvases. Miss Powers is very original in an older school, while Miss Nourse displays all the technical dexterities of the present day. Hitchc.o.c.k's "Dutch Tulip Beds," with figural staff.a.ge, remind one of a most original American who after a long struggle established himself with these colourful designs. His recent death came entirely too soon.

Gallery 55.

This room is intensely animated by Potthast's six seash.o.r.e sketches, which are composed and very sympathetic in their fine sunlight. Evelyn McCormick's "Monterey Custom House" is no less sunny, and conscientiously studied in detail.

Gallery 65.

Of particular interest are the pictures in this gallery, const.i.tuting an achievement which few other nations could rival. Devoted exclusively to the work of living American women artists, it contains convincing evidences of the good results which the emanc.i.p.ation of women in this country allowed them to accomplish in the field of art. The standard in this gallery is very high, and one must admit that Mr. Trask's daring innovation of putting all the women artists in one big gallery was justified. They do hold their own, and they do not need any male a.s.sistance to convince one of their big part in the honors of the exhibition. On two opposing walls, Mary Ca.s.satt and Cecilia Beaux give full expression of their very vital work. Miss Beaux's work is compelling in its vigorous technique, fine colour, and daring composition. Her study in purple and yellow is bold and unusually successful. On other walls more portraits by Ellen Emmet Rand continue to hold our attention, particularly the little girl and the black cat.

The portraits of our women painters are all far more original in composition and colour arrangement than those of the men. Mary Ca.s.satt's reputation is so universally established as not to need any introduction. Her art is more French in the many tone gradations of atmosphere than that of her American colleagues who are more decorative.

Among others Jean McLane, Mr. Johansen's wife, and Annie Lang excel in a certain breadth of style; while Mrs. Richardson charms by the sympathetic rendering of the pride and happiness of the young mother.

The composition of this picture, while it is unusual, is successfully managed. The impression one gains from this large gallery is most satisfying in every way. The many portraits done by men seen in various galleries of the exhibition would scarcely make as good a showing in a group as the work of the women, and it was very wise not to attempt it.

One-Man Rooms

An approach to the rest of the American section might be made through the one-man rooms, and since we are on the south side, and for other perfectly good reasons - not the least, that of importance - we might start with Whistler.

Gallery 28.

Whistler.

No gallery reflects so much the really serious artist, in his eternal struggle to express himself simply and exhaustively in line, form, and colour, as does this Whistler group. A feeling of dissatisfaction, expressed by many indications of experimentation and change, of searching for the right line, is clearly indicated in all of these paintings. He often gives you a chance to choose between a number of tantalizing forms and lines. It is very apparent that he set himself a high, almost an unattainable standard, toward which he worked with varying success. His emotions must have been constantly swinging between the greatest heights of joy and the abyss of despair.

The numerous Whistlers in this gallery show him in many periods and many styles. On wall D, at the lower right, a portrait of an auburn girl, one of his many fascinating models, shows Whistler more as a pure painter than any of the other canvases. This doubtless belongs to the period when he was under Courbet's influence. The richness of pure paint, dexterously applied, is scarcely found in the many portraits on the same wall, in which a certain thinness of paint is too much in evidence, no matter how distinguished and suggestive these canvases are. His sense of composition, of the placing of areas of different tones and colour, is markedly evident in all of his work, no matter how experimental and casual it may be. The "Falling Rocket" is the most wonderful example of this quality of design. If it is true that it hung for weeks upside down in the present owner's house, then most decidedly this fact speaks well for its excellent quality of design, irrespective of its pictorial meaning. The many small sparks descending rhythmically from an impenetrable sky are carefully considered in their relative position and size so as to insure that feeling of pattern which he almost instinctively gave to everything he did. This picture of the "Falling Rocket" is of particular interest as the picture which made John Ruskin, the Slade Professor of Art at Oxford, accuse Whistler of flinging a pot of paint at the face of the public and having the impudence of a c.o.xcomb to ask two hundred guineas for it. Surely this carefully and cleanly painted picture shows Whistler as hardly a flinger of paint, and we can only rejoice over the kind fate which saved Mr. Ruskin from extending his career into the present age of paint flingers, who, had they lived in his day, would have proved fatal to the learned professor. The farthing damages which Whistler received in a mock trial were scarcely as valuable as the universal admiration this picture receives.

There never was a painter who manipulated paint with more regard for the medium than did Whistler. His portrait of Mrs. Milicent Cobden has a n.o.ble beauty of restraint. It is very sensitively painted, and tender almost to the point of thinness. It fascinates in its subtle appeal, which the observer is induced to supplement by his own emotion. This quality of subtlety is the one attribute which makes his work so beloved by the artist and so difficult of understanding for the layman, who, try as he may, is not equipped with sufficient technical insight to do Whistler's paintings full justice. Uneven as his work is, as every painter admits, it will always be more and more cherished by the profession and remain more or less of a mystery to the puzzled public, who would like to follow this painter into the realm of his interests.

The six figural compositions on the opposite wall show Whistler as concerned with design pure and simple, rather than meaning or psychological expression. They are beautiful for the fragrant looseness of their s.p.a.cing of delightful, tender areas of neutralized colour, emphasized here and there by a stronger note of vermilion. Things like these express his att.i.tude far more than any other thing he ever did.

They show his understanding of the fundamentals of painting - a small part in the whole unity of beauty of which the world consists. His work as a painter is, after all, negligible in comparison with the principles he preached by his many artistic activities. His historical position, as time goes on and as his a.s.sociates die, becomes more and more mystical, and even at this moment his personality has a.s.sumed an almost mythological character.

Gallery 93.

Twachtman.