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Title: The Galleries of the Exposition

Author: Eugen Neuhaus

Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4672]
                Most recently updated: June 13, 2024

Language: English

Credits: This etext was produced by David A. Schwan


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GALLERIES OF THE EXPOSITION ***

The Galleries of the Exposition



A Critical Review of the Paintings, Statuary and the Graphic Arts in The
Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition



By
Eugen Neuhaus
Assistant Professor of Decorative Design, University of California and
Member of the International Jury of Awards in the Department of Fine
Arts of the Exposition


To John E. D. Trask
Director of the Department of Fine Arts of the Panama-Pacific
International Exposition, untiring worker and able executive



Contents



Introduction - An Historical Review. The Function of Art.
Retrospective Art
The Foreign Nations
- France
- Italy
- Portugal
- Argentina
- Uruguay
- Cuba
- Philippine Islands
- The Orient
- Japan
- China
- Sweden
- Holland
- Germany
The United States
- One-Man Rooms
- Whistler
- Twachtman
- Tarbell
- Redfield
- Duveneck
- Chase
- Hassam
- Gari Melchers
- Sargent
- Keith
- Mathews and McComas
- General Collection
The Graphic Arts - Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography - A list of helpful reference books and periodicals for the
     student and lover of art.
Index to Galleries



List of Illustrations



Phyllis --------------------- John W. Alexander
Woman and Child: Rose Scarf - Mary Cassatt
Morning in the Provence ----- Henri Georget
The Promenade --------------- Gustave Pierre
The Procession -------------- Ettore Tito
The Fortune Teller ---------- F. Luis Mora
Water Fall ------------------ Elmer Schofield
The Peacemaker -------------- Ernest L. Blumenschein
The White Vase -------------- Hugh H. Breckenridge
Winter in the Forest -------- Anshelm Schultzberg
Winter at Amsterdam --------- Willem Witsen
In the Rhine Meadows -------- Heinrich Von Zugel
The Mirror ------------------ Dennis Miller Bunker
Coming of the Line Storm ---- Frederick J. Waugh
Lavender and Old Ivory ------ Lilian Westcott Hale
Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs. E. Milicent Cobden - James McNeill
     Whistler
The Dreamer ----------------- Edmund C. Tarbell
Whistling Boy --------------- Frank Duveneck
Self Portrait --------------- William Merritt Chase
Spanish Courtyard ----------- John Singer Sargent
Oaks of the Monte ----------- Francis McComas
Blue Depths ----------------- William Ritschel
Floating Ice: Early Morning - Charles Rosen
The Land of Heart's Desire -- William Wendt
The Housemaid --------------- William McGregor Paxton
My House in Winter ---------- Charles Morris Young
Quarry: Evening ------------- Daniel Garber
Beyond ---------------------- Chester Beach
In the Studio --------------- Ellen Emmet Rand
Eucalypti, Berkeley Hills --- Eugen Neuhaus
Floor Plan, Palace of Fine Arts



Introduction



The artistic appeals of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition
through architecture and the allied decorative arts are so engrossing
that one yields to the call of the independent Fine Arts only with
considerable reluctance. The visitor, however, finds himself cleverly
tempted by numerous stray bits of detached sculpture, effectively placed
amidst shrubbery near the Laguna, and almost without knowing he is drawn
into that enchanting colonnade which leads one to the spacious portals
of the Palace of Fine Arts.

It was a vast undertaking to gather such numbers of pictures together,
but the reward was great - not only to have gratified one's sense of
beauty, but to have contributed toward a broader civilization, on the
Pacific Coast specifically, and for the world in general besides. It
must be admitted that it was no small task, in the face of many very
unusual adverse circumstances, to bring together here the art of the
world. Mr. John E. D. Trask deserves unstinted praise for the
perseverance with which, under most trying circumstances, unusual enough
to defeat almost any collective undertaking, he brought together this
highly creditable collection of art. Wartime conditions abroad and the
great distance to the Pacific Coast, not to speak of difficulties of
physical transportation, called for a singularly capable executive, such
as John E. D. Trask has proved himself to be, and the world should
gratefully acknowledge a big piece of work well done. I do not believe
the art exhibition needs any apologies. Its general character is such as
fully to satisfy the standards of former international expositions.

It seems only rational that, with the notorious absence of any important
permanent exhibition of works of art on the Pacific Coast, an effort
should have been made to present within the exhibit the development of
the art of easel painting since its inception, because it seems
impossible to do justice to any phase of art without an opportunity of
comparison, such as the exposition affords. The retrospective aspects of
the exhibition are absorbingly interesting, not so much for the
presentation of any eminently great works of art as for the splendid
chance for first-hand comparison of different periods. Painting is
relatively so new an art that the earliest paintings we know of do not
differ materially in a technical sense from our present-day work.
Archaeology has disinterred various badly preserved and unpresentable
relics of old arts such as sculpture and architecture. It is little so
with pictures. Painting is really the most recent of all the fine arts.
It must seem almost unbelievable that the greatest periods of
architecture and sculpture had become classic when painting made its
début as an independent art. It is true enough that the Assyrians and
Egyptians used colour, but not in the sense of the modern easel painter.
We are also informed, rather less than more reliably, that a gentleman
by the name of Apelles, in the days of Phidias, painted still-lifes so
naturally that birds were tempted to peck at them, and we know much more
accurately of the many delightful bits of wall-painting the rich man of
Pompeii and Herculaneum used to have put on his walls, but the easel
painting is a creation of modern times.

The sole reason for this can hardly be explained better than by pointing
out the long-standing lack of a suitable medium which would permit the
making of finer paintings, other than wall and decorative paintings. The
old tempera medium was hardly suited to finer work, since it was a
makeshift of very inadequate working qualities. Briefly, the method
consisted of mixing any pigment or paint in powder form with any
suitable sticky substance which would make it adhere to a surface.
Sticky substances frequently used were the tree gums collected from
certain fruit-trees, including the fig and the cherry. This crude method
is known by the word "tempera," which comes from the Latin "temperare,"
to modify or mix, and denotes merely any alteration of the original
pigment. Tempera painting, as the only technique known, was really a
great blessing to the world, since it prevented the wholesale production
in a short time of such vast quantities of pictures as the world
nowadays is asked to enjoy.  I am not so sure that the two brothers, the
Flemish painters Hubert and Jan van Eyck, who are said to have given us
the modern oil method, are really so much deserving of praise, since
their improved method of painting with oils caused a production of
paintings half of which might much better have remained unpainted. The
one thing that can be said of all paintings made before their day is
that they were painted for a practical purpose. They had to fit into
certain physical conditions, architectural or other. Most modern
paintings are simply painted on a gambler's chance of finding suitable
surroundings afterwards. Nowadays a picture is produced with the one
idea of separating it from the rest of the world by a more or less
hideous gold frame, the design of which in many cases is out of all
relation to the picture as well as to the wall. In fact, most frames
impress one as nothing but attempts to make them as costly as possible.

I imagine that practically all true painters would rather do their
pictures under and for a given physical condition, to support and be
supported by architecture; but with the unfortunate present-day
elimination of paintings from most architectural problems, most artists
have to paint their pictures for an imaginary condition. The present
production of paintings has become absolutely unmindful of the true,
function of a painting, which is to decorate in collaboration with the
other arts - architecture and sculpture.

It is necessary to bear these facts in mind in trying to do justice to a
large aggregate of canvases in an international exhibition, or any
exhibition. Thousands of pictures, created by a host of different
artists, are temporarily thrown together. The result, of course, can
never be entirely satisfying. Many devices are employed to overcome this
very disturbing condition and with varying success. The hanging of
pictures against neutral backgrounds, the grouping of works of one man,
the selection of works of similar tonality, colour schemes, technique,
subject, style, etc. - these are all well known methods of trying to
overcome the essential artificiality of the methods of exhibition of
modern paintings. I doubt whether so long as we insist upon art
exhibitions of the conventionally accepted type, we shall ever be able
to present pictures with due regard to their meaning. We must not make
the mistake of blaming a director of an exhibition for a difficulty
which he cannot possibly overcome. So long as painters turn out
thousands of pictures, we can expect only the results which are much in
evidence in all modern exhibitions. The fault is entirely with the
artist, who is forever painting easel pictures, and neglecting the great
field of decorative painting. On investigation of our exhibition we
shall find that the good picture - that is, the picture of a certain
respectful attitude toward its function, which is largely decorative -
is far less injured by unavoidable neighbors than the loud-mouthed
canvas of the "Look! Here I am!" variety, which is afraid of being
overlooked. Art exhibitions of the generally adopted modern type are
logically intolerable, and the only solution of the problem of the
correct presentation of pictures is to display fewer of them, within
certain individual rooms, designed by artists, where a few pictures will
take their place with their surroundings in a unity of artistic
expression.

It is certainly no small task to enjoy a large exhibit like ours and to
preserve one's peace of mind. The purpose of these pages is to assist in
guiding the uninitiated, in his visit and in retrospect, without
depriving him of the pleasure of personal observation and investigation.
It is not to be expected that all pictures exhibited should be of a
superior kind. If so, we should never be able to learn to recognize the
good among the bad. So many pictures are only experiments. Only by
having the opportunity for comparison can we learn to discriminate. The
predominant characteristic of our art exhibition is its instructive
value in teaching the development of painting by successive periods,
sometimes represented and some times only indicated. The person who
never had the opportunity to visit the larger historical collections of
paintings abroad, could here obtain an idea of the many changes in
subjects, as well as in technique, which have taken place in the
relatively short existence of the art of painting. It is unfortunately
true that the majority of people are not at all interested in the
technical procedure of the making of the picture, but wholly in the
subject matter. If this be pleasing, the picture is apt to be declared a
success. The artist, on the other hand, and to my mind very justly,
looks primarily for what he calls good painting, and a simple statement
of these two points of view explains a great deal of very deplorable
friction between the artist and the willing and enthusiastic layman, who
is constantly discouraged by finding that his artist friend greets his
pet canvas with a cynical smile.

The subject of the appreciation of pictures from a theoretical point of
view is not exactly the purpose of this book. So enormous is it that it
could be dealt with adequately only in a separate volume the writing of
which I look forward to with joyful anticipation. What I should like to
do - and I should be very glad if I could succeed - is to bring the
public a little closer to the artist's point of view through the
discussion of the merit of certain notable works of art. It is my
conviction that it is the manifestations of an artists artistic
conscience which make exhibitions good, and not the question whether the
public likes certain pictures or not. Only by constant study, a serious
attitude, and a willingness to follow the artist into his realm can the
public hope fully to enjoy the meaning of the artist's endeavors.



The Galleries of the Exposition



Retrospective Art



It would seem only logical to begin our investigation with the pictures
chronologically oldest, at the same time recognizing that European art
has the right to first consideration. We are the hosts to the art of the
world. Our own art is the newest, and yet occupies a large number of
galleries most conspicuously, but it will not lose by waiting for
attention till the end.

Gallery 63.

Some of the very earliest paintings in the exhibition are found in one
of the large center rooms on the left, where a very stately Tiepolo
controls the artistic atmosphere of a large gallery. This picture has
all the qualities of an old Italian master of the best kind. Its
composition is big and dignified and in the interest and richness of its
color scheme it has here few equals. The chief characteristic of this
splendid canvas is bigness of style. In its treatment it is a typical
old master, in the best meaning of the term.

On the left of this Tiepolo, a rather sombre canvas by Ribera claims
attention by the peculiar lighting scheme, so typical of this Italian
master. While there is what we might call a quality of flood lighting in
the Tiepolo, giving an envelope of warm, mellow light to the whole
picture, Ribera concentrates his light somewhat theatrically upon his
subjects, as in the St. Jerome. The picture is freely painted, with the
very convincing anatomical skill that is manifest in most of Ribera's
work. His shadows are sometimes black and impenetrable, a quality which
his pictures may not have had at the time of their production, and which
may be partly the result of age. The Goya on the same wall is
uninteresting - one of those poor Goyas which have caused delay in the
just placing of this great Spaniard in the history of art.

The Turner below the Goya has all the imaginative qualities of that
great Englishman's best work. Venice may never look the way Turner
painted it, but his interpretation of a gorgeous sunset over a canal is
surely fascinating enough in its suggestion of wealth of form and color.
Sir William Beechey's large canvas of a group of children and a dog
probably presented no easy task to the painter. The attempt at a
skillful and agreeable arrangement of children in pictures is often
artificial, and so it is to my	 mind in this canvas. Nevertheless the
colouring, together with the spontaneous technique, put it high above
many canvases of similar type. The Spanish painting on the right of the
Beechey could well afford to have attached to it the name of one of the
best artists of any school. The unknown painter of this Spanish
gentleman knew how to disclose the psychology of his sitter in a
straightforward way that would have done honor to Velasquez, or to Frans
Hals, of whom this picture is even more suggestive.

Below this very fine portrait Sir Godfrey Kneller is represented by a
canvas very typical of the eighteenth century English portrait painters.
The canvas has a little of the character of everybody, without being
sufficiently individual. Reynolds' "Lady Ballington" has a wonderful
quality of repose and serenity, one of the chief merits of the work of
all those great English portrait painters of the eighteenth century. No
matter whose work it is, whether of Reynolds, Romney, Hoppner, or any of
that classic period of the painters of distinguished people, they always
impress by the dignity of their composition and colour. We do not know
in all cases how distinguished their sitters really were, but like
Reynolds' "Lady Ballington," they must often have been of a sort
superior physically as well as intellectually.

Above the Reynolds a small Gainsborough landscape blends well with the
predominant brown of these old canvases. From the point of view of the
modern landscape painter, who believes in the superiority of his outlook
and attitude toward nature, we can only be glad that Gainsborough's fame
does not depend upon his representation of out-of-doors. This small
canvas, like the very big one on the opposite wall, is interesting in
design. But neither gives one the feeling of outdoors that our modern
landscape painters so successfully impart. Historically they are very
interesting, and even though they carry the name of such a master of
portraits as Gainsborough undoubtedly was, they are devoid of all the
refreshing qualities that modern art has given to the world.

Sir Peter Lely and Sir Henry Raeburn claim particular attention on the
north wall - the first by a deftly painted portrait of a lady, and the
other by a broadly executed likeness of John Wauchope. As portraits go,
the first picture is one of the finest in the gallery. Very conspicuous
by their size, the two big Romney portraits on the east wall are not in
the same class with either the Lawrence or the Reynolds on the same
wall. The great Lawrence portrait, the lady with the black hat, is
one of the most superb portraits in the world. There is a peculiar charm
about this canvas quite independent of the very attractive Lady Margaret
represented in the picture. The luscious blacks and pale reds and the
neutral cream silk cape make for a colour harmony seldom achieved.
Reynolds' portrait of John Thomas, Bishop of Rochester, is equally rich
and full of fine colour contrasts. The shrewd-looking gentleman is
psychologically well given, although one's attention is detracted from
the head by the gorgeous raiment of a dignitary of the church.

I think Hogarth's portrait on the small wall to the right does not
disclose this master at his best, nor does Hoppner rise to the level of
his best work in the large portrait alongside of it. The Marchioness of
Wellesley is better and more sympathetically rendered than her two
children, who barely manage to stay in the picture.

On the whole an atmosphere of dignity permeates this gallery of older
masters. One may deplore the lack of many characteristics of modern art
in many of the old pictures. They are very often lifeless and stiff, but
the worst of them are far more agreeable than most of those of our own
time. The serene beauty of the Tiepolo, the Lawrence, and the
Gainsborough portrait has hardly been surpassed since their day. Our age
is, of course, the age of the landscape painter, the outdoor painter, as
opposed to the indoor portraits of these great masters. It would not be
right to judge a Gainsborough by his landscapes any more than it would
be to judge a modern landscape painter by his portraits. But no matter
how uninteresting these old landscapes are, their brown tonality insures
them a certain dignity of inoffensiveness which a mediocre modern work
of art never possesses, I would rather any time have a bad old picture
than a bad one of the very recent schools. Modesty is not one of the
chief attributes of modern art, and the silent protest of a gallery such
as the one we are now in, the artist can well afford to heed.

The sculpture in this gallery has no relation to the historical
character of the room, but fits well into the atmosphere.  Adolph A.
Weinman's admirable "Descending Night" is so familiar to all Exposition
visitors, in its adaptation in a fine fountain in the Court of the
Universe, that no more reference need be made to it. Here in bronze on a
small scale, it is even more refined. Mrs. Saint Gaudens' charming
family group, in burnt clay, is not so well in harmony with this gallery
of older work, but infinitely more appealing than J. Q. A. Ward's
"Hunter" or Cyrus Dallin's "Indian". Both of these groups lack
suggestive quality. They are carried too far. Edward Kemeys' "Buffaloes"
lacks a sense of balance. The defeated buffalo, pushed over the cliff,
takes the interest of the observer outside of the center of the
composition, and a lack of balance is noticeable in this otherwise well
modelled group.

Gallery 91.

In this room one is carried farther back into the earlier phases of
painting by a Luini of pronounced decorative quality. The picture is
probably a part of a larger scheme, but it is well composed into the
frame which holds it. Besides, it is of interest as the only piece of
old mural painting included in the exhibition. The ground on which the
angel is painted is a piece of the plaster surface of the original wall
of which this fragment was a part. The method of producing these fresco
paintings (al fresco calco) necessitated the employment of a practical
plasterer besides the painter. The painting was first drawn carefully on
paper and then transferred in its outlines upon freshly prepared
plaster, just put upon the wall. Having no other means of making the
paint adhere to the surface, the painter had to rely upon the chemical
reaction of the plaster, which would eventually unify the paint with
itself. It was a very tedious process, which nowadays has been
superseded by the method of painting on canvas, which after completion
in the studio is fastened to the wall. Above the Luini hangs a very
Byzantine looking Timoteo Viti "Madonna" of interesting colour and good
design, but with a Christ child of very doubtful anatomy, and also two
old sixteenth century Dutch pictures - a Jan Steen and a Teniers. I have
my doubts as to the authenticity of the last two pictures. They are both
interesting as disclosing the fondness of the Dutch painters of the
sixteenth century for over-naturalistic subjects.

On wall B two pictures, without author or title, appeal to one's
imagination. They are both well painted and rich in colour. A certain
big decorative quality puts them far above their neighbor - a Dutch
canvas of bad composition with no redeeming features other than
historical interest. Jacopo da Ponte's big "Lazarus" has a certain noble
dignity. Though it is rather black in shadows, it is not devoid of
colour feeling. On either side are two old Spanish portraits of children
of royalty. They impress by their very fine decorative note, charmingly
enhanced by the wonderful frames. Another Ribera, as forceful as the one
mentioned before, easily stands out among the many pictures in this
gallery, most of which are only of historical interest. The whole aspect
of this little gallery is one of extreme remoteness from modern thought
and idea, but as an object lesson of certain older periods it is
invaluable.

Gallery 92.

Chronologically a typical old Charles Le Brun presides over a very
interesting lot of pictures, mostly French. This academic canvas, of
Darius' family at the feet of Alexander, has not the simplicity and
decorative quality of the Italian pictures of that period, and it is
entirely too complex to be enjoyable. The beautiful Courbet on the left,
while suggestive of Ribera in its severe disposal of light and shadow,
has also a quality of its own, a wonderful mellowness which gives it a
unity of expression lacking in its turbulent neighbor on the right.

Among the other bigger pictures in this small gallery, a very poetic
Cazin, "The Repentance of Simon Peter," commands attention by a certain
outdoor quality which faintly suggests the Barbizon school. One does not
know what to admire most in this fine canvas. As a figural picture it is
intensely beautiful, and merely as a landscape it is of convincing
charm. It is to my mind one of the finest paintings in the exhibition,
and a constant source of great pleasure.

The big Tissot offers few excuses for having been painted at all. It is
nothing but a big illustration - all it tells could have been said on a
very small canvas. There is no real painting in it, nor composition -
nothing else, for that matter. The two Monticellis on the same wall make
up for the Tissot. Rich in colour and design, the one to the left is
particularly fine. The Van Marcke on the same wall is typical of this
painter's methods, but does not disclose his talent for very interesting
pictorial compositions, for which he was known.

On the opposite wall an older Israels gives lone a good idea of the
earlier period of this great Dutch painter, justly counted as one of the
great figures of the second half of the last century. While of recent
date, his art belongs to the older school - without attaching any odium
to that classification. The Barbizon school, the most important of the
last century, is very fitly represented by two charming and most
delicate Corots on either side of the Israels. The one to the right is
particularly tender and poetic. While by no means an attempt at a
naturalistic impressionistic interpretation of nature, like a modern
Metcalf, for instance, their suggestive power is so great as to overcome
a certain lack of colour by the convincingness of the mood represented.
Daubigny and Rousseau, of that great company of the school of 1825, are
merely suggested in two small and very conscientious studies.

Gallery 62.

This will always be remembered as the gallery of the "Green Madonna".
Whatever caused this "Green Madonna" to be honored by a Grand Prix at
Paris will always remain one of those mysteries with which the world is
laden. Of all disagreeable colour schemes, it is certainly one of the
least appealing ever put upon a canvas. It is hardly a scheme at all,
since I do not believe the juxtaposition of so many different slimy
greens, nowhere properly relieved nor accentuated by a complementary
red, can ever be called a scheme. Technically speaking, the canvas is
well painted, but it is hardly worthy of the attention its size and
subject win. Dagnan-Bouveret has rendered good service as a teacher and
also as a painter of animal life, but in this canvas he surely is not up
to his best.

The Barbizon men continue to hold one's attention by a splendid Troyon.
It is one of the best of his canvases I have ever seen. The little Diaz
alongside of it is also typical of this very luminous painter, who often
attains a lusciousness of colour in his work not reached by any other of
the Barbizon men.

Fortuny, in an Algiers picture, shows the same brilliant technical
quality which is so much in evidence in a small watercolor in the
preceding gallery. Jules Bastien-LePage's studio nude seems very
unhappily placed in a naturalistic background into which it does not
fit, and Cazin's big canvas, while very dignified, hardly comes up to
the level of his repenting "Simon Peter", in the other gallery.
Pelouse's landscape, of singularly beautiful composition and colour,
should not be overlooked. It is alongside the Cazin.

While almost all the pictures referred to so far are of the French
school, there are three pictures of the older German school - two
Lenbachs, one a very accurately drawn portrait of the German philosopher
Mommsen, and the other a portrait of himself. They show this powerful
artist in two different aspects. While the Mommsen is one of his later,
broader pictures, the portrait of himself is of an earlier date, showing
the artist as the serious student he has always been. Adolph Schreyer,
another German, with his Bedouin pictures, was the pet of the art lovers
in his day, and pictures like this can be found in almost every
collection in the world.

The miscellaneous sculpture in this gallery is full of interest and
gives one a good suggestion of the great mass of small modern sculpture
found throughout the galleries. Mora's Indian figures are particularly
interesting from their originality of theme. Mora tries hard to be
unconventional, without going into the bizarre, and succeeds very well.

Gallery 61.

The difference of appearance in the four older galleries discussed and
the one now visited is so marked as to lead one to believe that our
investigations have not been conducted in the proper chronological
order. All the art of the world, up to and including the Barbizon
school, is characterized by a predominant brown colour which, on account
of its warmth, is never disagreeable, although sometimes monotonous. The
daring of the Englishman Constable in painting a landscape outdoors led
to the development of a new point of view, which the older artists did
not welcome. Constable and the men of the Barbizon school realized for
the first time that outdoor conditions were totally different from the
studio atmosphere, and while the work of such men as Corot, Millet,
Daubigny, Rousseau, and Diaz is only slightly removed from the somber
brown of the studio type, it recognizes a new aspect of things which was
to be much farther developed than they ever dreamed. Just as Constable
shocked his contemporaries by his - for that time - vivid outdoor blues
and greens, so the men of the school of 1870, or the impressionists,
surprised and outraged their fellowmen with a type of picture which we
see in control of this delightfully refreshing gallery. We can testify
by this time that Constable, although much opposed in his day, seems
very tame to us today, and caution seems well advised before a final
judgment of impressionism is passed. The slogan of this gallery seems to
be, "More light and plenty of it!" The Monet wall gives a very good idea
of the impressionistic school, in seven different canvases ranging from
earlier more conventional examples to some of his latest efforts. One
more fully understands the goal that these men, like Monet, Renoir,
Sisley, Pissarro, and others in this gallery were striving for when, in
an apparently radical way, they discarded the attitude of their
predecessors, in their search for light. It is true they encountered
technical difficulties which forced them into an opacity of painting
which is absolutely opposed to the smooth, sometimes licked appearance
of the old masters. Many of these men must be viewed as great
experimenters, who opened up new avenues without being entirely able to
realize themselves. They are collectively known generally as
impressionists, though the word "plein-airist" - luminist - has been
chosen sometimes by them and by their admirers. The neo-impressionists
in pictorial principle do not differ from the impressionist. Their
technical procedure is different, and based on an optical law which
proves that pure primary colours, put alongside of each other in
alternating small quantities, will give, at a certain distance, a
freshness and sparkle of atmosphere not attained by the earlier
technical methods of the impressionistic school, which does not in the
putting on of the paint differ from the old school. Besides, this use of
pure paint enabled them to have the mixing of the paint, so to speak,
done on the canvas, as the various primary colours juxtaposed would
produce any desired number of secondary and tertiary colours without
loss of freshness. In other words a green would be produced, not by
mixing yellow and blue on the palette, but by putting a yellow dot and a
blue dot alongside of each other, and so ad infinitum. According to the
form of their colour dots they were called pointillistes, poiristes, and
other more or less self-explanatory names. The service of these men to
art can never be estimated too highly. The modern school of landscape
painting particularly, and other art involving indoor subjects, are
based entirely on the principles Monet discovered to the profession.

Pissarro, on either end of the wall opposite the Monet, appeals more in
the new method of the neo-impressionists than Monet, by reason of much
more interesting subjects. The one Pissarro on the right is of the first
order from every point of view, demonstrating the superiority of the
neo-impressionistic style applied to a very original and interesting
subject. "The River Seine," by Sisley, is also wonderfully typical of
this new style, while of the two Renoirs, only the still-life can really
be called successful. There is an unfortunate fuzziness in his landscape
which defeats all effect of difference of texture in the various objects
of which this picture is composed.

There are a number of canvases in this gallery which have nothing to do
with the predominating impressionistic character of the gallery. The
Puvis de Chavannes gives one a very fine idea of the idealistic outlook
of this greatest of all modern decorators. His art is so genuinely
decorative that to see one of his pictures in a frame seems almost
pathetic, when we think how infinitely more beautiful it would look as
part of a wall. Eugène Carrière is very well represented by a stately
portrait of a lady with a small dog. Carrière's mellow richness is
entirely his own and rarely met with in any other artist's work.

On the west wall opposite the Puvis four very different canvases deserve
to be mentioned. In the center a young Russian, Nicholas Fechin,
displays a very unusual virtuosity in a picture of a somewhat
sensual-looking young creature. Aside from the fascination of this young
human animal, the handling of paint in this canvas is most
extraordinary, possessing a technical quality few other canvases in the
entire exhibition have. There is life, such as very few painters ever
attain, and seen only in the work of a master. This work is not entirely
a Nell Brinkley in oil, either. I confess I have a strange fondness for
this weird canvas.

The international character of this gallery is most pronounced. Directly
above the Fechin, Frits Thaulow, the Norwegian, justifies his reputation
as the painter of flowing water in a picture of great beauty. Gaston La
Touche faintly discloses in a large canvas his imaginative style,
carried so much farther in his later work. Joseph Bail, the Frenchman,
got into this gallery probably only on the basis of size, to balance the
La Touche on the other side. To all appearances Bail has very little in
common with the general modern character of this gallery. Nevertheless
his canvas has merit in many ways.



Foreign Nations



France

A discussion of the impressionistic school makes it almost imperative to
continue our investigation by way of the French Section. France is
easily to modern art what Italy was to the art of the Renaissance or
Greece to antiquity. Almost all countries, with the exception of those
of northern Europe, have gone to school at Paris. It becomes quite
evident at first glance that a certain very desirable spaciousness in
the hanging of the pictures contributes much toward the generally
favorable impression of this section of the exhibition, though it is
hard to understand why this fine effect should have been spoiled by the
pattern used on the wall-covering. It seems unbelievable that a people
like the French should so violate a fundamental principle, which a
first-semester art student would scarcely do. The otherwise delightful
impression of the French section, so excellently arranged, is
considerably impaired by this faux pas. There is no chronological
succession in evidence in the hanging of pictures in the six galleries
of this section, and old and new, conservative and radical, are hung
together with no other consideration than harmonious ensemble.

Gallery 18.

In the western end of the section presided over by a decorative painting
of some aras among orange trees (over the west door), a beautiful,
almost classic canvas by Henri Georget commands immediate attention. The
poetic idealism of this decorative landscape, together with a fine
joyousness, give it unusual character. Alongside of it a very
intelligently painted little canvas by Albert Guillaume shows the
interior of an art dealer's shop. The agent is making Herculean efforts
to bamboozle an unsuspecting parvenu into buying an example of some very
"advanced" painting. The canvas is fine persiflage in its clever
psychological characterization of the sleek dealer and the stupid
helplessness of the bloated customer and his wife, who seem hypnotized
by the wicked eye in the picture. As a piece of modern genre in a much
neglected field, it is one of the finest things of recent years. On the
extreme left of this wall a very fine bit of painting of an Arabian
fairy tale by E. Dinet deserves to be mentioned.

Almost opposite this small canvas Lucien Simon has a large picture
painted with the bravura for which he is famous. The atmosphere of this
fine interior is simply and spontaneously achieved, and the three
figures of mother, nurse and balky baby are excellently drawn. The
still-life by Moride, to the left of this picture, shows all the
earmarks of the modern school without sacrificing a certain delicacy of
handling which is often considered by many modern painters a confession
of weakness. A fine Dutch canvas on the extreme left of this wall, by
Guillaume-Roger, attracts by a fine decorative note seldom found in
pictures of French easel painters.

The east wall of this gallery is distinguished by a number of fine
landscapes by different men. Beginning on the left side of the door
Jules-Emile Zingg presents two tonally skillful winter landscapes of
great fidelity, while on the right is Henry Grosjean's delicate
atmospheric study of a broad valley floor. A decorative watercolour of
the Versailles Gardens, by Mlle. Carpentier, commands admiration by
reason of its fine composition as well as by the economical but
effective technique of putting transparent paint over a charcoal
drawing. The sculpture in this gallery is of no great moment. Like much
of the modern French sculpture it is very well done in a technical sense
without disclosing great concentration of mind.

Gallery 17.

A variety of subjects continues to impress one in this gallery.
Portraits, landscapes, and historical subjects, with here and there a
genre note, make the general character of the French exhibit, showing at
every turn the great technical dexterity for which French art has long
been celebrated. There is no picture of outstanding merit in this
gallery, unless one would single out a very sympathetic, simple
landscape by Paul Buffet and the Lucien Griveau landscape called "The
Silver Thread," diagonally opposite, a canvas of rich tonality and
distinctive composition.

Gallery 16.

An adjoining gallery toward the east has a great number of excellent
pictures to hold the attention of the visitor. To begin with the figure
painters, the Desch portrait of a little girl in empire costume appeals
by its genuinely original design. The carefully considered pattern
effect of this canvas is most agreeable and well assisted by a very
refined colour scheme. Although a trifle dry, the quality of painting in
this canvas is the same as that which makes Whistler's work so
interesting. This painting is one of the great assets of the French
section, and to my mind one of the great pictures of the entire
exhibition. Balancing the Desch canvas, one finds another figural canvas
of great beauty of design, by Georges Devoux. "Farewell," while of a
sentimental character, is strong in drawing and composition. It is very
consistent throughout. Everything in the picture has been carefully
considered to support the poetic, sentimental character of the painting,
which is admirably delicate and convincing without being disagreeably
weak.

Jacques-Emile Blanche is represented in this gallery by his well-known
portrait of the dancer Nijinski. A certain Oriental splendor of colour
is the keynote of this canvas, which is much more carelessly painted
than most of Blanche's very clever older portraits. On the opposite wall
Caro-Delvaille shows his dexterity in the portrait of a lady. The lady
is a rather unimportant adjunct to the painting and seems merely to have
been used to support a magnificently painted gown. There is a peculiar
contrast in the very naturalistically painted gown and the severe
interpretation of the face of the sitter. Ernest Laurent's portrait of
Mlle. X is typically French in its loose and suggestive style of
painting, and easily one of the many good portraits in the gallery.

Among the landscapes Andrè Dauchez' "Concarneau," Charles Milcendeau's
"Washerwomen," on the opposite wall, and last but not least, Renè
Mènard's "Opal Sea" - a small picture of great beauty - deserve
recognition. Pierre Roche has a statuette of Loïe Fuller in this gallery
which is conspicuous by its daring composition and simple treatment.

Gallery 15.

Entering this gallery, the first canvas to attract one's attention, by
reason of its boldness of composition and colour, is a large Lucien
Simon called "The Gondola." The versatility of this artist is well
brought out by another picture of a baby, about to be bathed, previously
referred to, and by a third canvas, of "The Communicants," near "The
Gondola." Simon seems to have no difficulty in using several mediums and
styles of expression equally well, as a comparison between "The Gondola"
and "The Communicants" will easily prove. This former picture is the
more original of the two technically, in colour as well as in
composition. It is in danger of losing one's sympathy by a badly
selected frame. Near it hangs a trifolium of virgins, of very anaemic
colour. The drawing, however, is so very sensitive in this canvas that
it makes good for the unconvincing anaemic colour scheme.

The gem of this gallery is a small landscape of Amédée-Julien
Marcel-Clément, of extraordinarily fine composition. A fine decorative
quality is its chief asset, and its sympathetic technical handling adds
much to the enjoyment of this picture. Bartholemé's kneeling figure in
the center of the room is of wonderful nobility of expression and
entirely free from a certain extreme physical naturalism so often found
in modern French sculpture.

Gallery 14.

Passing into the next gallery, where figural pictures predominate, a
very swingy composition of a Brittany festival, by Charles-René
Darrieux, is most conspicuous, for the forceful handling and the fine
quality of movement which characterize the procession of figures
rhythmically moving through the picture. Of the two large nudes on the
same wall, one, a Besnard, is vulgarly physical, although well painted,
and the other too insipid to make one feel that the French penchant for
nudes is sufficiently justified. Le Sidaner's poetic evening recommends
itself for the quiet intimacy with which it is handled. Herrmann Vogel's
portrait of a gentleman in a chair, also on the east wall, while not
very spontaneous in handling, is interesting nevertheless in its
composition and the psychological characterization of the sitter. Most
of the other pictures in this gallery have really not enough individual
character to single them out, no matter how high their general standard
may be.

Gallery 13.

The last and smallest of the French galleries is given over to some
recent phases of French art. After looking at the serious work of the
French in the other galleries, a first-hand acquaintance with this
medley of newest pictures is hardly satisfactory. There is a feeling of
affected primitiveness about most of them, particularly in a small
canvas of a bouquet of flowers in a green vase, which is the acme of
absurdity. If Odilon Redon wanted to be trivial, he has achieved
something quite wonderful. Certain ultra-modern manifestations of art
are never more intolerable than when seen together in large numbers, as
in this gallery. Still, the French section can well afford some of these
experimenting talents, since the general character of their other work
is so high. Maurice Denis' canvas of a spring procession, in just a few
silvery tones, is really lovely; the large number of decorations by him,
all around on the second line, scarcely comes up to the beauty of this
small canvas.

The French representation deserves much credit for a great number of
reasons, not least for an astounding versatility, always accompanied by
technical excellence.



Italy

Going over into the Italian galleries, the first impression is that
while there are certain groups of pictures of a very high order, the
general standard of this section is not quite so high as in the French
Department. The Italians seem to have the advantage over the French in
regard to the selection of a background for their galleries. They made
no such mistake as putting a Pullman car floor pattern on the wall, and
the general effect is one of calmness. As in the French section, the
work of the modern painter seems superior to sculptured work of the same
period. The work of Tito and of Mancini, among the painters, stands out
in this Italian collection.

Gallery 21.

Tito, whose work can be found in a group of five pictures in this
gallery, has a very pronounced decorative sense, which he employs with
great ease in a group of five most excellent pictures. To students of
technical procedure his work is worthy of study. His under-painting is
done in tempera, and sometimes the complete work, as in the cattle
picture, is done in this medium, which, by an application of varnish, is
then transformed into an oil. The most interesting pictures in his group
of five are the two on the right of his wall. The mythological subjects
underlying both canvases have a classic note, but their refreshing
colour scheme removes these pictures from any classic affiliation. The
woodland scene, enlivened by a few hilarious centaurs pursuing nymphs,
is tremendously sure in handling and very gorgeous in the many golden
browns and greens which control the colour scheme. The kneeling Venus
alongside is unusually alluring in its blue and gold tones, and is one
of the really fine pictures in the exhibition. While the Venus and the
Centaurs are the backbone of the Italian section, Tito's "Blue Lady" is
very chic and, as a colour arrangement of blue-blacks and flesh colour,
most decorative. The canvas in the center, evidently belonging to an
older period of the artist, has nothing of the direct method of the
accomplished master, although in composition it has a certain bigness.
Tito's art has the full and rich expression of an original personality.

The landscapes in this gallery, of which there are a goodly number, are
all typically Italian in their artificiality of colour and in a certain
sweetness which makes them lose in one's estimation the longer one
studies them. Clever as they are technically, they do not convince and
they do not reflect a thorough knowledge of the spirit of outdoors. All
one admires in the Barbizon men - the lyric feeling of a Corot or the
more dramatic note of a Rousseau - is missing in the modern Italian
landscape as seen in these pictures. They are flippant in their catchy
technique and in the absence of any thought.

Gallery 22.

This room is dominated by three portraits by Antonio Mancini, of unusual
cleverness and very fine psychological characterization. Mancini's work
grows on one. While seeming at first rather loose and superficial, these
portraits disclose on more intimate study a fine constructive quality.
They are not particularly interesting in colour; as a matter of fact
they are very monochromatic. Their appeal is based on an intensely
serious quality of studious experimentation, which a very sketchy
technique cannot hide. To the left of the three Mancinis hangs a simple
picture of large proportions called "Maternity," by Pietro Gaudenzi.
This is one of those modern interpretations of the birth of Jesus which
appeals by the individualistic note. The picture is sympathetic by
reason of its restriction to a few simple facts. No doubt it will fail
to receive a wide appreciation, since sociologically any picture of its
type disclosing human life under poverty-stricken conditions is rarely
approved by the public. Nevertheless one of the greatest of all stories
is, with feeling and restraint alike, well rendered on this canvas.

On the opposite wall Arturo Noci has a very striking interior. There is
nothing tricky about this most effective canvas. The result is simply
and directly attained by good, sound painting. The red curtain in the
distant room is a trifle raw and refuses somewhat to take its place in
the picture. Two landscapes on this wall deserve mention for their fine
skies and their decorative note. Giuseppe Carosi's little landscape with
the oxen is so much better than the one below by the same artist that it
is hard to believe both were done by the same man. "La Valle dell'
Aniene," by Dante Ricci, is big in feeling, well painted, and
unquestionably one of the best landscapes in the Italian section.

Gallery 23.

The east gallery is almost entirely given over to sculpture, with one
exception which is notable so far as the dear public is concerned - a
painting, "The Arch of Septimius Severus," by Luigi Bazzani. I cannot
fathom why Luigi Bazzani should go to all this trouble in trying to
imitate a photograph when the result over which he so painfully laboured
could be done by any good photographer for less than five dollars. It
seems to me an absolutely futile thing to try to represent something in
a medium very badly chosen for this particular stunt. A stunt it is, and
always will be, no matter how much we admire the painstaking drawing and
the infinite care involved. Texturally the canvas is all wrong, because
the sky, the stone, everything in the picture, looks like glass and not
like the various things it is intended to represent. However, it is a
wonderful piece of patience - so much should be said for it.

Millet's man with the hoe sitting down is the strongest piece of
sculpture in this gallery. The figure doubtless belongs to an older
school, as its discolorations as well as its technical treatment
indicate. Alongside the rest of the things in this small room it is, in
spite of being carried somewhat too far, very forceful and convincing.
No matter whether the man succumbed to the dreariness of work or to the
malarial fever of the Pontine swamps, all that has ever been said about
Millet's man and the terrible fatalism of his facial expression is found
in this piece of sculpture.

Rodin's influence is making itself felt in most of the other pieces in
this room, as in the Vedani kissing pair. The beautiful colour in the
marble in this group puts much life into it. Nicolini's work shows much
breadth and a fine mastery of form. A frame of animal plaques by Brozzi
adds considerably to the artistic merit of the sculpture. A certain
muscular mannerism is evident in all of them, though not in the least
disturbing.

Gallery 24.

Two portraits by Enrico Lionne of very repulsive colour are prominently
hung in the east gallery, without convincing one in the least of this
artist's high standing at home. Cold and artificial, they are not
deserving of the prominent place they occupy. Near the door on the
opposite wall Vincenzo Yrolli presents a street musician and his
audience in a canvas riotous with good colour. The composition and the
literal technical treatment of this work commend themselves highly by
good judgment and spontaneous handling. The two figure pictures by
Pietro Chiesa, on an adjoining wall to the right, ought to be
remembered, and also an interior on the opposite wall by Vianello.

Gallery 25.

In the last of the Italian galleries, on the west wall, we observe the
unusual spectacle of a whole family of artists distinguishing itself in
a group of pictures. There is Beppe Ciardi, the father; Guglielmo, the
son; and Emma, the daughter. All of their pictures are conspicuous for
their saneness and big feeling. The father, Beppe, with the center
canvas, has not the breadth and bigness that is so typical of both the
son's pictures of similar subjects. The skies in the younger man's
pictures are particularly fine. The daughter's single canvas, on the
left, to me seems even better than those of both father and brother. A
certain imaginative quality, shown in this big formal garden,
constitutes Emma Ciardi's superiority over the rest of the family. On
the whole the showing of this family is excellent in every way.

The landscapes in this gallery are far above those mentioned in the Tito
gallery. In fact there are so many other good pictures that a mere
mention of names must suffice. From the Ciardi group on toward the
right, Guido Marussig's "Walled City", Italico Brass' "Pontoon Bridge",
and particularly Scattola's "Venice" are all worthy of comment.
Scattola's picture is very sensitively studied, discreetly painted and
full of the poetry of a summer night. Before leaving the Italian
section, Mentessi's big imaginative architectural study should be
appreciated. It will crystallize the visitor's opinion of the general
excellence of Italy's contribution to the exhibition.

As a matter of racial tradition, and not so much because of similarity
of standards, we are almost obliged to continue our investigations into
the other nations most closely allied with the Latin people, of Southern
Europe and elsewhere. There is much room to believe that in a
contemporaneous art exhibition the Paris influence should make itself
felt in more than one way. Paris, after all, is the Mecca of all art
students, particularly of the foreign Latin countries. The technical
superiority of the French school of painting has for years caused an
influx of foreign students into Paris, who are now giving us, in such
national sections as those of Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba, and
the Philippine Islands, the result of this contact. It will easily be
seen that unless a distinct national outlook, based on scenery, climate,
history, and tradition generally, is added to the mere technical
performance, no matter how clever, a national art can hardly develop. So
we find that with all the good intentions in the art of any of the
countries mentioned, very little typical national expression is brought
out. In choice of subject and colour scheme the art of all of these
countries is very much alike.



Portugal

The Portuguese section does not present any great painter such as Spain,
for instance, has produced in Sorolla or Zuloaga, though both seem to be
very much admired by all Latin painters, as well as by some of the
Germanic artists, as a certain canvas of a Dutch lady in the Holland
section will demonstrate.

Nudes are still in vogue, or rather naked women, and probably will be as
long as the sale of strong drink needs to be increased by the kind of
creation commonly known as the saloon picture. There is surely nothing
nobler than the truly idealized interpretation of the human figure by
artistic means, but the purposely sensuous nude is becoming rather a
bore. Painting flesh is one of the most difficult of all things,
particularly as to the correct texture, but there ought to be a limit in
the production of such a type of picture as the one by Veloso Salgado in
the Portuguese section.

Here a great variety of subjects is treated, mostly with entirely too
much realism. Photographic truthfulness is not the function of painting,
because, first of all, the medium will not allow it without losing a
certain quality indicating the fact that it is painting; and secondly,
art can only be an approximation anyhow, and it should carry its point
by forceful and convincing suggestion rather than by a tightly rendered
photographic fact. The great pictures are first those of a strong
suggestive quality and, secondly, those possessing a certain something
the artist calls design - meaning thereby a more or less arbitrary
arrangement of form and colour effects which will please the eye. The
idea of design has not struck the Portuguese artist as yet; at least it
is not apparent in the pictures of that section. The technical
excellence of their work is uniform and in some cases very creditable,
particularly in the many small canvases by Senhor de Sousa Lopes, the
art commissioner of his country.

Continuing in the western gallery of the Portuguese section, directly
opposite the nude referred to, an outdoor sewing circle by José Malhoa
arouses interest. The outdoor quality in this canvas is very pronounced,
and the gay enlacement of the luxuriant wistaria with the orange trees
in the distance, together with the multi-coloured ensemble of children,
make for a lovely effect. The middle gallery doubtless holds Portugal's
most important claims upon artistic distinction, in the group of three
portraits and two still-lifes by Columbano. The three portraits are
unusually dignified and psychologically suggestive enough to show that
the painter was not interested in exterior facts alone. The portrait of
the bearded gentleman in the middle is fine, though somewhat academic in
colour. The two little still-lifes wedged in between the larger
portraits are exquisite in every way, and make up for a lot of
superficialities found in this section. All around in this gallery, in
more than a dozen sketches from Spain and Italy, Sousa Lopes shows fine
ability in the handling of paint and great power of observation. All of
these apparently recent things by Senhor Lopes are far more enjoyable
than a huge "Pilgrimage", which, while well painted, is too scattered.
The unity of feeling in the work of Columbano is much more necessary in
a canvas of this size than in a small sketch. (Rembrandt's famous
"Nightwatch" and Velasquez's "Surrender of Breda" illustrate this point
very well.) Malhoa's well-painted interior called "The Native Song" has
more of this desirable feeling of oneness, which may be due to the fact
that it deals with an indoor setting, while de Sousa Lopes' "Pilgrimage"
in the adjoining gallery presents a far more difficult problem in the
reflected and glaring light effect of a southern country. Among the
sculptures of this country Vaz Jor's "Grandmother" is of unusually high
merit and intensely well studied. On the whole there is more academic
training in evidence than originality of expression, but we may expect
good things hereafter from the art of this country, which practically at
no time in the history of art has produced any really great name.



Argentina

Retracing our steps, we invade the Argentine, in a well-appointed
gallery. The first general impression is very good, though on closer
examination nothing of really great merit holds one's attention for any
length of time. While naturalism reigns in Portugal, a more pronounced
decorative conventional note predominates in this section, particularly
in the portraiture. There is a peculiar superabundance of purple and
dark reds in the Argentine section, which gives this gallery a morbid
quality. On the main wall, in the left corner, Héctor Nava has a very
distinguished "Lady in Black". Among all of the portraits on this wall
it is easily the best, although some charming interiors of a singularly
cool tonality are not without interest. They are too reminiscent of
Frieseke to convince one of their originality. Another "Black Lady",
continuing toward the right on the next wall, has much to recommend her.
A better frame would enhance the merit of this canvas.

There is no landscape of any importance in the Argentine section, no
matter how hard the effort to find one. They are all singularly
artificial. A small harbor picture by Pedro Delucchi is strong in
colour, as well as in technical treatment. It has an unusual wealth of
colour, and great richness which contrasts strongly with the general
coldness of this section.



Uruguay

Here another South American republic holds forth in a small gallery off
the Italian section. The gallery is dominated by a large equestrian
portrait of General Galarza, by Blanes Viale. A certain fondness for
disagreeable greens and for decorative effects is noticeable in this
gallery, and one is not convinced of the necessity for a more
comprehensive display.



Cuba

The same remark applies to the Cuban section, where Romanach's
Düsseldorf style of picture shows at least good academic training,
without rising, however, above illustration in any one of the very well
painted figure pictures. Rodriguez Morey's big, intimate foreground
studies are commendable for their faithfulness and for a certain poetic
quality which takes them out of the realm of mere accurate truthfulness.



Philippine Islands

The small Philippine section makes one curious to know whether there is
nothing in the tradition of this people related to the art of Asia that
could serve as a basis for their artistic endeavors. To any
serious-minded person it must be evident that the Filipino is not going
to work out his artistic salvation by way of the Paris studio. It must
come out of the soil, so to speak, and must be based on the racial,
religious, and other national elements. It would do the Filipino people
good to see their collection in close proximity to that of other
nations. Aside from that, a natural sequence of artistic development by
developing the more decorative arts of making useful things beautiful -
such things as pots and pans, rugs, and jewelry - would be much more
becoming than this European affectation. The real art of the Filipinos
is to be seen in their art industries in the Philippine Building.



The Orient

For historical reasons alone, if not for supremacy along artistic lines,
Japan and China should by right be dealt with at the very beginning. But
having had, since time immemorial, a very detached, highly original
note, they fit in anywhere, if not best in between the art of the
Romanic and Germanic races. Practically the entire world owes a great
debt to Japan, for a certain outlook in decorative art has been adopted
from Japan by the best artists of the world. Oriental art is so truly an
art of the people, devoting itself most closely to the artistic
development of the utilitarian things of life, that to see them at their
best one has to look at their furniture, including folding screens,
pottery, jewelry, rugs, and practically everything else that is needed
in the daily life of the people. The art of China and Japan is so old
that its real origin is almost a matter of guesswork, and has a certain
general obscurity to most outsiders, owing to language, religion, and
customs. This has led to a commercial exploitation of their art in
Europe, and in America particularly, based mostly on humbug and partly
on facts. If all the pottery, rugs and furniture said to have come from
distinguished artists and from even more distinguished circles of
ownership, mostly palaces of the Ming dynasty, were enumerated, there
would be nothing left to have come from the atmosphere of the ordinary
Oriental. The Japanese and Chinese are taking quick advantage of the
guilelessness of the western lover of art, and much that is to be seen
in either one of the two sections is rather a concession to western
demand than to native Oriental talent. Only the special student of
oriental art will consent to learn enough of the Japanese or Chinese
language to familiarize himself with any other than the commonly known
artists of these countries, and all that one can do within the frame of
an international exhibition is to single out those things which appeal
on the basis of certain artistic principles which are the same the world
over. To go into the many religious and other sentimental considerations
which are sometimes the basic justification for some very extraordinary
fantastic things, charmingly exploited by certain art dealers, is
impossible within the scope of this book.



Japan

The Japanese people, at the extreme southern end of the Palace of Fine
Arts, have a representative show of painted screens, of extraordinary
beauty. Anyone, without being in the least familiar with the fauna and
flora of Japan, must admire the tremendously acute power of observation
and surety of drawing which made these designs possible. The two sixfold
screens by Taisei Minakami on the east wall of the eastern gallery are
probably the most magnificently daring examples of modern Japanese art.
To the student of design they offer a most stimulating opportunity for
study. Acutely observed, their tropical subjects, very daring in colour,
are exhaustively beautiful. The spacing of the design, the relative
distribution of the few daring colours against a gold background of
wonderful texture, combine in a picture of great vitality. The art of no
people is so scientific as that of these people, whose every effort, no
matter how insignificant, is technically always sound. Our modern art
schools could very profitably imitate the Japanese principle of teaching
their young students how to do a thing well and of leaving the choice of
subjects to their own inclination.

Almost opposite, a vertical composition of a lumber camp on a
mountainside, by Bunto Hayashi, attracts by an unusual subject very
descriptively rendered. The picture belongs to the older school, not so
much for the lack of colour, which is often erroneously identified with
the older Japanese works, as for a certain quality of less decoration
and of more detailed treatment of the drawing. The drawing is, of
course, the important element in all Japanese art, since all of their
work has to yield a great deal of pleasure of the intellectual kind at
close distance, on account of the smallness of Japanese dwellings, which
keeps the owner of the picture in close proximity with his artistic
possessions. A picture of crows in a rainstorm, on the same wall, on the
right side of the southern door, and also a very characteristic study of
some kind of cedar, with birds on the left of it, give one an excellent
idea of the astonishing variety of material that the Japanese artist
successfully controls.

In two irregularly shaped triangular galleries adjoining, Shodo Hirata
maintains the standard of the first gallery, not to forget, either,
Toyen Oka with his oleander bush and the cat on the picturesque fence.
Tesshu Okajima's hollyhock screens are marvels of decorative simplicity,
while Kangai Takakura uses a washday as a motive for a double twofold
screen decoration. The last two artists can both be found in the second
irregular triangular gallery, opposite the first one mentioned. The
central octagonal gallery also is devoted to screen pictures, done by
means of embroidery. Some of them, largely those of native design, are
successful in really giving the quality of the subjects depicted, but
cannot grow enthusiastic over two unduly protected screen embroideries,
a German marine and an English pair of lions, done in silk. They are
both as hard as nails and devoid of any real suggestion of the spirit
which animates either water or lions in reality. If it is so great an
achievement as we are often asked to believe to do certain things in
badly chosen material, then why not try to reproduce Rafael's "Sistine
Madonna" with thumbtacks? Most such attempts to find an agreeable
substitute for the various painting media are merely silly.

Sharing the hospitality of the cases with the embroidery pictures are
the wood sculptures, some of which are intensely interesting, as, for
instance, the "Man with the Spade." The underlying idea of cubism is
very intelligently embodied in this small figure, without any
affectation. The many small woodblock prints to be seen here do credit
to the reputation which Japanese artists have long enjoyed in this
special field.

The remaining smaller galleries are given over to replicas of the
originals of older art, modern sculpture, and painting in the modern
style. Why the modern Japanese artists want to divorce themselves from
the traditions of their forefathers seems incomprehensible. There is not
a thing in the western style in this gallery of Japanese painting that
comes anywhere near giving one the artistic thrills won by their
typically Japanese work. I think the sooner these wayward sons are
brought back into the fold of their truly Oriental colleagues, the
better it will be for the national art of Japan, the most profound art
the world has ever seen.



China

The first impression of the Chinese section is disappointing. There is
no real life in any of the work here displayed, and most of it consists
of modern replicas - some of very excellent quality - of their oldest
and best art treasures. The Chinese seem to be absolutely content to
rest upon their old laurels, the fragrance of which can hardly ever be
exhausted; but nevertheless that does not relieve them of the obligation
of working up new problems in a new way. There is so much religious and
other sentiment woven into their art that to the casual observer much of
the pleasure of looking at the varied examples of applied art is spoiled
by the necessity of having to read all of the longwinded stories
attached to many of them. The freshness of youth, the spirit of
progress, which enliven the Japanese section, are entirely missing in
this display, which seems like a voice from the past - a solemn monument
to an old civilization without any connection with the New Republic and
its modern pretensions. I am afraid China is laboring under conditions
of internal strife which are detrimental to the development of any
artistic expression.



Sweden

Of all the foreign nations represented, with the exception of Japan and
China, none possesses so distinct a national character as the art of
Sweden. I cannot help expressing my personal conviction that it is the
best national section in the whole exhibition, showing, as it does, not
merely easel painting, but also many splendid examples of so-called
applied art, which often permits one to get a deeper insight into the
standard of art of a people than easel painting alone. It is true that
certain examples of painting in the French or American sections are more
appealing to us, but in the light of the national characteristics of the
people and the country, Swedish art has a very definite quality,
consistently shown. Their work has a robustness which has nothing to do
with the salon aspect of the art of southern Europe, particularly
France. In fact it is almost opposed to the art of the Romanic races,
and distinctly apart from the art of Germany. It is fortunate Sweden
could make such a splendid showing without the support of the art of
such a man as Anders Zorn, who, while decidedly Swedish, is after all
much of a cosmopolitan painter, with all the earmarks of an
international training. The art of the most artistic of all people, that
of the French, is often said to have a decadent note. In comparison,
Swedish art may be said to be absolutely robust, healthy, and vigorous,
without being coarse. To those who pretend to find a certain physical
brutality in Swedish art, I should like to point out that the most
delicate pictures in the entire exhibition - those of John Bauer - are
the chief asset of the Swedish exhibit. The great variety of the work in
this section makes it very interesting, and permits, as said before,
close insight into many phases of modern art.

The most pronounced individualities in the collection, covering all
fields, are Bruno Liljefors, Gustav Fjaestad, Carl Larsson, John Bauer,
Mr. and Mrs. Boberg, David Edström, Mas-Olle, and others too numerous to
mention. Bruno Liljefors for many years has been known internationally
as one of the best of animal painters, and particularly of sea fowl. He
has had the experience common to many great artists, of working himself
up from very academic beginnings to a wonderful personality of marked
freedom. His canvas of the nine wild swans is perhaps the biggest single
picture in the entire Exposition. It is immediately suggestive of a
decoration, and to think of it in that sense, as a part of a wall seen
from a great distance, makes one almost tremble with expectation. This
truly great picture is a rhythmic masterpiece. The placing of these
graceful swans is marvelously well studied from the point of view of
design, yet none the less does an expression of reality animate these
divine birds. There is something about swans which puts them even above
the king of birds, the eagle. I can conceive of men killing any animal,
but the thought of one of these noble birds falling victim to man's
perverse desires is incomprehensible to me. Of the other pictures by the
same artist, the flock of wild geese, standing in the shallow water of a
stony beach, carries all the conviction of being well studied which
applies to any of Liljefors' pictures. The eagles and the seagulls are
scarcely as interesting as the swans. Liljefors is never better than
when he depicts flying birds - and fly they do. There is never any doubt
about it. Those swans are actually in the air, and moving. A certain
disagreeable fuzziness in the skies of all of his pictures interferes
somewhat with their full enjoyment.

Of the other painters Mrs. Boberg should be mentioned next. She is the
wife of Ferdinand Boberg, the architect of the Swedish Building, who
himself, as a true artist excelling in a number of things, has a
splendid collection of etchings in the long black and white gallery
adjoining the Liljefors' room. Mrs. Anna Boberg's pictures, in a very
small gallery at the eastern end of this section, are not advantageously
hung. Her work is so decorative, and so painted for distant effect, that
to see it close at hand is disappointing. The eleven of her pictures are
unusual in subject and for that reason win less sympathy than they
deserve. All of them were painted on a trip she made with her husband to
the Lofoden islands, and when one considers the proverbial coldness of
the Arctic seas, her interpretations seem marvelous in their beauty and
richness of colour. A study of their titles in the catalogue seems
hardly necessary for understanding of their meaning, and I for one am
perfectly satisfied to feast on the gorgeous colouring and the great
veracity they possess. Some of them are already sold, a most surprising
thing when one considers that to most people a picture actually executed
in three dimensions is seldom considered meritorious. I do think that
while the physical width and height of Mrs. Boberg's pictures are
governed by conventional considerations, a little less depth of paint
might accomplish the same solid appearance without making one feel like
slipping sideways past them into the next gallery for fear of knocking
off a few lumps of paint.

In the adjoining gallery, a somewhat larger one on the east, Gustav
Fjaestad's very fine decorations form what we are in the habit of
calling a "one-man show." Mr. Fjaestad certainly has the decorative
feeling, whether he paints a picture or designs a rug. In fact all of
his pictures look like designs for rugs. And why not? If a wall rug is a
decoration, a picture should be one in just the same way. It is hard to
single out among the many good examples the best one, and it may be left
to the taste of the individual, who among nothing but good things cannot
make a poor choice. The time will come again when our artists will find
it honourable and profitable to apply their talents to utilitarian art,
as does Fjaestad, and the interrelated activities of the Swedish in both
fine and applied arts afford a lesson which is by no means new. It is
the basic condition on which the art of the Renaissance flourished that
develops men like the Swedes.

There is a big difference between Liljefors and Mrs. Boberg, or again
between her and Fjaestad, but not any greater than between all of these
artists and John Bauer. John Bauer's paintings are exquisite, and even
such abused adjectives as "sweet" and "delicate" are not out of place
when applied to his work. I hope we have some enlightened person among
us who can afford to buy the whole batch of them, and do it quickly,
before any more of them are sold singly. It takes more time to enjoy
these little fairy tales than one can afford to give to them. They
possess everything a good illustrative painting ought to have. A wealth
of ideas imaginatively represented, good drawing, and intimate feeling
tell of the keen pleasure the artist must have had in producing these
gems.

As an illustrator, though very different, Carl Larsson appeals in a
comprehensive group of pictures in another gallery. Carl Larsson's
extraordinary resourcefulness in getting everything he needs out of the
confines of his home has for years been the cause of his great
popularity abroad, and in his thirty-three cheerful drawings he
discloses his entire home life, in all the variety of happenings which
makes married existence a success. His drawing is faultless, his sense
of colour supple and refreshing, and his ability to make such extensive
use of the relatively narrow atmosphere of his home without exhausting
it proves his caliber. Larsson has a roommate of great distinction and
modesty in Oscar Bergman, who has contributed some twenty tender bits of
northern landscapes and marines. They are reminiscent of the Japanese,
although it becomes almost foolish to think of the Japanese every time
someone develops a capacity for acute observation and drawing. Bergman's
little lighthouse is particularly convincing and, like most of these
things, should not be allowed to return to the artist.

I shall probably have to retrench in attention to the American section
if I keep on giving pages to this section. But in spite of their great
merit, the work of Kallstenius, Schultzberg, Carlberg, and Osslund will
have to go with only meager reference. Osslund's pictures are somewhat
startling at first, owing to a complexity of technical treatment. He
does not seem to be working in the right medium, for I believe his
Japanesque landscapes could be far more sympathetically presented in
watercolour. Of the group comprising his work, his "Waterfall", "Summer
Evening", and "Evening on Angermann Land" are very fascinating.
Mas-Olle's portraits are interesting not only for good technical
painting but also for fine characterization. His portrait of an old
peasant of Dalecarlia is almost faultless. Near the Mas-Olle portrait
Herman Lindquist has a "Sunny April Day" of unusual poetic claim.
Schultzberg's big sunlit winter scenes hardly need recommendation to
justify their increasing popularity. Alfred Bergstrom's poetic
landscapes add more interest, in the small adjoining room on the east.
Marine pictures by Hullgren are the only contributions in that field,
but quite sufficient to maintain the general standard of excellence. The
drunken man seated at a café table is psychologically interesting. As an
object lesson to discourage the consumption of liquor it is the most
effective picture I have ever seen, and certain interests would do well
to buy it for that reason alone, not to speak of the relief this would
afford. Ernst Küsel's animal pictures, opposite John Bauer's delightful
group, seem quite out of place. His ducks and the goats are satisfactory
enough, but I wish he had to live with that calf picture and see it
every day. Küsel is undoubtedly humourously inclined, without knowing
proper limitations.

The sculpture of the Swedes is of the same unusual excellence that
commands so much respect in their other work. Edstrom easily outranks
his fellow-artists in his group of naturalistic and conventional
architectural heads, in the Liljefors gallery, while in the long and
narrow adjoining gallery a multitude of excellent etchings, drawings,
and black and white work compel mention. They hardly need any
explanation, since in their very character they readily convey their
meaning. One could dwell at greater length upon this most representative
of all national displays, but I fear that it would have to be done at
the expense of the American section, which hospitality has already
placed under a disadvantage.



Holland

The Netherlands representation is conspicuous for its conservative note,
together with the absence of any single picture which might unduly
excite one by its merit. I do not wish to prejudice the art lover who
strolls into this well appointed section, but coming from Sweden, as we
do, so to speak, since it is Sweden's next door neighbor, it gives one
rather a shock. Most of the Dutch pictures are good, almost too good, in
their academic conventional repetition of the timeworn subjects we have
been in the habit of seeing for the last twenty years. The Swedish
section is full of real thrills, but the complacency of the Netherlands
section can hardly be explained by their national temperament alone.
While the Swedish people seem to be blessed just now with an unusual
number of men of great gifts in the field of art, the Netherlands have
entered into what I hope will be only an interregnum of not overly
original painters. The last quarter of the last century saw their glory
in the careers of men like the elder Israels, the Mesdags, the Maris,
Jacob and Willem, Bosbom, Mauve, Weissenbruch, Poggenbeck, and many
others who have departed during the last ten years, or who, if still
living, have scarcely maintained their high standards of earlier days.
The most illustrious name among the older men is Willem Mesdag, who can
hardly be expected at his age to be doing his best. Speaking of Mesdag,
one of their best marine painters of the older days, one is forcibly
reminded of the fact that though a people of the sea the Dutch do not
seem to possess a single strong marine painter. One looks in vain for
any pictures of the open sea reflecting the seafaring traditions and
activities of the Dutch, and if it were not for Mastenbroek's masterly
harbor pictures, one would have to console oneself over this lack of the
briny element with a view of the Amsterdam Marine Aquarium.
Mastenbroek's big canvas is full of life and well painted. It shows the
harbor of Rotterdam animated by a host of vessels of all kinds and
descriptions. While there is a fine feeling of loose accidental
arrangement about this big picture, it is nevertheless well composed.
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. Thérèse 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
Addicks' "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 canal, and Willy 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 shores of California. Originally exhibited at the
last Carnegie Institute 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.

Zügel'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 Zügel, 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 classic
"Nude at the Spring" is of wonderful surface quality. Wenk has an
Italian marine and Benno Becker a landscape from the same country.
Göhler'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 space 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 spaciousness 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 documents 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 classification, 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 pronounced Düsseldorf 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 illustrative 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 titles 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, Grützner, 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 asserted 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 classification 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 classify 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 Cañon,
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 constitutes 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 multitude 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 classified
as anything but very good illustrations, and in the company of easel
pictures they look much out of place. Their interest is only of a
passing 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 noble landscapes will make them
reassuringly 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 classics.
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 illustrative 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 illustrations -
canvases of more than passing interest. While they are largely
illustrations, 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 illustration 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
multitude. 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. Hitchcock's "Dutch
Tulip Beds," with figural staffage, 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 seashore 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, constituting 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 emancipation 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
assistance to convince one of their big part in the honors of the
exhibition. On two opposing walls, Mary Cassatt 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 Cassatt'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 coxcomb
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
noble 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 spacing of delightful, tender areas of neutralized colour,
emphasized here and there by a stronger note of vermilion. Things like
these express his attitude 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 associates die, becomes more and more mystical,
and even at this moment his personality has assumed an almost
mythological character.

Gallery 93.

Twachtman.

It is not a far cry to Twachtman, who presents a peculiar combination of
Whistlerian tonality with the methods of the modern impressionist. His
work is relatively high in key, and devoid of any colour resembling
black. The covered skies of early morning, before the breaking through
of the sun, are his chief motives. Snow plays also an important part in
his work, which is most suggestive in the tender beauty of the few
values and colours it is composed of. There is absolutely nothing of the
sensational about his work. To most people of not sufficient interest on
first acquaintance, on better familiarity they yield to the serious
student and sympathetic lover of nature unlimited pleasure. His poetry
is of the true sort, and in finished work like "October", "View on the
Brette", "Bridge in Spring", and "Greenwich Hills", he rises to a very
high level.

Manship's small statuettes are very effective features of this gallery.
Their linear decorative architectural quality has put Manship into the
front rank of our younger men, and he will have no trouble to
maintain his place.

Gallery 89.

Tarbell.

In an adjoining gallery, Edmund Tarbell is much more striking, in a
number of canvases containing certain qualities, which easily account
for the great popularity he justly enjoys as one of the best of our
American painters. To the student of pictures who does not care whether
they are well painted or not, they are intensely interesting subjects,
reflecting the happy domestic atmosphere of the painter's home, which
has furnished him for years inexhaustible material for many delightful
interpretations of similar subjects. This ability to produce so many
things of equal excellence in a relatively small circle, in one way
proves his greatness. In the last analysis, he has practically
everything in his work one looks for in a work of art. In addition to
having an easily understood idea, his pictures are well composed,
without showing the consciousness of it, as does Whistler. Fine in
colour and handling, beside the idealization of everything he includes
in his work he achieves a certain something which we recognize as style.
He may be a realist in every sense, but he shows how to deal arbitrarily
with his figures in such a way as to endow them with admirable
distinction, without losing the expression of reality. His recent
outdoor work has not the unity of expression of his indoor subjects. It
is difficult, and not really necessary, to single out any work in a
one-man representation of unusual uniformity of excellence. Every one of
his pictures has the earmarks of having been carefully studied.

Bela Pratt's statue of Nathan Hale is much less academic than the other
sculptures arranged in this gallery. Compared with the high standard of
American small plastic art his works are somewhat dry, though always
conscientiously done.

Gallery 88.

Redfield.

As a realistic painter of the outdoors, E. W. Redfield holds an enviable
position in the field of American art. He is the painter par excellence,
without making any pretension at being anything else. The joy of putting
paint on canvas to suggest a relatively small number of things which
make up the great outdoor country, like skies, distance, land
foregrounds, is his chosen task. He is the most direct painter we have.
With a heavily loaded brush, without any regard for anything but
immediate effect, he expresses his landscapes candidly and convincingly.
He is plain-spoken, truthful, free from any trickery - as wholesome as
his subjects. His a la prima methods embody, to the professional man,
the highest principle of technical perfection, without falling into a
certain physical coarseness so much in evidence in most of our modern
work. His sense of design is keen, without being too apparent, and the
impression one gains from his works is that they are honest
transcriptions of nature by a strong, virile personality. Winter
subjects predominate in his pictures, and he expresses them probably
more convincingly than others - though his Autumn is marvelous in its
richness of colour, and in the two night effects of New York he shows
his acute power of observation in two totally different subjects. His
art is altogether most refreshing and free from all artificialities.

Gallery 87.

Duveneck.

Paradoxical as it may seem, Duveneck's art is carried by the same
painter-qualities found in Redfield. From his dark colour it is
self-evident that he belongs to an older German school - a school which
has been superseded in the affection of Americans by French methods. We
know relatively little, entirely too little, about the generous methods
of the best men of the Munich school, of which Duveneck is so
conspicuous a member. His importance in the history of art can hardly be
set too high, for the soundness of his methods alone. Only the greatest
ever attain the capacity for direct painting which characterizes this
astonishing collection of his pictures. Juiciness is the only word which
will adequately express the result of his brush. The pictures here are
most interesting for the reason that they were all done while he was not
yet twenty-five and while he lived in an atmosphere of workers of whom
Leibl was probably the most famous. There are few paintings - and then
only the greatest - which give one the same satisfaction at a big
distance as well as at close range as Duveneck's do. Men of his caliber
appear only at great intervals. This Duveneck collection, if brought
together permanently, as we are fortunate enough to see it temporarily
here in San Francisco, would become the Mecca of all painters who want
to refresh their memory as to what constitutes real painting.
Unfortunately these canvases are owned by different people, and to think
that they will all have to be scattered again among individual owners is
a shocking thought. The uniformity of excellence in the Duveneck room
forbids any attempt at picking out individual works; however, Duveneck's
equally great accomplishments on another wall, in the field of etching,
are apt to be easily overlooked. The sarcophagus of his wife, done by
his versatile hand, increases the admiration that we, must hold for this
liberal genius. Duveneck's art, no matter how much it is rooted in
foreign soil, will forever make its influence felt for the best of
American art.

Gallery 79.

Chase.

Balancing Duveneck's gallery on the south, William M. Chase continues
the Munich traditions, in the successful treatment of a variety of
subjects for which he has always been famous. Closely associated with
Duveneck, and showing all the rich qualities of the Munich men, Chase's
picturesque personality finds a reflection in his subjects, which all
seem to have been chosen to give him an opportunity to display a certain
bravado of handling which characterizes all of his work. The Chase
collection gives a good idea of the career of this most useful of all
American painters, who in an astonishingly active life has been teacher,
friend, and counsellor to hundreds of the younger people in the field of
art. His life has been most useful - always in the interest of the very
best, with conspicuous success in aiding the uplift of American art. His
still-lifes have for years been famous for their fidelity of
interpretation of a variety of contrasting things, like fishes, copper
bowls, and onions. No less interesting have been his portraits of the
great mass of people who have sat for him. He has never been afraid of
painting anything, and whatever it may be, he has treated it with great
breadth, fine pictorial feeling, and charm of colour. His "Woman with
the White Shawl" has become a classic during his lifetime, and some of
his still-lifes are sufficient to serve as a permanent solid foundation
for his reputation. Chase's art, while decidedly academic, excels in
esprit, in a certain elegant yet energetic expression which after all is
nothing but the painter's own personality reflected in his work. The
delightful set of small landscapes of Italian and American subjects adds
much interest in this collection, which is very well hung against an
effective blue background.

Gallery 78.

Hassam.

Childe Hassam's art at first is very disconcerting, particularly under a
strong midday light. One has at first the feeling that a religious
adherence to a certain impressionistic technique is of more importance
to him than anything else. Entering his gallery from the Chase
collection, one is almost overcome with the contrast of light and dark
presented by these two masters. The contrast of the classic academic
atmosphere of Chase's room shows Hassam pronouncedly as the most radical
impressionist we have. His interest is light, and always more light,
vibration at any cost; which contrasted with Chase's art, or for that
matter anybody's else, Duveneck's, or, for instance, even Whistler's,
becomes almost irritating in its lack of simple surfaces. He does not
eliminate in the sense of the older men, who care more for a unity of
expression than for an approximation to the actual outdoors. There is
sunlight in his work, without a doubt, but it is not always spread over
agreeable subjects. The wooden quality of his figures and the frugal
aspects of his fruit, to us Californians are particularly painful. Of
all his oils in this gallery the two on either side of the "Aphrodite"
on the east wall are by far the best. In them he succeeds in carrying
his point agreeably and convincingly. They are both lovely in colour,
and they give you the feeling of having been well studied. The two
groups of watercolours and gouaches on the side walls are, with the
exception of a wash blue sea, very discreet in quality of paint and most
intimate in feeling, and to my mind do Hassam more credit than the many
other canvases, which seem to be painted for expounding a technical
principle rather than to reveal his innermost feelings.

Gallery 77.

Gari Melchers.

Melchers' style is much more sympathetic than Hassam's without being
less personal. Of modern painters I confess to a particularly great
fondness for Melchers' art. While standing firmly on classic tradition,
it is modern in every sense. One can say everything of good and find
little fault with any of these most conscientiously painted canvases
which make up his contribution to the exhibition. Beginning with his
"Fencing Master", one of his older works, he shows in a great number of
similar subjects his loyalty to Egmond aan den Hoef, a little Dutch
village where he has worked for years. The quality of pattern and colour
in his work is very pronounced, and this, combined with a fine
psychology, makes his work always interesting. He is no radical; the
best as he sees it in any school he has made subservient to his purpose
without any loss of individuality. His pictures yield much pleasure to
public as well as to artist, even in sentimental stories like the
"Sailor and His Sweetheart", or the "Skaters". His finest note he
strikes undoubtedly in the many sympathetic glorifications of motherhood
in his fine modern Madonnas. These works will be the sure foundation of
his fame. No matter whether he calls them "Madonna of the Fields",
"Maternity", or simply "Mother and Child", he presents this greatest of
all subjects as few have ever done. His art is wholesome and sane, but
endowed with a subtle quality of insight into his subjects that will
always assure him a very high place in the history of art. For years he
has been one of the reliable painters of the world, and to meet with his
work at intervals is always a source of great satisfaction.

Gallery 75.

Sargent.

A small adjoining gallery is given entirely over to a few Sargents which
are quite sufficient to maintain this great stylist, whom many believe
the towering giant of the profession. One thing is evident from this
work - that for surety of touch and technical directness he stands
practically alone, though he does not possess the deliberate ease in
which Duveneck rejoices. Sargent's "John Hay" and "Henry James" are
absolutely exhaustive as character studies. His "Nubian Girl", however,
is woody, no matter how interesting in posture. In nothing does he
disclose his marvelous precision of technique so completely as in some
of the outdoor studies, like the "Syrian Goats" and the "Spanish
Stable". There is nothing like them in the exhibition anywhere, and
these two things alone make up for what is really not a comprehensive
display of one of the greatest of modern living painters. However, a man
whose standard of excellence is relatively very even does not need a
large representation.

Gallery 90.

Keith.

In two other small galleries of similar size three California painters
have their inning. While all these are of different caliber, they have
something in common which ties them closely together. It seems peculiar
that a country famed for its sunshine should produce men like Keith,
Mathews,, and McComas, who surely do reflect a rather somber atmosphere,
in a type of work which must be called tonal and arbitrary rather than
naturalistic.

Keith's collection, with the mass of modern landscape all around, and
even compared with other followers of the Barbizon school, seems
somewhat somber, as compared with the vital buoyancy of Redfield and
others of Redfield's type. His range of idealistic landscape subjects is
intimate, but not characterized by the stirring suggestion of outdoors
which Inness, Wyant, and others of his school possess. Keith's marvelous
dexterity of brushwork really constitutes his chief claim upon fame, and
some of his best things are gems in easy-flowing methods of painting
which the best men of the Barbizon school seldom approached. Keith must
not be looked upon as a painter of nature nor even an interpreter of
nature. He used landscapes simply to express an ever-changing variety of
personal emotion. His attitude toward nature in his later work was of
the most distant kind, although his early career was that of the most
painstaking searcher for physical truthfulness.

Gallery 76.

Mathews and McComas.

Mathews and McComas do not exactly make good company. While closely
related in the decorative quality of their work, they are not alike in
any other way. Mathews' art is emotional. It tells something beyond mere
colour, form, and composition, while McComas' art is mostly technical,
in the clever manipulation of a very difficult medium. His sense of
construction and feeling for effect is very acute. He is becoming so
expert, however, in the handling of watercolour that one sometimes
wishes to see a little more of that accidental charm of surface that his
older work possesses.



General Collection



Having reached far into the heart of the modern American section by way
of the one-man galleries, a chronological pursuit of our study is no
more necessary nor possible. Almost all of the pictures in the modern
American section have been produced since 1904, the year of the last
international exhibition, at St. Louis, and they reflect in a very
surprising way the tremendous advancement of native art to a point where
comparison with the art of the older nations need not be feared. In all
the fields of painting, including all subjects, portraits and figures
generally, landscapes, marines, and still-life, we can turn proudly to a
great number of painters who interpret candidly and vigorously the world
in which we live.

Gallery 71.

The gallery nearest to the one just visited gives a good idea of the
mastery of a variety of subjects in the art of painting, and to continue
our investigations from this point is just as logical as from any other
part of the modern American section. In this gallery, easily located by
two large parvenu portraits of dubious merit, are some others which are
really vital expressions of modern art. Beginning on wall A, going to
the right, Luis Mora's "Fortune Teller" and Meakin's landscapes should
be singled out. On the west wall Frederic Clay Bartlett's painting of an
interior and Norwood McGilvary's nocturne charm in different ways, while
on the adjoining wall Ritschel's marine and Rosen's winter scenes
display excellent quality of design, with fine outdoor feeling. Miss
Fortune's Mission interior deserves its distinction of having been
bought by William M. Chase. Robert Nisbet contributes a rare green tree
design, and Hayley Lever's harbor pictures are all performances of
superior merit,

Gallery 70.

This gallery is given over entirely to portraits, most of which are so
devoid of any real merit that it is relatively very easy to single out
the good ones. Flagg's portrait of the sculptor Bartlett, a portrait by
Robert David Gauley over the door, the lady with the fur on the second
line on wall B, with her neighbor, Lazar Raditz, by himself, are better
than the many others, which are all well done but do not interest one
enough, for one reason or another. The one picture in this gallery that
comes very near being of supreme beauty is the young lady reclining on a
chaise lounge, the work of E. K. Wetherill. Very few pictures in this
gallery come up to the placid beauty of this distinguished canvas, which
is somewhat handicapped in its aesthetic appeal by some unnecessarily
tawdry bits of furniture and bric-à-brac used in its make-up.

Gallery 69.

"Phyllis" here represents John W. Alexander, that most capable artist,
lost to the world recently at the height of a very useful career. John
W. Beatty's and Francis Murphy' landscapes, on either side, are both
beautiful, in the Barbizon spirit. Howard Russell Butler's "Spirits of
the Twilight" is very luminous, and Lawton Parker's "Paresse" in its
sensual note runs "Stella" a close second in a colour scheme and design
of such beauty that one cannot help getting a great deal of aesthetic
satisfaction from it, aside from its too apparent sensational character.

Gallery 68.

This large central gallery averages unusually high in the large number
of excellent things it contains. Four big, well studied marines by
William Ritschel make one feel proud of the contribution they make to
the field of American marine painting. It is very hard to say which one
of our four well-represented marine painters, Carlsen, Waugh, Dougherty,
and Ritschel, is most captivating. However, a canvas like Ritschel's "In
the Shadow of the Cliffs" will always hold its own among the best.
Ritschel's work is easily recognized by this robust, healthy tone; it
reveals sound values and intimate study. One of Johansen's small
landscapes, and another one by H. M. Camp, on the second line of this
wall, grow in one's estimation on longer acquaintance. They are in fine
style and very big for their size, largely by reason of their monumental
skies. Howard Cushing's group in the center is full of skillfully
presented detail, without losing in breadth in the many different
subjects he paints. His portrait of a lady, in the center, is
distinguished in every way, not least so in expression.

Johansen's main group of pictures, all on one wall, stand for breadth
and intimate study alike. The Venetian square canvas in the middle is
one of the jewels of this exhibition. There is no end of distinctive
canvases in this gallery, as one must conclude on going over to the two
big Daniel Garbers, which are more of the typical American type than his
others in the group. The one on the right is a perfect unit of colour,
atmosphere, and pattern. In between, Spencer's backyard pictures reveal
a sympathetic younger painter who, for reason of his choice of
proletarian subjects, does not get the attention he more than deserves.
Most original in technique and charming in tone, they interest wherever
one meets them in the exhibition.

On the second line a delightful Speicher landscape should not be
overlooked. On wall D an important winter landscape by Schofield reminds
one forcibly of the many excellent painters of ice and snow we have in
this country. They are really the backbone of our American outdoor
artists, and all of them, with the exception of Gardner Symons, can be
found in the exhibition. To this group, beside Redfield and Schofield,
before mentioned, belong Charles Morris Young, John F. Carlson, Charles
Rosen, and others. Leon Kroll's "River Industries" and "Weehawken
Terminal," on the second line, are so typically American in subject that
they would have been unacceptable to the public here twenty years ago.

Gallery 67.

This large room continues to hold the attention of the visitor by more
excellent specimens of present-day art. Dougherty's marines as well as
Waugh's very precise, somewhat metallic seascapes have been referred to
before. Dougherty's group of four pictures is augmented by two Spanish
canvases by Lewis Cohen, of which the one to the right is far more
convincing than the other. They are somewhat artificial in colour. Emil
Carlsen's only contribution, a fine open sea, has a quality all its own.
The feeling of pattern in sky and water surface, combined with great
delicacy and suggestion of absolute truthfulness, gives it a quality
quite apart from the energetic art of Waugh, Ritschel, and Dougherty.
John F. Carlson always has style to his work, a certain unaffected,
noble simplicity, well brought out in three sympathetic pictures
grouped near the Emil Carlsen marine. Adding to the conspicuousness of
that wall, Charles H. Davis and Leonard Ochtman hold their own in their
important setting. The only two figure pictures in this neighborhood are
particularly lovely in colour and design, and R. P. R. Neilson deserves
much praise for having struck a unique note conspicuous among the many
commonplace portraits of the present day. Wendt's "Land of Heart's
Desire" is unusually happy, and it supports its title admirably. Very
decorative in feeling, it is compelling in its appeal to the public.
Maynard Dixon, another Californian, shows an original small canvas, "The
Oregon Trail," endowed with big feeling.

Two cases in this gallery encourage investigation of American
accomplishments in the field of animal sculpture, and on closer
examination of offerings in this most interesting field, we find an
unusually creditable lot of work by Frederick Roth, Albert Laessle,
Arthur Putnam, and Charles Cary Rumsey. They should be considered in a
group if their relative merit is to be fully appreciated. Kemeys and
Proctor somewhat antedate them all in their work (in galleries 69 and
72). Roth is next door to Kemeys in 45, among a variety of things done
mostly in glazed clay. A very fine sense of humor comes to the surface
most conspicuously in "The Butcher", "The Baker", and "The Candlestick
Maker". Putnam and Laessle are in this gallery side by side. In sharp
contrast with the former's muscular and broad type of modeling, the
latter has a very precise and Japanesque quality of detail modeling
which is sometimes a little photographic. Charles Cary Rumsey is only a
few steps away, in gallery 48. In his original subject of a horse and
man drinking he strikes a particularly unique note.

Gallery 80.

Here Metcalf's "Blossom Time" reveals the most poetic of our modern
American painters. The man who bought it made a good investment. In ten
years it will be a classic and worth its weight in gold, including the
frame. This canvas gives one more thrills than almost all the others by
the same man - good as they are. The "Trembling Leaves" is superb, but a
fussy frame destroys half the pleasure. Mrs. Philip Hale's elegant and
refined interior, together with Paxton's figural work, prove that we
have conquered successfully a certain field of genre which the American
art-lover has been in the habit of buying in Europe. Paxton's
"Housemaid" is entirely in the spirit of the old Dutch, and his
"Bellissima" is most luminous alongside of his other works.

Gallery 51.

This magnetic collection comes somewhat as a shock to the public, which
can't be blamed for its disapproval of the recent sensational
experiments of Henri and Glackens. It is impossible to understand why a
man like Glackens should so illogically abandon the soundness of his
older work and do those inharmonies of form and colour which he presents
on the A wall. His "Woman with Apple" is absolutely absurd and vulgar
beyond description. She has "character," if that is what he is after,
because her vulgarity is convincing. The rest of the things are
ridiculous in their riotous superficiality. Carles seeks the same
expression of individuality for which Glackens strives so hard. In his
small, square picture, "Repose," Carles is most successful. Here he has
created a great work of art - beautiful as well as full of character.
This canvas is one of the most successful of the new style. It needs no
apologies, and it has all the qualities of an old master, with modern
virility and colour added to it. Let us have new things like this and we
shall not regret having tolerantly and patiently watched all the many
idiocities which are paraded around under the pretext of research and
experimentation. Breckenridge's still-lifes are startling at first, but
studied singly they reveal a fine sense of colour. They constitute a
serious and successful contribution to modern art, without being in the
least grotesque. I should like to have one of them in my house, without
fear of their very vigorous colour. In a totally different vein Everett
L. Bryant gives some still-lifes which continue certain impressionistic
methods with wonderful delicacy. In certain surroundings they will add
distinction even to a commonplace room. Anshutz's "Lady in Red" is a
very good academic study in a colour which in large quantities is very
difficult to handle.

Gallery 50.

The academic school is continued in spirit in Sergeant
Kendall's refined portraits, augmented by a painted wood sculpture of
unusual quality, reminiscent of the masters of the early German
Renaissance. Louis Kronberg has his customary ballet girl and Hermann
Dudley Murphy some of his typical, refined marines. His surfaces are
always delectable and like the inside of a shell in their glistening
blues and pinks. Both Nelson and Hansen, two native Californians, are
well represented - one by a Monterey coast, the other by a forcefully
painted decorative picture called "The Belated Boat." Lathrop adds two
placid pictures, of which the canal is the more skillfully composed.

Gallery 49.

Peace reigns supreme in this gallery of Tryon and Weir. Tryon reflects
all the poetic qualities of the Barbizon group without striking a new
note either technically or in composition. His larger canvases are of
great beauty, very tender and poetic, and altogether too sweet to have
you feel that they were painted for any other reason than to make a
pretty picture. His smaller work gives you that feeling more than his
larger ones. Alden Weir's art is the direct opposite of this. Searching
for truth, character, and beauty, he labors over simple subjects with
great concentration and does not stop until they seem like silver
symphonies. His art is personal and must be studied at great length to
be fully appreciated. It expects a great deal of concentration, but one
willing to take the trouble will be amply rewarded by ever increasing
pleasure. The art of McLure Hamilton is more interesting in the power of
psychological characterization than in painting. His pictures are
painted thinly, more like watercolours than oils.

Gallery 48.

No noteworthy contribution is made here, unless one excepts the
academically clever portraits by Troccoli, a landscape by Vonnoh, and a
sumptuous bed of rhododendrons by Edward F. Rook. Two large "Grand
Cañons" again demonstrate the utter futility of trying to paint such
motives, which, in their success, depend entirely upon a feeling of
scale that is almost impossible to attain on a small canvas.

Gallery 47.

Here Blumenschein's large Indian compositions are of decorative
character. They are well composed and dramatic. The "Peace Maker" is big
in feeling. Typically American and very unusual are Colin Campbell
Cooper's New York street perspectives. His originality as a painter is
well demonstrated by this choice, which must have taken much courage at
a time when American subjects were more or less despised. Richard
Millers "Pink Lady" does not look a bit convincing, cleverly as it is
painted; it is not interesting enough in the large surfaces of
overnaturalistic pink flesh. Half that size would have been just enough
for this canvas, which is chiefly a concession to the modern mania for
painting large exhibition pictures to attract attention by their size
alone. Groll's desert pictures are disappointing. They have neither
interesting colour nor sufficient atmosphere to come up to the standard
of this typical desert painter.

Gallery 46.

There is a lovely note in this gallery, contributed by Ruger Donoho's
garden scenes.  Most unusual in subject, they are full of life, vibrant
with colour, and altogether very delightful, a most pleasant change from
the ordinary run of subjects. Frank Dumond's work on another wall (B)
excels in a pleasant mannerism. His work is most thoughtful and well
studied. The two smallest of his paintings are perfect gems in every way
- well balanced by two small tender canvases of southern Europe by Mrs.
Dumond (on the opposite wall). Two portraits in this gallery, Inez
Addams' "Daphne" and Adolphe Borie's "Spring," should not be slighted.
Borie's is very strong, and one of the best portraits on exhibition.
Alongside of it is a winter landscape by Ernest Albert, which, while a
little timid, is nevertheless poetic and more convincing than others of
that type near by.

Gallery 45.

Charles Morris Young's art is so refreshing, so spontaneous in every
way, that it catches one's eye immediately on passing on into this room.
His work deserves recognition for more than one reason. His handling of
paint is fresh and clear and a direct aiming for a final expression of
what he wants to convey. Any one of the six subjects is well handled.
They give one the feeling of the artist's thorough understanding of his
material. His own "House in Winter" and the "Red Mill" reach the
high-water mark of landscape painting in the exhibition. Griffin's
pictures, on another wall, so openly disregard technical rules in their
careless superimposition of unnecessary paint that in spite of a great
richness of colour and a certain suggestion of truth, they are not apt
to hold one one's affection very long. They are sincere, I admit, but
careless in technique. There is no doubt about it, because heavy paint
and bare pieces of canvas will not make durable pictures. Birge Harrison
is disappointing in two pastels which seem too chromo-like, too
mechanical, to carry their point.

Gallery 44.

This collection is not at all without interest, but with few exceptions
the pictures in it are not strong enough to hold their own with so many
good things abounding elsewhere. Ralph Clarkson's portrait, Bartlett's
schoolyard, Perrine's technically unique landscape, are all meritorious.

Gallery 43.

Frederic M. DuMond's "Sea Carvings" in the corner, and Nahl's decorative
composition attract, each in its way, while in another corner a badly
skyed portrait by Hinkle is scarcely given a chance.

Gallery 74.

It will be necessary to make a little journey over to the inner side of
the arch of the building to continue and finish the art of modern
America. In this small Gallery, adjoining Sargent's, nothing stirring
happens. Landscapes predominate, with varying interest, but nothing with
any style or unity of expression presents itself, with the exception of
Carl Oscar Borg's "Campagna Romana" and a fine sky over the door by
William J. Kaula. The landscapes of G. W. Sotter and Will S. Robinson
stand out among the rest.

Gallery 73.

Next door, in 73, Alson Skinner Clark has been given the privilege of
almost an entire Gallery, without any other justification than
historical interest in his shallow Panama scenes, devoid of any quality.
They are illustrations - that is all. Gifford Beal disappoints in some
superficial paintings of commonplace subjects, which a skillful
technique might easily have turned into something worth while. His "Old
Town Terrace" is much the best, but the collection makes one
apprehensive for Beal's future performances. Paul King's canvas over the
door is excellent, well painted, and interesting in subject.

Gallery 72.

There seems no end of productiveness of American painters, and justice
demands more investigation and undeniably more steps. Ladies with
parrots, with and without clothes, are numerous, but the one in here is
more interesting than the others. I hope that not all of these parrot
pictures are meant symbolically. Walter McEwen arouses memories of times
gone by, technically and otherwise, in a huge storytelling Salon
picture. More ladies in conventional sitting posture willingly sat for
more pictures without adding new thrills. Meyer's portraits, Gertrude
Fiske's sketch, Olga Ackerman's group of children, are all deserving of
study. Max Bohm's two big figural pictures are decoratively interesting
enough, but bad in paint. One of the best landscapes can be found here
in Henry Muhrman's work, over the McEwen. There is nothing sensational
about it, but its somber dignity stands out among many modern works. On
the opposite wall Mrs. Sargent's" Mount Tamalpais" is unusual in
composition and rich in colour.

Separated from the rest of the American section by Holland and Sweden, a
series of galleries are in grave danger of being overlooked.
Undoubtedly, to offset this apparent isolation, some of the most
alluring paintings can be found at this end.

Gallery 117.

Here is Frederic Frieseke, our expatriated American, with his
fascinating boudoir scenes. Very high in key and full of detail, at
first they seem restless and crowded, which some actually are, in a
degree. But canvases like "The Garden" and "The Bay Window" and "The
Boudoir" are real jewels of light and colour. "The Bay Window" is the
most placid of his canvases and in conception much finer than his
outdoor subjects. Frieseke's clear, joyous art is typically modern, and
expresses the best tendency of our day. Luis Mora's two watercolours,
while illustrative, hold their own in Frieseke's company. Tanner's big
religious canvas falls far below this capable painter's usual efforts.
Native talent helps out in a delightful marine, honestly painted by
Bruce Nelson, and an apple green and pale pink colour-harmony by
Charlton Fortune. Very much in the style of the Frieseke, Rittman's
"Early Morning in the Garden" is easily taken for the art of his
fascinating neighbor, but it should be recognized as the work 0f another
kindred spirit.

Gallery 118.

In 118, landscapes predominate over figural work, at least in quality.
Harry Leslie Hoffman's "Spring Mood," Wilbur Dean Hamilton's tender and
poetic canvas, and Louise Brumbach's city view bathed in the grays of an
early morning call for recognition.

Gallery 119.

The general character of the next gallery is different from the
preceding. Given over to oils, watercolours, pastels, lithographs, and
drawings, it presents an interesting appearance. Six pastels by Henry
Muhrman and Frank Mura's charcoal drawings are the leaders here, and the
drawings generally are the best things among the many oils and
watercolours, which were mostly made for purposes of illustration.
Drawings by Martinez, pastels by Miss Percy, two sympathetic drawings by
Miss Hunter, and a few still-lifes in watercolour, by Miss Boone, all
bear testimony to native ability as represented by California.

Gallery 120.

The last gallery contains Bellow's bold canvases, of which "The Polo
Game" is the best known, another fine canvas by Henry Muhrman, and some
older American work by Stewart, typical of what we used to send to
Europe in years gone by.

In the Garden.

While many plastic works have been mentioned in the survey of the
galleries, still great numbers of statues, statuettes, and fountain
figures call for investigation, out of doors. Sculpture is, on the
whole, not so complex as painting, and dealing with the expression of
emotions much more directly than painting, it can easily be understood.
Of the many pieces displayed outside, Janet Scudder's fountain figures
earn all the applause they receive, and most of the other sculptors are
old friends, since they have been met with in the decorative
embellishments of the architecture of the Exposition. There is Aitken,
with a bust of Taft; Chester Beach, with a young girl in marble, of
great charm; Solon Borglum's Washington, Mrs. Burroughs' garden figure,
Stirling Calder, and Piccirilli - all well remembered. It is gratifying
to meet all these men, and many others, in freer and more detached
expression of their art, under conditions where no severe architectural
restrictions were put upon them.



The Graphic Arts



Conclusion

It will be necessary to retrace our steps to take up a series of
galleries all along the outer curve of the building. They are devoted to
illustrations, miniatures, stained glass, plaques, and the many
expressions of graphic art we know as black and white, charcoal and
pencil drawing, monotypes, lithotints, etchings, and so on. With
Whistler's etchings on one end of the arch, we find Howard Pyle at the
other.

Gallery 42.

Pyle, since his death a few years ago, is recognized as the most
important of American illustrators. His art is most intellectual. It
commands immediate respect for its historical interest, which is based
on more than mere knowledge of the story illustrated. His milieu is
always right, distinctly so when he deals with the West Indian
buccaneers. His sense of colour is simple and dignified. It has the
typical breadth and decorative feeling that men like Jules Guérin and
Maxfield Parrish developed. Pyle was not an ordinary illustrator. His
interest in his work showed much depth and great originality. There is
nobody to take his place. In the small adjoining gallery (41) his black
and white drawings strengthen one's impression of this versatile man's
art.

Gallery 40.

Here we have Guérin in all the glory of his rich colour harmonies, which
have made the Exposition famous. Painstaking and conscientious as his
art is, it is always full of power of suggestion. Every square inch of
his most agreeably framed decorations is well considered, with nothing
left to accidental effect. Still, they are full of freedom, very loose
in handling, and always convincing. To choose the best among his eight
is very difficult, although his "Cemetery on the Golden Horn" on longer
study does not seem to be free from a certain artificiality of colour,
in the reddish hue of the reflected sunlight on the cypresses. The "Blue
Mosque at Cairo" is wonderfully poetic, and his "Temple of Sunium" has
all the tragic feeling of the classic ruins of Asia Minor. Opposite
Guérin Mr. and Mrs. Hale display unusual refinement and grace of form in
a unit wall of drawings and pastels. Mrs. Hale's drawings are the
quintessence of delicacy, without possessing any of the sugary
disagreeable sweetness of so many of our popular illustrators. Mr.
Hale's pastels are no less enchanting in his outdoor compositions in
many soft greens - a difficult colour to deal with. The many other
things in this gallery are all worth studying in their conservatism and
radicalism.

Miniatures abound here and endless sighs are heard of entranced ladies
who have succumbed to the sentimental insipidness of these misplaced
artistic efforts. Miniature painting holds no charm for me. Most of them
are technical stunts and concessions to a faddism which has never had
anything to do with the real problem of painting. Practically all of the
miniatures in the cases are very well done, but when I think of the
physical discomfort of adjusting one's eyes to this pigmy world, then I
cannot help feeling that, considering the low cost of canvas, a great
effort deal of fine effort has been wasted. Looking at miniatures, I am
always reminded of the man who spent several years of his useless life
in writing the Old Testament on the back of a postage stamp.

Gallery 39.

McLure Hamilton has a fascinating group of anatomical sketches in this
small gallery. They are all charming fragments of a lady one would like
to know more about. As drawings they are spirited and full of rhythmic
linework. Their fragrant rococo style brings one back into that original
atmosphere the destinies of which were so largely controlled by similar
attractions. The apotheosis in his collection is furnished by a drawing
of a recently abandoned or to-be-occupied nest, presented in a most
suggestive manner. In the cases plaques and medallions abound, the
interest of which is largely attributable to Fraser's excellent work.

Gallery 38.

This room continues to hold one's interest, with some small pieces of
plastic art, all of great merit.

Gallery 37.

Watercolours make up the chief problems of study in this long room,
without convincing one that we have any too many great painters in this
medium. The best thing among the many commonplace paintings is a marine
by Woodbury which takes you far out on the open sea. In spite of its
size it is a big picture, one of the really big ones in any medium in
the whole exhibition. All of Woodbury's paintings are big in their way,
and prove what can be done in this medium. Many other things here are
only coloured photographs and technical experiments, the exceptions
being Dawson's clever flower studies, Miss Schille's market scenes, and
Henry McCarter's "King of Tara". Murphy's small Venetian sketches are
not so good as they seem at first.

Gallery 36.

Things look up considerably in the last of the galleries on the north. A
fine watercolour by Mrs. Mathews, good drawings by Sandona and Fortune,
exposition sketches by Donna Schuster, decorative designs by Lucy Hurry,
are all compelling in their way, while in the cases are any number of
good caricatures, and especially worthy of mention the bird designs by
Charles Emile Heil.

Gallery 34.

Across the vestibule the graphic arts are continued, beginning with
colour lithographs and monotypes, and continued with etchings. George
Senseney, Arthur Dow, Helen Hyde, Pedro Lemos, Clark Hobart, and others
too numerous to mention excite considerable interest. A battle of
elephants by Anna Vaughan Hyatt is worthy of study on account of its
unusual subject, so handled.

Gallery 55.

This room is entirely devoted to etching and is full of good people.
Auerbach Levy has some portraits splendidly characterized. Arthur Covey,
Mahonri Young, Lester Hornby, Clifford Addams, and Robert Harshe are all
equally well represented, in their many fine etchings, and Perham Nahl
with some monotypes of fine quality.

Gallery 32 contains George Aid, Frank Armington, D. C. Sturges
(reminiscent of Zorn), and Ernest Roth. Franklin T. Wood's dry-point
portraits are noteworthy as examples of a very difficult technique.

Galleries 31 and 30.

Pennell's admirable lithographs and etchings of various scenes are so
descriptive, aside from their technical excellence, that they are not in
need of further recommendation. And neither are Mullgardt's lithographs
nor those of Worth Ryder next door.

The general character of all of these somewhat inconspicuous galleries
is most satisfactory. They contain in well-arranged fashion the real art
of the people, the things that people who cannot afford to buy paintings
can easily afford to own.  Original etchings, mezzotints, and wood block
prints and other process work often more truly contain the real point of
artistic effort than big paintings done laborously with no other
interest than to make a large painting for some show. It is gratifying
and it speaks well for our public to see so many of these small works of
art sold and scattered among the public. Only in this way can we hope to
make our exhibition useful to artist and public alike. Mr. Harshe, Mr.
Trask's able and conscientious assistant, has put much labor and thought
into the arrangement of these many cases and wallspaces, in a really
instructive way. It does not seem necessary to go into the meaning of
the many examples of graphic art. They are often self-explanatory,
particularly where used for illustration, and so far as their technical
production is concerned, it is too big a subject to fit into the
physical confines of this book.

Much of this work to all indications, is going to remain with us, and
the success of our exposition can hardly be measured better than by the
ever-increasing number of purchasers. Art has to live, and in our
country it exists only by the patronage which comes directly from the
people, since federal, state and municipal governments seldom contribute
toward its support. Not until the community feels it a privilege rather
than a duty to give substantial encouragement to our artists will they
ever feel completely at home or will they be able to do their best work.

Art is becoming more of a necessity in our midst, while not so long ago
it was more or less an affected interest of the rich. We have all the
conditions and the talent to allow us to push ahead into the front rank
of the art of the world, and an exposition like this gives more than
encouraging evidence of the awakening spirit of national American art.
May this exposition mark an epoch in the art of America! - and
particularly of the West, as other expositions have in the westward
march of civilization, which has now found its goal where it must either
achieve or perish. For us to stand still or to return to the
pre-exposition period would be calamity. We have here in California, of
all the states of the Union, conditions to offer, which, if properly
availed of, would give us a unique position on the continent.
Climatically and historically we have all the stimulating necessities
for a great art, and it is our duty to take advantage of them.



Appendix



Bibliography



To the student and lover of art, a list of helpful reference books and
periodicals might be of interest, and the following publications are
recommended as sources of reference, of information and for study. They
cover a wide range of subjects treated historically, technically and
biographically, and they will be found very interesting as a nucleus for
a home library of art.

Art For Life's Sake - Chas. H. Caffin
American Masters of Painting - Chas. H. Caffin
American Masters of Sculpture - Chas. H. Caffin
How to Study Pictures - Chas. H. Caffin
The Story of American Painting - Chas. H. Caffin
Short History of Art - Edited by Charles H. Caffin - Julia De Forest
The Classic Point of View - Kenyon Cox
What is Art? - John C. Van Dyke
The Meaning of Pictures - John C. Van Dyke
How to Judge of A Picture - John C. Van Dyke
History of Painting - John C. Van Dyke
Art For Art's Sake - John C. Van Dyke
New Guides to Old Masters - John C. Van Dyke
Studies in Pictures - John C. Van Dyke
The Appreciation of Sculpture - Russell Sturgis
The Appreciation of Pictures - Russell Sturgis
The History of Modern Art - Muther
Modern Art - Meier Graefe
Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages - Julia de Wolf Addison
Apollo, A History of Art Throughout the Ages - S. Reinach
Six Lectures on Painting - G. Clausen
Landscape Painting - Birge Harrison
Landscape Painting - Alfred East
History of American Art - Sadakichi Hartmann
Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures -
     Henry R. Poore
Design in Theory and Practice - Ernest A. Batchelder
Line and Form - Walter Crane
Heritage of Hiroshige - Dora Amsden
Impressions of Ukiyo-Ye - Dora Amsden
Biographical Sketches of American Artists - Michigan State Library
Is It Art? Post-Impressionism, Futurism, Cubism - J. Nilsen Laurvik




Periodicals

Art and Progress
The Craftsman
The International Studio



Index to Galleries



Argentina - Gallery 112
China - Gallery 94-97
Cuba - Gallery 20
France
     - Gallery 13-18
     - Gallery 13
     - Gallery 14
     - Gallery 15
     - Gallery 16
     - Gallery 17
     - Gallery 18
Germany - Gallery 108
Italy
     - Gallery 21-25
     - Gallery 21
     - Gallery 22
     - Gallery 23
     - Gallery 24
     - Gallery 25
Japan - Gallery 1-10
Holland - Gallery 113-116
Norway - Gallery 144-150 (Annex)
Philippines - Gallery 98
Portugal - Gallery 109-111
Sweden - Gallery 99-107
Uruguay - Gallery 19
Retrospective Art:
     - Gallery 61
     - Gallery 62
     - Gallery 63
     - Gallery 91
     - Gallery 92
United States
     - Gallery 26
     - Gallery 27
     - Gallery 28-29 (Whistler)
     - Gallery 30, 31
     - Gallery 32, 33, 34, 36
     - Gallery 35 (Vestibule)
     - Gallery 37, 38, 39
     - Gallery 40, 41, 42
     - Gallery 43, 44
     - Gallery 45
     - Gallery 46, 47
     - Gallery 48, 49
     - Gallery 50
     - Gallery 51
     - Gallery 52, 53 (Offices)
     - Gallery 54
     - Gallery 55, 56
     - Gallery 57
     - Gallery 58
     - Gallery 59
     - Gallery 60
     - Gallery 61
     - Gallery 62
     - Gallery 63
     - Gallery 64
     - Gallery 65
     - Gallery 66
     - Gallery 67
     - Gallery 68, 69, 70
     - Gallery 71
     - Gallery 72
     - Gallery 73
     - Gallery 74
     - Gallery 75 (Sargent)
     - Gallery 76 (Mathews and McComas)
     - Gallery 77 (Melchers)
     - Gallery 78 (Hassam)
     - Gallery 79 (Chase)
     - Gallery 80
     - Gallery 81, 82, 83, 84 (Offices)
     - Gallery 85
     - Gallery 86
     - Gallery 87 (Duveneck)
     - Gallery 88 (Redfield)
     - Gallery 89 (Tarbell)
     - Gallery 90 (Keith)
     - Gallery 91
     - Gallery 92
     - Gallery 93
     - Gallery 117
     - Gallery 118, 119
     - Gallery 120



The Galleries of the Exposition, by Eugen Neuhaus, Published by Paul
Elder and Company, San Francisco, was printed at their Tomoye Press,
under the direction of H. A. Funke, in July Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen




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