New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-09-28

salome indeed is not just an austere beauty, bus
though painted. is no painted beauty with provo
cative smiles, like the wrigglng. jerking gymnasts
OF the modern ballet. In the Judgment OF Paris as
the triumph of perfect beauty the highest aim OF all
art and in the fall of vain, pretentious, Marsyas
we see the defeat OF sham by =" the victory OF the
ideal over base sentiment and coarse realism opened
by the divine genius of Apollo Although all the
subjects of these pictures are OF the oldest and
oftenest painted it is astonishing with what new
life and fresh interest Baudrys original treatment
has endowed them.
This brings me 10 say word Of what some fault
finders have already begun 10 say They censure
him for not treating his classic subjects classicay
enough They object that his personages OF ancient
story types and portraits more or less ideazed)
of modern French people. In fact guide who
knows the different worlds of Paris will point you
out by name, on the walls of the Beaux Arts,
dozens of contemporary Parisians. professional mod
els artises Of the theaters ladies of the fashion,
able world personal friends Of the artist and their
children draped in flowing costume or not much
draped. To this objection the answer is that tho
new opera is modern, and Mr. Baudry is modern,
and has done as the old masters did, not copied from
the old masters zealously and lovingly as he has
studied them but looked on nature about him for
his models. II he is not classic in the hard-lined,
cod-dead, archaeological sense, it is from lack OK
pedantry not of learning.
Any final judgment of the whole work must BIO
premature, for the simple reason that no one has
yet seen it as whole except the artist him.
self in the chambers of his brain. AT
the Ecole des Bcaux Arts, but tho
nembra dieca of his composition. Here colossal
figures at but few feet distance. Great canvases
intended for the plane ceiling and curved surfaces
t:.,l Ia Of fru.,
different rooms. When the thirty separate parts OF
this one grand composition can be viewed in the har-
monizing unifying conditions of surface, relative
distances point of view. light, and of the grand
architectural framework to and from which they
are to lend and borrow completeness land not until
they can be studied in the fulness of all these cal
cuated condtions we shall first fairly the work
and have right to criticize the workman. Mean
time in this imperfect state it shows quite enough
to admire and be thankful for; it is exceptional, II
not unique, among decorative paintings of our day,
and for large purpose surely not all failure in execu
ton.
There are still to mention the small pictures, meas
urng only seven feet by six. that above the ten
doors and windows, representing. by many groups
of children Of colossal size with the appropriate in
struments, from the ancient Egyptian sstra 10 the
modern French drum and bugle, the instrumental
music OF as many ancient ana modern NATIONS NO
American youths appear among these groups; yet
might not our banjo claim an entry Perhaps we are
simply left out for want of eleventh door or win
dow Eight Muses. only have presence in the Foyer
public of the Opera there being but so many spaces
between the five windows in front and the five cor
responding doors opposite. Polhymnia, as the muse
least likely to be called by lbcetlsts, composers or
ballet-masters, is the muse chosen not to be adj
mitted All the same the omission affects one as With
a sense of discord. w. H. H.