New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-11
FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.

SIZED-sTUART'S PORTRAIT PAINIING-NOliCE-
ABLE FEATURES THE PRESENT DISPLAY OF
WASHINGTON ALIsToNs WORKS.
FRoM AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT TRIBUNE !
Boston, July 1.-The trustees of the Museum of
Fine Arts i'll this city are carrying out IN vigorous
way the plan which they formed about two years
ago, of exhibiting from time to time representative
collections of the works of the famous deceas ed
artists of America. The first exhibition thus dis
played was of the paintings of William Morris Hunt
which, occurring it did few months after his
lamentablc and myseI death, aroused an M
mense degree of popular interest and wOrhly in
tfoduced the scheme of the Museum to the public
That exhibition gave Mr.. Hunt at once posthumous
Tame Tor which he had vainly struggled through
MS eventul life and resulted, as most sudden and
reactonary occurrences do, in all sorts of unreas
enable and eXtravagant ideas concerning his place
and influence i'll American painting 1t is to that
exhibition the fact is due that to-day a false ga-
mour Eliminates the name of Hunt which will not
be wholly disspated during the present generation.
and that all subsequent exhibitions have been
gagged by the brilliant success of the first to which
a deep Sympathy and personal intimacy with the
man gave interest which his works by them
selves and Judged by their strict merits, would not
have excited. 1t would have been better both in
justice TO earlier painters and in tracing the growth
of American art, to leave the works of Hunt in
tirement until they were reached IN chronological
Development In the interest of his estate, however,
the display singularly well-tmed, for it excited
a tumult oyer the bier of Hunt, and provoked II
general struggle for some relic and reminder of the
master The result was that whom a few months
ater such of the dead artists works as were not
already privately owned offered for sale by
auction, the estate was made richer by
$4,000. Such the demands of Hunts add
mirers that into" the sale were shovcled all the
charcoal sketches and memoranda of the studio
half of which had been kicked abont so long that
they were merely smudges and had lost all their
original character-and from forty to two hundred
dollars apiece was paid for them with the utmost
complacency
The result of this extraordinary and unreasonable
success has been to unrelcctive persons
ieve that whatever Hunt put his hand to was ipso
facto, excellent, and to set lazy and unobscrvant
artists to attempt his strong aud impressive style
without serving rs many weeks in study and pain
iui care as he served years. The results of this
condition OF things are lArreachipg and may in
general be summed up 10y saving that they are seen
IN stagnaton of local art, from which the energy
of individual skin and feeling is only ias drawing
Us, and in the wreck of more than one artist who
might have made fame and fortune for himself if
he had not been blinded TO believe that Hunts she
cess could he shared by anybody who had the con-
hdence to make a coup de main. Many attempted
the master stroke, excited applause for time by
the skill of the imitation for it was only a weak
counterfeit of Hunts hand and seal after all-and
soon sank into merited obscurity So the first cx-
hbtion at the Museum did Boston very little real
good artistic community
TIE GILRERT STUART EXHIBITION
After tins exhibition of lattcrd art the trus-
tees of the Art Museum went back TO the point
from which they ought III reason TO have started.
and prepared n collection of the works of the
greatest of American portrait. painters Gilbert
Stuart. Over one hundred of his works were thu,
brought together and displayed during the summer
of last year exciting much attention and receiving
general appreciation from all who could appreciate
the value OF careful refined. intellectual work in
portralturc, and who had not fallen into the pcrni
cious hcresy that the cold realism of Munich and
the "slap-dasi of the French impressionsts en-
braccd the whole range of commondablc effort The
exhibition was very uneven one, as all such com
prehcnsive displays must necessarily be- so long rs
artists are mortal and subject to moods of cxaaton
and depression like other men, but its general cxcc
encc was unmistakable and the opinion of the last
generation, that Stuart was the greatest portrait
painter America has seen, was abundantly con-
irmed 10y all candid judges
Stuart was not so distinctivcly a Boston painter
as Hunt, since much of his work was done in other
cities. well abroad, and his patrons came from
all parts of the country, while Hunt painted chiefly
the members of local families; but he was more
truly an American painter than the latter and has
claims to general interest and study which Hunt
can never share. There Is reason to believe that
the Stuart exhibition had good effect npon the
condition of Boston art-redircctng it in the path
from which the clamor of Hunts disciples had
caused 1t to wander and stimulating it in the d.
rcction of more earnest and individual effort Ger
tain it is, that the nsistencc upon the Hunt method
began to decline Immediately after it-rather more
than Il coincidence.
ArJsrON's WORKS ON rxurDITIoN
Having thus skctched the origin and growth of
the plan of the Art Museum the conditions of the
time and of popular taste may be understood and il
may be seen how, having swung from the two On
pose points OF admiration of the woI ks Of Stuart
and of Hunt the artloving public is in a condition
OF equilibrium to enjoy an exhibition of the works
of that great master. Washington Allston who suo
gests something of tho earlier paintcri his portra
ure and much Of tho later in his versatility and
poetic imagination No exhibition Of Allstun's mic
lures had been made since 1880 four wears before
his DEATH and although isolated examples of his
method nave been seen from time to time in some
public institutions, to which they have been pre-
scented, tho present generation has practically no
knowledge of him. The exhibition of 1889 was An
scarcity of painters and of pictures in this country
and 1T excited wide interest and evoked extrayacant
praises which at this day are interesting reading
as manifesting the enthusiastic nature of that GEN
GRAFTON. 1t was natural for young country to take
TO Itself great glory over exhibition of paintings
as remarkable as this really was, and it NAV even
De supposed that, III the then fresh and glowing con
diion OF the works. many OF the rhapsodes layished
upon them were well deserved. Indeed in spite If
the unsparlng touch of time which has left dsf or
ing marks upon many OF the canvasses there Arc few
pictures IN the present collection which arc not
worthy OF study, and still able to excite admiration
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