The Portland daily press., 1886-09-01

White escaping from jail in his rear the girls
,,,i+b tho Roman aprons, and the origanos
i'll old clouts on their feet and marry |
hraeches laced with strings look TO the nov
loo in Rome like bits of the old Worio' ana
-, ,,.o,,dor when and from where they |
dropped down. After while 1ou pu.0nio
familiar with their features, anu A'Vio Wy
little the striking resemblance grows upon
YOU, between their faces and those YOU nave
seen SO frequently in the gallery. Inc 'eiy
twists and twirls in the old gold aprons ana
the.slouched hat with its peacock 1eather or
claw of some ferociouS beast STUCK III o,io
side are identical with the costumes oh Vi0
figures you admired so much III tle onop
window, until at last, you strlKe Iho my
note and unravel the mystery IheSe "io
the born models, whose fathers and motherS
before them have pursued the same proleS-
sion and worn the same habiliments for gen
erations untold. They are of Saracenic des-
cent. and live about twenty miles from Rome
in the summer, where they till the ground anu
in winter seek the city, where they nosel
around the artists and sculptors for hlle'
You will know them when you so 10 hollie
the next time, for they are people VINO neF-
er grow old, and the fashion of whose gar
ments changeth not. We can't promise that
you will see the same teething babies, put
neither you, nor /, nor anyone, coulo tell Ine
difference. One day we were poklng arounu
in Yankee fashion, when we found ourselves
in an out-of-the-way curiosity shop, Wilich
proved, on rummaging into its depths, to De
furnishing establishment of CASTOR gar
ments fer artists. Such medley of tinsel
and genuine antiques, in the shape of yelyets
and brocades, once filed out with fat duch-
esses; embroidered coats, satin vests, buck
skin breeches, snuff-boxes, and all the para
phernalia for princesses, troubadours and
gallants you could not scare up In all
America.
When the afternoon light waned and our
zest for novelties tagged, we often Wendeo
our way to Smmons's studio to chat awhile
and to admire the refreshing way, in which
| he has treated the subjects, which we
| -l,--e.-. .,-v-uIrvtouto nau worn threadbare.
We have not fully detarnnined ---l-i0i the
Portland Society of Art must buy first to
decorate its hall. We should be satisfied to
draw blindfold our lot for either one Of the
| three which he had on exhibition Penelope,
with her exquisitely modelled form and
sweet, pensive face, or his suggestive Medu-
sa his conception of which divests her OF
all that hideousness, with which the Greek
sculptor's envcloped her. Instead of wreath
ing her head with snakes and kissing SER
pents, he has wrought into her face look of
troubled wonder, as she holds timidly in her
| fingers the ends of her hair, which curl and
quiyer with some mysterious vitality she has
never before seen. Jockabed, too, holding
her sweet dimpled Moses in her lap, and
looking at him so tenderly for the last time,
quite touched our hearts. On entering the
studio, our first glance met the familiar
faces of few of our Portland citizens, which
Mr.. Simmons need not label to introduce
them to their friends. We saw the serene
face Of Portland mother in Israeli which
greeted us with smile. We could not re-
alize that the spirit of which this was the
outward semblance had taken its flight since
our departure; and that her voice, too, with
that of many dear ones who bade us good
bye and God speed, would be missed in our
welcome home.
Much fun is made of millinery artists, who
sometimes, we admit do spoil their effects
by an excess of feathers and furbelows; but
we are glad Mr.. Simmons gives the dress
maker a share of his patronage; and we ad-
mire his successes in making light drapery
pleasing accessory to the fine arts. This re-
calls to mind our disgust over some of the
F rencli pictures at the Salon in Paris this
season. 1t seems lack of good taste to
paint nude subjects, unless they are invested
with the appropriate surroundings. If our
artists painted tropical scenes, where South
Sea Islanders are the ideals of beauty, they
might with reason introduce naked figures
into every conceivable incident of life. We
do not perceive the physical luxury or the
sentiment in young girls stretching herself
naked upon the Shiny floor of sepulchral
cavern to read ponderous book by the dim
light which steals in at a narrow opening,
nor do we understand what poetry there can
be for party of maidens, without so much
tissno- to nrotect them. to reclne
upon the scratchy limbs of an old apple tree.
These were only two out of many subjects
most absurdly handled in the exhibition.
Even allegorical subjects must stand the test
of common sense when they are illustrated
by material forms. The old fable of truth
springing out Of well was represented in
manner that seemed to us most far fetched.
A plump, nude woman as she scared out of
the dark abyss Just above the water, held in
one uplifted hand mirror to catch a sun
beam from the pure air above. We won
dered how she could stop in her flight and
poise one hundred and fifty pounds avoirdu-
pois by lightly pressing the tip of one rosy
finger on the edge of swinging bucket.
We were very happy to learn that the com
mittee of the Salon, in their effort to elevate
and purify public taste, refused hundreds OF
pictures for no other reason than that the
subjects were unnecessarily and ridiculously
void of raiment. We cannot leave this topic
without expressing our qualification at the
excellence of the work of many of our Ameri-
can artists. We can readily see that the
French artists have reason for their grow
ing jealousy toward the foreigners. We
thought there must be some kind of kink
| in mans mind who could spend weeks,
very likel months, in painting a dead hog,
as large as life, four hundred FOUNDER,
stretched full length upon bed of lilies and
roses. We could think of no spot on earth
where this would be appropriate but the Of
fee of Chicago porkpacker. There was
still another, which might have been his de-
funct twin brother, which was split open
from the snout to tip of the tail, and over
whose carcass leaned most sagacious in
spector of meats, peering with his far-reach
ing eye through a magnifying glass in
to the hide to detect trichine. If
our friends want these for their
dining room mantles, we would ven
ture to take the order for the pair for the
sum Of three thousand francs, which sum
should include our commissions. Out of
eight thousand pictures only twenty-five
hundred were accepted, and of these, a large
proportion utterly failed to interest us either
in their conception or execution, and we saw
good number which our amateur artists in
Portland would blush to own
M. G. p. B.