Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-07-25
kRT IN NEW YORK.
A VISIT TO THE ACADEMY ExHIBi-
TON ON VANISHING DAY.


Wandering from Picture to Picture-On
the Man Who IL Rich Enough to Buy
Costly Pictures
Vanishing day is perhaps the most inter-
ssting day Of the spring exhibition. You
are hidden by a small piece of pasteboard
The day is stormy-it always storms the
first week in April Instead of going up
the classic steps Of the academy, you slide
through the melancholy basement where the
School of Design abides, and steal up q
dark stairway like thief in the night or
/ ike q husband coming home from lodge
Member of the pres,." asks a wise looking
woman, taking your measure Here's
your catalogue" What is there to do but
o ia Ike it and 60 marking away with q
pencil, as do the others!-only, as could
never make anything out of ideas held on
= margin simply scrawl away in an I'M
professional fashion, making notes pictorial
and generally too brief to be available, of
what goes on as the afternoon wakes and
Wanes
WANDERING FROM PICTURE TO PICTURE.
On vanishing day there is no crowd.
You can wander from picture to picture
with nothing but an occasional ladder to in
tercept the view. As q rule the best artists
have finished with their pictures and the
poorer ones are vanishing ostentatiously.
Conversation is brisk and general People
meet in knots and then diverge to meet
again Almost as many women as men
all of the former business like and the
1orO TO-
are pegging away. taking notes, the one
half artists and the other correspondents
Most of the men are smoking. Dude artists
with silk hats, stitched gloves and var
nished boots wave their Havanas conde-
scendingly, shedding ashes and tender
smiss on the more attractive women pres
ent
On vanishing day the night fell-the sun
couldn't 60 down, because they have no sun
in New York just now-on S43 works of art,
the largest number the academy has yet
held. 1t is the correct thing to be sarcastic,
II not abusive, when referring to the acad-
emicians and the hanging committee. If
you don't feel any moral responsibility for
what you say, it is both popular and easy
to be amusing at their expense. But to an
unprej JUDGED observer it seems that the
academicians are unduly sensitive to this
absurd vituperation. They own the whole
thing-building, exhibition and all-but
hat seems to be negative advantage By
vi rtue of their position, academicians, cut
off from all prizes, have reached the end of
all preferment They are 80 afraid Of not
doing justice to art and the public that, by
actual measurement, two thirds of the spaces
On the line is given over to outsiders in the
present exhibition What is the use of be-
ing an academician! No advantage that
can see.
Vanishing day over, the critics having
departed staggering under accumulated in
formation, the artists being dispersed
to swear and some to smile-the next turn
Of the clock brought round buyers day. A
crowded day it proved, albeit the weather
was vile. day Of portly paunches, grizzled
hair, gold headed canes, private carriages
and stylis suits; a day that did not belle
its name but left the exchequer something
over SIC, coo ahead
THE CROWD ON BUYERS DAY.
Buyers day takes place the afternoon
following vanishing day. The evening of
buyers day-it fell on a Saturday this
year; perhaps it always does-is given over
to the artists, their patrons and friends
This latter is supposed to be a full-dress af-
band under the stairs maids in
attendance in the cloakroom, light and
ousule everywhere. 1t is called a "recep-
ton and private view," and only those bid
len by card may come. The women wear
oonnets and pretty walking dresses: the
men, except in isolated and conspicuous in
stances, evening dress The crush is some
thing past belief Every one who has ever
been interested in art or ever expects to be
must be there, and invitations are wrung
from the acade,nicians right and left Once
up the CRANE stairway, you find yourself
,andwiched into a dense mass of polite,
humanity. For three hours it
IS impossible to move faster than an inch at
l time. BY Herculean efforts you may
work your way from one room to another,
,nly to find each more crowded than the
asst 1t is a good change to drift about
with uncomfortable slowness and study one
lind of New York crowd. The richest
people go on buyers day, and avoid the
,rowd of the reception and private view.
Still there are some-you can tell them by |
certain air Of possible ownership they as
ume when looking at an attractive picture.
A gain, there is no installing the superb re-
pose which a man who is rich enough to buy |
pictures possesses.
Certain men there are who like to linger |
n a crowd and hear what is said about the
pictures they think of buying. They like
@ get unbiased opinions to prop a faltering
Judgment There are the people of culture,
he genuine kind-quiet men and women
Who understand the world and themselves
md take in all they see with tranquil, easy
Enjoyment There are the old academi-
old Yellowstone gray,
ONE bald, many Of them handsome, and
hree or tour who look like Papa Brooks,
he still-life painter Of San Francisco
There are certain young artists ami their
wives. The men incline to pointed boards
md disheveled hair. Some of them seem
o nave married models-pretty girls who
ook like fury with their clothes on and are
'ainfully embarrassed at being, as they in
locentiy suppose, in society. These girls
re given to big masses of curls on the
orehead, no corsets q queerness in the
natter of collars, and depressing depres-
ions where the hustle ought to be- But
hey make, have heard, the best Of wives
nd mothers and save their husbands I'M
old money for models. There also
nay be seen the young unm arried artist Of
he prosp kinda dude of the most at
ractive type: skin shining as if from a
turkish bath, mustache cuYled, trousers of
be latest cut, dazzling shirt front, big knot
t violets in button-hole and q generally
risk, breezy, man-of the-world style
here are artists and artists, as you may
Judge And a man who can paint is the
nan we want to see, no matter what class
e belongs to-Minnie Buchanan in San
francisco Chronicle