The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-11-03
ART IN NEW YORK.
A VISIT TO THE ACADEMY exHlBI-
TON ON VANISHING DAY.


Wandering from Picture to 2icture-On
Buyers Day-The superb RePose OF
the Man Who Is Rich Enough to Buy
Costly Pictures
Vanishing day is perhaps the most inter
esting day OF the spring exhibition. lou
are hidden by a small piece of paSteboard-
The day IS stolmy-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 abldes, and steal up a
DARK stairway like thief in the night or
like a husband coming home from lodge.
Member of the press" asks g wlse-looklng
woman, taking your measure Here 8
vour catalogue What is there to do but
to take it and go marking away with
pencil, as do the Others?-only, as L could
never make anything out of ideas held on
a margin. simply scrawl away IN an un-
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
to. cept the view. AS rule the best artists
have finished with their pictures and the
poorer ones are vanishing ostentatlousy
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
larger percentage young and pretty-tney
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
smiles on the more attractive women pres
emit
On vanishing day the night fell-the sun
couldn't go down, because they have no sun
in New York just now-on SAB works or art.
the largest number the academy has yet
held. It is the correct thing to be sarcastic,
ii not abusive, when referring to the acad-
emicians and the hanging committee. 1t
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
unpre udiced observer it seems that the
academicians are unduly sensitive to this
absurd vituperation. They own the whole
thing-building, exhibition and aH-but
that seems to be a negative advantage. by
vi rtue of their position, academlclans, cut
off from all prizes, have reached the end or
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 academicianl No advantage that L
can see
Vanishing day over, the critics having
departed staggering IN Ter accumulated In
formation, the artists being dlspersed-some
to swear and some to smile-the next turn
ole IL HnVpTS' a
crowded day it proved, albeit the weather
was vile day Of portly paunches, grlzzled
hair, gold headed canes, private carriages
and stylish suits; a day that did not belle
its name, Lut left the exChequer something
over SIC, 900 ahead.
THE CROWD ON BUYERS DAY
Buyers day takes place the afternoon
following vanishing day. The evening OF
buvers' dav-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 fulldress al
I fair-string band under the stairs, maids IN
| attendance in the cloak-room, light an
! hustle everywhere. 1t IS called "recep
! ton and private view" and only those bid
| den by card may come. The women wear
| bonnets and pretty walking dresses; th'
men, except in isolated and conspicuous IN
| stances. evening dress. The crush is some
been Interested in art or ever expects to b.
must be there and invitations are wrunG
! from the academicians right and left once
up the grand stairway, you hnd yourseL
sandwiched into a dense mass OF polite
well-dressed humanity. For three hours
is impossible to move faster than an lnch a
a time. By Herculean efforts you maj
work your way from one room to another
only to find each more crowded than Ih
last. 1t is a good change to drift abou
with income eivable slowness and study on
kind of a New York crowd The riches
Deople 90 on buyers day, and avoid Tn
crowd of the reception and private view
Still there are some-yOu can tell them Dy
certain air of possible ownership they as
sumo when looking at an attractive picture
Again, there is no mistailing the superb re
nose which a man who is rich enough to bu.
pictures possesses
Certain men there are who like to hinge
in a crowd and hear what is said ABOUT tn
pictures they think of buying. Ihey Tx
to get unbiased opinions to prop 1aIberln
Judgment. There are the people OF culture
the genuine kind-quiet men and Wome
who understand the world and themselve
and take in all they see with tranquil, cas-
endowment There are the old academ
cians-courtly old fellOws-some gray
some bald, many of them handsome, an
three or four who look like Papa Brooks
the still-life painter of San Francisco
There are certain young artists and the
wives. The men incline to pointed beard
and disheveled hair Some of them seel
to have married models-pretty girls WI
look like fury with their clothes on and al
painfully embarrassed at being, as they IL
nocently suppose, in society. These gar
are given TO big masses of curls on u
forehead, no corsets, a queerness IN II
matter of collars, and depressing depre
sions where the hustle ought to be. b
they make, 1 have heard, the best of wlv'
and mothers and save their husbands Ia
told money for models There al
may be seen the young unmarried artist
, the PROSPEROUS kinda dude of the most a
: tractive type; skin shining as If from
. Turkish bath mustache curled, trousers
5 the latest cut dazzling shirt front, big KIN
of violets in button-hole and a general
blisk, breezy, man-of the-world styl
S There are artl Is AMI artists, as you ms
t iudge. And a man who can paint Is e
, man we want to see no matter what ella
= ne belongs to Minnie Buchanan in 81
u Francisco Chronicle.
- Rails Found in Swiss Lakes.