Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1886-09-02
ART IN AMERICA.
The Two Monticellfs-One a Lom-
bard, the other a Frenchman.

The Two Monticellis-One a Lom-
bard, the other a Frenchman.
Amateurship in America has been the
prop of many French painters without
earning their gratitude. Legislation by
congress year or so ago gave them a
better reason for their openly express
ed contempt that they once had. Amer
lea ready purse has kept some from
starving, and raised others to position
which princes rightly envy. America
has also greatness: Barge, the sculptor,
Jean Francois Mllet, were better un.
derstood and better treated by Ameri-
cans than by their own countrymen.
Go to Paris to-day and ask for Monti-
cell. 1t will be a very well-informed
artist who can tell you who he is.
There are two Monticellis, one LON
bard, who paints genre pictures, nowise
different from the ordinary atrocity of
modern Italy; and the other French
man of Marse Hes, who is probably the
greatest colorist alive. A riotous early
al from the world. and present incapac-
ity to equal every work-when Dias liv-
ed and was charged with keeping this
eccentric painter concealed in order to
profit by his work and counsel-make
the recognition of Monticello by the
men of the day nearly impossible.
Where was he recognized In Ameri-
ca. Where are his best picturesp In
America. By some occult means he in
herited the palette which slipped so
early from the hand of Marilhat; with
out any known excursions into the true
orient he seems to have found in Prov
ence the glowing and deeply harmoni-
Gus colorS of the best old oriental rugs
and carpets. This, to be sure, conveys
but faint praise to some minds who ask
that definite story shall be told in
every picture, and who use the term
decorative as slur. Such will find
little Hdmire in Monticello. The
BactI. ...,.,,n scene here produced-a
vision OF n dance in that Italian gar
den to which the pleasure-loving Flor
entines who told the stories of the De-
cameron withdrew-is not by any means
the important point in the original.
The groups are at first indistinct; only
gradually do they announce themselves
to the brooding eye; slowly they re-
solve into three separate rings of dane
ers, and one great cluster of quiet spec
tators grouped before the ruined tenn
pie on the left. In Monticello it is the
wonderful color that attracks, a color
composed of an apparently haphazzard
but really deeply felt intermingling of
cream whites, lemons, subdued blues
and reds. Early Italian pictures often
show this heaping up of incident this
tapestry-like mingling of low colors,
and this high finish in the faces. 1t is
a sensuous tnmult of color that arises
from the ample gowns and flowing
cloaks of devil-may care dancers, as
they pace along ecstatic, or fling their
limbs in sudden burst to the thrum-
ming of Provencal Mephisto seated
on the left. No painter like Monticello
for startling and really griev-
ing honest, orderly souls, who
wish to take their fine arts
serenely, with circumspection, with
instant grasp of all the painter
meant. To enjoy Monticello best it Is
we'll to have his picture at the foot of
ones bed, and open the eyes on il
during the white first hours of the
morning. when the spirit is still half in
dreamland, and the amazing depth and
subtlety of his color-valves have a
chance to penetrate before the hard
conventionalites of wide awake day
draw the blinds upon the senses and
open the doors to reason. Monticello
at his best, as when he painted this. is
workman for poets and for amateurs
who will not give fig for rules-who
are at once wide enough and bold
enough to appreciate extremes in the
art. And to say that is to say great
deal.-Magazine Of Art.