The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-12
Mr.. BRANDT,s aAPELLEs."
The Reception To-day at the Telfair
Academy

academy.
Tickets have been issued for a reception
to-day at the Telfair Academy, between
the hours of 1890 a. m. and p. m, tie oc-
casion being the fist view of Director
Brandt's picture of ''Apelles" the famous
painter of ancient Greece.
The completion of tuis charming work is
another step forward in the design that
aims at making the main hall of the acad-
envy an ideal of beauty and harmony.
1t will be remembered that the ceiling OF
this room is lofty, and that, in consequence,
the walls extend lar above the line at which
oil paintings cease to be seen TO advantage
How to treat this expanse so as to avoid a
sense of baroness was a difficult problem for
the Director, but it is generally admitted
that he found happy solution for it when
he placed there the eight large Gubelins by
Schraudolph, the Director Of the Stuttgart
Academy. These were purchased by
MIR. Brandt at Munich for the positions
they now occupy while as yet the new
building only exlste d in his conception of it.
They are intended to give the feeling Of
tapestry as decoration, beng painted in
colors that have no gloss to reflect the light
las oil painting would certainly do at that
elevation and angle but partake rather Of
the nature of dyes, becoming as it were, a
part of the warp and wool of the canvas
itself
These works are allegorical in their
character and represent respectively the
Genii of Painting, Architecture, Sculpture
and Engraving with attendant Genii bear
ing trumpets and garlands. Were nothing
added to them they would by themselves
give dignity and beauty to any gallery, but
from the first it has been Mr.. Brandt's
design to fill the panels between these works
with the faces and forms of those whom the
world has recognized as great leaders in
these sister arts. He aims to do so in
style which, while conforming to the gen
eral character of the panels already in po-
sition, shall have an Individuality of its
own--a realism better suited to portraiture
and representing the more modern Gobelin-
tapestry effect.
And SO to-day Appelles, the friend of Alex
ander, takes his place upon the western
wall of the gallery, the representative
in bodily form of the art of painting. In
due time Praxiteles, the sculptor, will face
him from the panel on the eastern wall,
over the entrance, while Ictinus, the archi-
tect of the Parthenon, will lock upon us
from the northern wall, and Albert Durer,
the engraver, from the southL IN. The
panels III the four corners it is proposed to
fill by groups of noted artists of the vari-
GUS schools. A nobler frieze for a gallery
of art could scarcely be imagined, and the
Telfair Academy Is fortunate in enlsting
the services of an artist who has the taste to
conceive so happy combination and the
ability to carry his plan into execution.
The Apelles has been quit recently de-
scribed in the public prints 1t is therefore
unnecessary 10 dwell upon all of its details.
The members of the Historical Society id
their friends will have opportunity to-day
to judge of it for themselves. They cannot
fail to be impressed with the graceful dig
nifty of the figure of the great painter as,
seated on the porch of the Temple of Diana
at Ephesus, he scans his own work with a
face full of that thoughtful earnestness akin
to melancholy, that is inseparable from the
highest types of genius.
The management Ct the drapery is So
skillfully done that one sees only the result
without thought of the careful study that
produced IL, while all the tones and colors
of the picture are not only harmonious with
each other and with the tapestry upon the
right and left, but are also subordinate to
the brighter tints of the line of paintings
below.
In a word, there has been unity of design
in Mr. Brandts work, and most heartily is
it to be hoped that health and strength may
be granted him to complete that which is
so auspiciously begun.
The reception promises to he brilliant
G. H. o.
Savannah A 111.iI p 1898