St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-06-01
ART AT The BIG FAIR.
Innumerable Large Scenic
Works Lend Apparent
Grandeur.
A Lack Of Soul in the Many
Sacred Scenes on Ex-
hibiti0n.
Hollands Art Rises Above tie
General Imitation Of
Paris,
Sam oan Commissioners Have
Plenty of PLAY With Their
Work.

PARIS, May ga few observations
may be added to what l cabled you last
Saturday about the art department Of
the exposition. In failing to repress
the obvious inferiority of merely imlta-
tive art, the management has weakened
a great exhibit. AS aresult, the exhibit
has acquired an artificial magnificence
by the profusion of huge scenic works,
many of them as large as the itinerant
Munkacsy's and not possessed OF
greater intrinsic merit, but gen.
orally superior in purely decorative
quality and essential dramatic strength.
How positively these s0-called histor-
zeal and scenic compositions dominate
the entire exhibit may be c0njectured
from the fact that they are
NEARLY HALF
of the whole number of works eXhlb-
tied. Bearing to true art the same re-
lation that Froude's historical writings
bear to history, having in history only
the tolerated place of the historical
novel in fiction, having dimen-
ions without dignity, profess
ing veritableness, but lacking au-
thenticity and sacrificing facts
to the eXigencies OF group
ing, color schemes and mere effective
ness. they arouse the wild admiration OF
neophytes and win the applause Of
those, to whom color and action, apart
from any higher value in pooint. are
awesome. Many of the works prima
rily designed only for the decoration of
public edifces are wholly above this
censure, and have not been. probably
cannot be surpassed in the accomplish
ment of their end. 1t is true that some
of the huge canvaSSeS are devoted to OS-
tenSibly sacred or moral themes, but
whether great OF moral in superficial
measure, the religious works are not
spiritual. They
NEVER MELT THE SOUL
nor bend the knee. Even when Hen
ner paints crucifiXion he hangs upon
the cross flaccid a commonplace fig
ure. His St. Sebastian is meek, but not
heavenly. There are dozen crucifiX-
ions or illustrations of the life of Christ
in the various national exhibitions. Not
one of them possesses a spark OF dlvin-
ity. The religious themes are painted
exactly in the same way as the profane
themes, exclusively from the objective.
Not one indicates by the success OF the
effort that the artist believed in his sub
iect, or felt for what it rep ,esents
warmer glow of love than for the hat
on his dashing cavalier or the wooden
shoe OH the foot of his peasant. Mythol-
ogy still holds captive the sculptOrs, but
the painters have preferred to lodge
their music in modern life. Only thirty
two works are on themes drawn from
HolI afrr
these are generally employed with fine
effect. The cattle painters are rare.
The exhibition contains
NO SUCCESSORS TO TROYON,
while sea and mountain no longer COM
mand deyotees in the art of France.
There is not one good mountain study,
and only thirty-five in which the sea is
studied for its own charm. In not one
of these is its grandeur even attempted.
A striking feature of the exhibition is
the space given to what has been hap
ply called the Journalist of Art, the de-
piction of transitory, but actual cpl
sodes, that enter into the notation of
progress. Especially is this to be OBJ
served in relation to medicine and
surgery. The anecdotage of the
age constitutes also favorite
thematic material. The life of the
time is presented with vigor, nicely and
truth, but as rule, from the f1ippant
and vivacious way OF seeing even the
serious. The landscapes are the most
numerous after the scenic compositions.
They are as a rule superbly painted.
The treatment of light from the front
of the subject is the principle which
has informed every work descriptive Of
nature. The painter no longer studies
nature from within her seclusiOn. That
immortal charm of Italian land
scape of the highest class,
that spell which awoke in the
breast of Constable and gave land
scape art to England, and while the
tional prejudice the truest landscape
school of France; the principle .of in.
sight has fed from the landscape paint
ing of the day.
THE NEW PRINCIPLE
is ''Outsight." The word is as new as
the principle. but it is as verifiable.
Whether he paint Nature in the rose of
the dawn or the penSiveneSS of twi-
light; whether he seek her face in the
passion of noon-day or the tranquility
of the stars, the French painter must
have her close to his eyes, he must
touch her With his hands, his lips must
sweep her forehead. He gives US
landscapes, therefore, whose feature by
the very excellence of its artisanship,
arouses in us more delight than the
theme itself. We forget the great
mother in the absorbing talent of her
son. The popularity of even spurious
CorOts and Rousseaus is better under
stood when one diScernS how utterly
fled is the poet from the ateIiers of
France. Faeture is the god of the age.
Passivity, beautiful Indifference of SEN
iment, stiffness without repose
or action instant and theat-
ric, animate these admirable landscape.
Their superlativeness wears ones power
of appreciation to the very bone. Hun
ger and thirst for the older school be-
come consuming. One crosses the
threshold of the galleries OF the Louvre
to rest ones spirit i'll the landscapes of
Claude Lorraine, half-dozen of whose
''plein air'' achievements. There is in
the French sculptor more or less of this
WORSHIP OF EXECUTION;
but it is not SO deSpOtic and exclusive
as in the painting. Indeed, many Of
the sculptures are not so noble in
ideality. as they are admirable in de-
sign. That perfect definition of art,
high Imagination combined with SPLEEN
did execution, as laid down by Philip
Gilbert Hamerton, describes only in
half the art of France. But let it be
ungrudgiugly declare, that it is the
vital art of the age; and that as imagi-
nation appears to be dead or in a
trance, the world over in literature as
we'll as in art, the world is beholden to
France for nearly all that is valuablein
ceilence as we'll as in preserved indi-
vidualiSm, comes
THE ART OF HOLLAND.