Sacramento daily record-union., 1889-09-08
ART AND ART WORKERS.

and birth place.
ART AND ART WORKERS.
Amelie Rives, it is reported, will abandon
literature for art.
Lord Ronald Cover recently bought a
Boucher screen for 81 90 and resold it for
$4,000.
A bust of Hannibal Hamlin, by Mr..
Simmons, has been received at New York
from Italy.
A merchant of Shanghai has paid S14,-
600 for pair of japanese screens in gold
lacquer of the finest workmanship.
Miss Amelia B. Edwards, LID, has
prepared for the Century an article, richly
illustrated, upon the recovery of the ruins
of the great temple of Bubastis by the
Egypt Exploration Fund. One of her
lectures, "The Explorer in Egypt" treats
particularly Of that remarkable excavation
and its rich monumental results.
Something must be done to galvanize
the fund for the memorial arch at Wash
ington Square or Brooklyn will have an
arch before New York, says the New York
Times. John III. Duncan's design has
been approved of, and the sum of
$250,000 appropriated. 1t will be
much larger affair than Stanford
Whites, but size is not everything.
If 100000 can be secured there is no
doubt that Mr.. White will put all his
cleverness into a design which will be an
honor to the city. Both these arches
should be in place before 1892, and the
Washington Square arch ought to be begun
next year.
The London Times is impressed with
the Decennial Exposition of French Art
now open at Paris. 1t admits that "the
spectacle presented is that of society in
which art Is a living and moving force,
and in which the profession of an artist is
IN no sense outside the national movement.
but is one of its most characteristic ex-
pressions. To whatever department we
turn, whether to oil painting, or to sculpt-
ure, or to engraving, we find an extraordi-
nary activity, productiveness that is as
tonishing, and at the same time regard
for the canons of art, as they are under
stood by the majority of French artists,
which is hardly ever transgressed. One
may like French art as whole, or one
may dislike it. One may feel pleasurably
moved by the force of its realism and the
strength with which it seems to take hold
of the facts of life as they are, or one may
shrink from its productions as the too
crude and harsh representations of only
one side of life; one may praise its truth
and knowledge, or one may ask for some
thing less OF the brutal fact and something
more OF what is beautiful. But to which
ever side one may incline one cannot re-
fuse to recognize the truth that here there
Is an intimate relation between art and the
life of the people, public and private,
which is not at this moment to be found to
anything like the same extent in any
other people of the world"
"The Department of Instruction" at
the Paris Exposition contains a group of
windows by John La Fargo that are not
inappropriately placed there. Though it
is due to the fact that the Art Depart
ment afforded no suitable position for
them that these works are TO be exposed
in the Department of instruction, there is
so much in them to instruct, as well as to
delight, that the change may be considered
fortunate one. Two of the windows
have already been shipped One is
panel OF purely decorative glass, in design
of Renaissance arabesque, in which Mr..
La Fargo, as artist and as manufacturer.
has sought to show the possibilities in
material and workmanship, as well as in
the intrinsic beauty of the result. The
second one is window some twelve feet
high by one-haif that measurement in
width. The subject is taken from Rev
elations, and the window is offered by the
survivor of three sisters as a memorial to
two who are dead. Briefly, it represents
an angel directing heayenward the gaze
of woman who stands at his left hand
the right of the spectator. Above are two
female figures floating, their faces turned
with serene but rapt expression upward.
OF these the taller and elder has the
right arm extended slightly upward-it is
on the left of the spectator; the other,
leaning and bending toward her compan-
ion, has the left arm extended, but slightly
downward. The arm is bare from the
shoulder, and the hand holds lightly
fold of her robe. The first impression is
one of intense but harmonious and subdued
splendor-the splendor of the full dawn
upon the mountains, the blue of the heay-
ems at the remote limit of the earth's in
closing air, the red, the green, the purple,
the orange, the golden-yellow that the
clouds know nearest the fountain of light
and colcr, and these suffused, translated,
blended with
THE light that never was on sea or land,
The inspiration and the poets dream"
The principal figure is the angel, by
right of mission, by the relative space de-
voted to it, by the beauty of color. His
drapery is of red and purple; one long and
nearly straight fold of deep orange defines
the edge of the outer robe; the wing, half
folded, bears in the broad descending
curves of the plumes the combined hues of
the drapery, with delicate, semi-opalescent
reflections of the blues, and CLEANS of
nearly pure light. His companions drap-
cry is of green and violet. The taller of
tho upper figures above, to the left, is
draped in colors similar to those of the
lower figure on the right. Her companion
above carries upward the colors of the
angels drapery. This gives most made
quate idea of the general arrangement of
color, and 1t must seem to the reader
almost an impossiblesone. In reality it
is perfectly successful. The background of
intense and deep blue, with hushes of red
and yellow, suggesting rather than pro-
ducing the purple and green that the sky
is capable OF, is incredibly tender anil
solemn. Against, or rather in, this the
figures are at once brilliant and delicate,
majestic and delightfully."- graceful. The
attitude of the taller figure above confirms
without repeating that of the angel imme-
diately below; that of the companion fig
ure above again resembles while very dis
tinct from that of the figure below. The
ecstacy OF the latter becomes the
calmer and complete assurance of the
former, while the attitude of the angel.
erect, reposeful, simple and benign.
dominates and sustains the others. What
must necessarily be the most difficult part
of the work, the faces, is the most marvel
Gus. They give the key to the whole.
Perfectly individual in type and express
sion, they combine to give the spiritual
meaning to the composition. In their
setting of translucent colors. so far from
being obscured or effaeed, they shine by
their beauty, the purity, the gravity and
the tranquil force of their expression.
New England is threatened with bean
famine and Boston is becoming alarmed.