Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-01


writings bear to history, having in history
only the tolerated place of the historical
novel in fiction, having dimensions without
dignity, protesting verltableness, but lack
ing authenticity and sacrificing facts to the
exigencies of grouping color schemes and
mere effectiveness, they arouse the wild ad-
miratlon of neophytes and win the applause
of those to whom color and action apart
from any higher value in point are awe
some.
SOME EXCEPTIONS.
Many of the works primarily designed
only for the decoration of public edihces
are wholly above this censure and have not
been, probably cannot be, surpassed in the
accomplishment of their end. 1t is true
that someo of the huge canvases are devoted
e to ostensibly sacred or moral themes. But
whether great or moderate in superficial
measures the religious works are not spir-
itual.
They never melt the soul nor bend the
knee. Even when a Henner paints a cruci-
fxion he hangs upon the cross a haccid,
commonplace figure. His Saint Sebastian
is meek but not heavenly. There are q dozen
crucifxions or illustrations of the life of
Christ in the various national exhibitions.
Not one of them possesses. a spark of di-
vinity.
The religious themes are painted exactly
in the same way as the profane themes, ex-
clusively from the objective. Not one in
dieates by the success of the effort that the
artist believed in his subject or felt for
what it represents a warmer glow of love
than for the hat on his dashing cavalier or
the wooden shoe on the foot of his peasant.
CLASSICS AT A DISCOUNT.
Mythology still holds captive the sculp-
tors, but the painters have preferred to
lodge their muse in modern life. Only 80
works are on themes drawn from Hellenic
or Roman literature, and these are gen.
orally employed with fine effect The cattle
painters are rare. The exhibition contains
no successors to Troyon, while sea and
mountain no longer command deyotees IN
the art of France. There is not one good
mountain study, and only 35 in which the
sea is studied for its own charm. In none
of these is its grandeur even attempted.
A,striking feature of the exhibition is the
space given to what has been happily called
the journalism of art, the depletion of
transitory but actual episodes that enter
into the nature of progress. Especially is
this to be observed in relation to medicine
and surgery. The anecdotage of the age
constitutes also favorite thematic matter.
FThe Iifesof the time is presented with vigor,
(nieety and truth, but as rule from the |
Sippant and yivacious way of seeing even
the serious.
LOTS OF LANDSCAPES.
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.
haf I'M fol oh of
of the highest class, that spell which awoke
in the breast of Constable and gave a land
scape art to England, and while the artist
lived established, in spite of national pre-
iudice, the truest landscape school of
France-the principle of insight-has fed
from the landscape painting of the day.
The new principle is outsight. The word
is as new as the principle, but it is as verif-
able. Whether he paint nature in the rose
of the dawn or the pensiveness of twilight,
whether he seek her face in the passion of
MONDAY 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 artisanstip, arouses in |
us more delight than the theme itself
We forget the great mother in the absorb |
ing talent of her son. The popularity of |
even spurious OOTOBS anu hOuSSe06S Is DeSJ |
understood when one discerns how utterly |
fled is the poet from the Ateliers of France |
Facture is the god of the age.
THEIR FEATURES.
Passivity, beautiful in difference of SEN
timent, stiffness without repose or action |
instant and theatric, animate these admir-
able landscapes. Their superlativeness
wears ones power of appreciation to the
very bone. Hunger and thirst for the older
school become consuming. One crosses the
threshold of the galleries of the Louvre to
rest ones spirit in the landscapes of Claude
Lorraine, half dozen OF whose works pos
sesses more than a thousand "Plein Air.
achievements
There is in the French sculpture more or
less of this worship of execution, but it is
not so despotic and exclusive as in the
Indeed, many of the sculptures
are not so noble in ideality as they are
abominable in design. That pefect defni-
tion of art, high imagination combined with
splendid execution, as laid down by Gilbert
describes only in half the art of
France. But let it be ungrudgingly de-
clared that it is the vital art of the age, and
that as Imagination appears to be dead or in
a trance the world over, in literature as well
as in art the world is benolden to France
for nearly all that is valuable in the arts of
design as they are now practiced.
Next in uniformity of excellence, as well
as in preserved individualism, comes the
art of Holland. Its inhuence'is seen strug-
Cling with that of France in the little
group of German works, pathetic in the
meagerness of their number and the sug-
gestion of the cause of their in
efficiency as national representation, but
genuine and great virtue, both
In theme and treatment.
PARIS PARAMOUNT
Scandinavian art shows something of this
struggle also, but the influence of Paris is
paramount. Fully half the painters whose
works are in the sections designated
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland
md Greece study and paint in Paris. But
he art of Holland rises above the influence
If the French, and while equal in facture,
s in many instances superior in ideality.
Belgium presents larger number of works
han any other foreign country, and, while
heir excellence is not so uniform, the art of
he country must be rated. fully abreast of
hat of France in variety Of subject, while
t is superior in cattle painting.
The English exhibit contains the most
llustrious names since the time of Turner
But il is difficult to reconcile its landscape
rt with the rich legacy left by that master