Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1890-11-23

Miss Lawson. nevertheless, has mod
eled in "Ayacanora" fine, free figure
of a young Indian girl.
This working of the feminine for al
it is worth is just what is noticeable in
French art now. In lighter illustrative
work particularly we are every day con
| fronted with women possessed OF the en-
arged breasts and hips and knee joints
and calves of padded stage pages. Even
at the Salon one may see figures vicious
ly untruthful in contour, voluptuous in
intention. The "maidenly" attitude,
purely beautiful as it is in Lefebvre' 5
Truth holding light on high, which
every person who has visited the Lux
embourg Will remember, easily lends it
self TO affectation. and. what with the
close set, often inturncd limbs and the
overgrown, dimpled knees, it is not
hard to call TO mind fine nudes like f..
j. H. Bague's Spring" in which if the
woman's figure, with the left foot lifted
and withdrawn and the left knee thrown
partially across the right leg, is certain
~ not knock-kneed, as we commonly
use the expression, still suspicious ma
ture would look twice 10 make sure il
was mostly matter of attitude.
Sculpture has constant corrective in
the true and simple lines of the Greek
statues, for though there is hint of
aiIectation in the "Venus de Medici'' as
contrasted with the noble Venus of
Milo" yet the Medicean Venus is truth
full compared with the sentimentality of
such later work as for example the
"Venus" of Canova: but sculptorS adj
here as closely as painters to the
"womanly" attitude.
at is chosen" said Daniel c. French,
who will be recognized as one OF the
most sincerely artistic of our sculptors,
because it is so entirely natural to a
woman, because it is in every way femi-
nine. The idea of knock-kneed statue
is wild"
us it not true that modern art tends
TO exaggeratc and so TO degrade femi-
nine attributes"
ut is certainly true that it makes as
much of them as it can. But as to the
'vine-like' pose, it is not matter OF diff
ference between men and women in the
presentation of women. Take Nine.
Leon BertauX. the well-known woman
artist, her Psyche has the essentially
modest attitude.
in some hands the pose may lead
itself to eXaggerations of shape, but
you can't give free step TO an undrapcd
woman's figure. 1t won't do. Take
Falguiere. one of the most successful
French sculptors. He tried it, but all
Paris nicknamed his huntrcSS Diane of
the Lorette; they might as well have
called her, of the bagnio.'
The artist has To bear in mind the
structural differences between men and
women. Notwithstanding the general
perfection Of the woman'S body she re-
sembleS the child more than she does
the man. Her bones are small. joints
loose, shoulders and back weak, etc.
Some teachers accordingly advise art
students to draw from masculine figures
mostly, their characteristics being more
regular and settled
Mr.. st. Gaudcns was unwillii 2 to de-
clare himself as to the part played in
modern art by knock-knees. \ series
of photographs received in New York
of the principal models employed by
French artists reveals some excuse in
nature for enlarged knee joints, for one
or two are far from flawless in this par
ticular The most beautiful picture is
that of the woman said to have posed to
Bartholdi for the statue Of Liberty"