Morning journal and courier., 1891-12-09

Americans in particular, as master in the school of mod ern realistic art.
 Why can we not help but acknowledge the POWER of his paintings-perhaps even with reluctance?
 Because his pictures appeal to our REASON. They force conviction from our sober Those brush argu- of his are as all-powerful to the eye of contemplative discernment as the proposi- tions of Euclid to the grasp of trained thought. They are logically unassailable. They may excite wonder-almost disgust-never incredulity.
 This Russian, who has dared to picture man to himself not as a lesser God, but as man only-has been a target for many a sneering shaft of disapproval and derision from those who arrogate to them. selves art-criticism's proud po- sition and privileges.
 And why not ? He has at a single stroke shattered their self-reared structures of art, trampled under foot their pet theories, broke down the bar riers behind which art-tradition has for centuries crouched in safety. He has, in a word, presumed to teach in place of allowing himself to be taught, and has led his would-be guides through paths of his own into an unexplored coun- try, where, for the first time, they are at fault.
 Their quarrel with him lies not in a dispute as to his abil- ity as a mere draughtsman and color-mixer, but in the fatal fact that he has eliminated every trace of the imaginative ideal of the painter from many of his works, and in it's place substituted what he affirms and they deny to be the FAITHFUL REALISM of art. He has rude. ly robbed nature of that cloak of self-conceit the canvas of conventionality so dearly loves to clothe her in.
 Some of his own words dealing with the relation of realism to art, and his claims to recognition as a realist, are
 "* go further and assert that ir tion of a fact or of an event without idea with out generalization, there can possibly be found ism there would be none of that intelligent re- alism, mean, which is built on observation and facts, in opposition to ideaism which is founded on impressions and afirmations established prIiori pI: oo o.uo.o .., ..,u-, me that there is no idea, no generalization, ir
 Can anyone say that am careless about the types, about tm costumes, about the landscape study out beforehand the personages, the sur roundings, figuring in my works Hardly SO.
 Consequently can claim to be represent most severe manipulating of all the details of creation, and which not only does not exclude an idea, but implies it.''
 The subject of present dis cussion does not propose to deal with Verestchagin's de- fence of realism, but rather with one of his most impor- tant works, which, although not precisely treated from that severe standpoint of the ar lists, is yet considered in many respects to be the chef d'oeuvre of his collection.
 The picture in question, which bears the title of "The Future Emperor of India" is one of the series of representa- tions of prominent events in British Indian history, and portrays the Prince of Wales triumphal entry into Jeypore, escorted by the Indian princes and their suites, on the occa- sion of his visit to India in 1875.
 Apart from the rank it has taken in the worlds recogni- ton as a work of art of a pro- foundly high order, some of its most strikingly apparent characteristics are
 The daringly bewildering gorgeousness of colors that has been utilized at every possible point of vantage, and yet with a marvellous judgment that has avoided the undue predomi- nance of a single hue that might mar the effect of the harmonious whole.
 The skillful handling of the bright sunlight reflections on the robes of the native Sepoys in the foreground. The bold sweep of perspective that lends an imaginative length to the procession far exceeding the actual limits of the canvas. The two different schools of texture e-treatment as shown in the marked distinction be- rr,aoY, fho L4or,xv .o.-o1ol