Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1893-10-12

WORLDS FAIR, OcI. IL ISpecIalJ-
About this time In the week take my
regular lesson in high art. OF late have
been going to the Woman's building be-
cause I could there have the guidance and
instruction of q cultured friend, but by
reason of much advice / have returned to
the Art palace with a grim determination
to like those paintings in the Russian sec.
ton. l take my stand first before the much
disputed picture-''The Cossack's Answer"
No. sand resolutely enter on a study
of it's beauties, for my friends tell me / just
must like it, or I can't be cultured" !
win not 20 so far as to say that any Of the
critics are influenced by the facts that this
picture is the private property of the car,
Alexander III, that 1t Is his favorite, ard
that he sent it here as a special compli-
ment. But any American citizen, Isuppose,
is free to think.
Well, 1t represents an incident when a
Cossack chief received a ~peremptory order
from some enemy of Russia, and, amid the
riotous laughter OF his men that any one
should presume to threaten them, wrote
his answer. Every one In the picture, /
say, is supposed to be laughing, but it sure
IL is the most painful laughter / ever saw
on human faces. My first impression of
This section was hat every face In il, save
perhaps half a dozen, showed pain or fear
or anxiety. Under instruction of cultured
friends, / decided that was all in my eve,
/ an now satisfied that my first impression
was correct-or, if il was all in ray eye, then
said eye is sch. If the Russians are not,
taken by and large, a profoundly unhappy
people, they had better take down thei-
signs.
Before leaving here / shall try an exper
iment on these Russian paintings. / shall
take an intelligent man from some interior
town who has never studied art or heard
much talk about it, and without naming a
picture get his unsophisticated view. |
think / know what be will say, and it will
be something like this: mo. 7~5-.'Little
Russian TOBACCO Smokers" well they're
just learning to smoke, or the tobacco is
mighty bad" ''No. T9-'Headof a Negro"
"Huhl Have they skinned that negro alive
or only just b~ulldozened himf'' No. "a
"A Drowned Man In a Country Place.
''The corpse is to be ~enyied-he's the only
happy looking n in the gang No. g.
"A sight in Little Russia" "If their
poor folks look that bad ia the night, I'd
hate TO see 'em by day. and SO on through
the whole catalogue.
National characteristics.
Now, it isn't so in the Polish section, and
/ wonder at it, for had supposed the two
peoples TO be of the same general race and
temperament. There is an equally great
contrast, but on another line, between the
paintings from Belgium and those from
Holland. The former have the same light,
airy grace as the French, while the latter
are generally of a heavy and somber cast
Nc; this is not exactly what / mean. and
l do not know h they call it in high art,
but nearly all the Holland pictures show
or suggest toll and WEAKNESS, or at least
clean and simple poverty. The faces do
not look unhappy, like those in the Rus
sian section; in fact, they nearly all show a
sort of OK eyed and apple faced content,
but there is a lack of the p~oetical. The
Society OF Polish Artists was so named, I
believe, because 1t was to include Poles In
many lands; but, in fact, all the pictures
but two are credited to residents in Poland.
The two outside artists are John Ciaglin-
ski Of st. Petersburg and M. Reyzner of
Paris. Thirty-four Of the artists are credit
ed 10 Warsaw and all the rest to Cracow,
because. / suppose, the only art schools are
In those cities.
There are very few sad subjects-not a
dozen among the l25 paintings-and over
all are a certain lightness and gayety of
treatment. One of the prettiest, TO my
taste, il not the finest in the room, is No. 5
-Milda, the goddess OF love, in the depths
OF the sea beside her dead lover. 1t is an
old Lithuanian legend. Milda fell in love
with a fisherman, which so enraged Per-
kun, god of thunder. that he killed the
fisherman n destroyed the amber palace
in the Baltic sea. The dark green sea water
seems to ripple and wave around Milda, and
yet does not in the slightest conceal her ex-
quisite beauty of form and color. No. -,
'The Polish Queen shows Hedwige
threatening to fly to her lover. Her old
treasurer protests. She says, Remember,
can break you" and he responds, Fran
gere, non 1ectere,' which the artist trans
lates, Can break, but cannot bend"
though that strikes me as rather queer
Latin. Hedwige was only 10, and the next
year-l3S2-she married rs her council ad-
yised, aud so united Poland and Lithuania.
An Exile's Death.
One of the few sad pictures is No. So,
Death of an Exiled Woman In Siberia
1T is mournful indeed, but beautiful. No.
AZ, Mass on Palm Sunday" has received
a first class medal and is admired accord
ingly, but here again / find myself unable
10 catch up with the authorities in art. A
picture of pain and terror is No. 66, THE
Prophet Wernihoya Predicting the Parti-
ton of Poland and Her Subsequent Strug-
giles" No. III. The Feudal Law excites
no end of sarmise and questions. 1t repre-
sents a beautiful young woman on a couch
looking toward the door with a half anx-
ious, half expectant face. whileon the table
near her are the arms and accoutermelIts of
q warrior. 1t lis pretty, but u puzzle-to
those who ave not read Blackstone's
statement of the peculiar right of a feudal
lord when any of his tenants were married.
An Uncanny Subject.
Oneofthe beauties ofthe room is negative
there isn't a snake in it. 1t seems to me
an artist must have a very high idea of his
own talents TO think he ear make a snaky
picture attractive, aud since going through
these galleries and examining such paint
ings /. have half developed anew theory. |
suspect that the instructive dread we have
of such reptiles and the fact that many
primitive people took them as embiems OF
wisdom are really due not to their venom,
but to the fact that in them we see motion
without a motor apparent. We can see the