Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-09-08
FAIRARTG GALLERY
Pictures and Statuary Of Mar.
velous Execution.
FEATURES OF THE RUSSIAN SECTION

FEATURES OF THE RUSSIAN SECTION
All the Paintings Thcrc-Thc Goddess of
Grain and Il Story Concerning Hcr-
How Different People View the Works
of Fine Art.
WORLDS FAIR, Sept. o. Especial. -
Every time IL goes to the Art palace he
is a little more anxious to go again and by
and by there comes q pain. It comes Of
the conviction that in the time one can
spare for this II building he will just
learn how to see it. When he really be-
gins to see it he will have to go home. OF
course this does not apply to our cultured
friends, rs they already know how to see,
and every time 1 look through q section
and report in the evening to my own indi-
vidual cultured mentor she breaks out
with enthusiasm:
20, did you see thus and SOP"
mo, ma'am, l did not"
"Then go right back tomorrow and see
It, for you have missed the best thing in
that section"
There are too many best things for any
n man to see, if the testimony of all the
enthusiasts be accepted; but there are a
few points on which all visitors agree.
One is that the Russian section is the
place for %terrors. Some of the paintings
are wonderful as works of art, but there
is in most of them m element of the
dreadful. Even in the calm domestic
scenes, or those meant to be such, where a
peasant family is sitting about the table
or country people are drinking at an inn
or the like, about half the faces look as if
the folks were sorry they were alive. And
the most singular part of it is, that express
sion seems as marked on the faces of the
children as of the grown people, or so it
appears to me.
"The Cossack's Answer" No. SIS, is one
of the magnificently terrible pictures
which I was sent back to see, and was
very much surprised to find an inscription
stating that it is the property of the car,
loaned for this exposition. Now it is
very high compliment, indeed, for Alex
ander III to select one of his finest paint
lngs for u inspection, a really royal act
of international courtesy, but why he
should have chosen such a subject rather
puzzles me. The finest painting in the
Russian section, as it seems to me in my
present stage Of culture, is the one repre-
senting the Santa Maria in a storm and
Columbus e%Xpostulating with his mutin-
II crew. (No. 1867 The terror is there
overcome by the sense of the sublimity.
The only really bright and joyous paint
ing in the room is the one representing
the bride and her friends as the latter give
the last touches to her toilet.
***
OF course everybody knows a little
something about mythology. for one could
not live in a land of education without at
least becoming familiar with the names of
Jupiter and Juno, Mars, Mercury and
Minerva and all the rest of that gang. It
is, however, quite a pleasure to observe
that many of our granger friends from
the four states which center here land
they still constitute half the visitors) look
around with much interest for Flora and
Ceres and Pomona and the rest of the
rural divinities they became familiar with
In the lodges of the Grange. I regret to
add that l was more familiar with the
burlesques of those worthy characters
than with the reality, but I believe that in
the sessions of the lodge Ceres sat on one
side of the Worthy Patron with a bunch of
wheat or other grain, and Pomona on the
other side with fruit emblems, while Flora
dld the ornamental as was fitting for the
Queen of Flowers.
We'll fbov - oil hove ,1- -..
peated, and some of them marvelously
beautiful form and color. I fancy land
1t may be a cruel fancy that many a plain
and unattractive woman heaves q deem
sigh at sight of some of these beautifully
feminine forms just as I do when 1 look at
the statue of Hercules. In the French
section generally the female figures are q
little more slender and delicately outlined
than elsewhere, but Ceres is nearly always
presented in art as somewhat stouter than
the giddy goddesses, such as Venus and
Hebe. AS all the grangers know Ceres
was goddess of grain and agricultural
abundance. Her beautiful daughter
Proserpina was carried off by Pluto, king
OF the Internal regions, and when Ceres
filed her complaint in the court of
Olympus it was decided that if the girl
had eaten nothing in hell she must be re.
stored. But it was proved that she had
eaten a ~pomegranate, so a compromise
was made by which she was to stay half
the year under ground and half the year
above. Ceres ratified it and made the
growth of her favorite grains to CORE
spond and hence all such as are sown one
year and reaped the next are called
cereals. AS we see that they do grow that
way. it really requires some skepticism to
reject the story.
1t is very pleasant, indeed, to yet a good
seat near some rather startling or highly
colored picture and hearthe extreme opin-
Ions passed on it by different groups. The
party of four or five who come to the fair
together usually 20 through the buildings
together; in the Art palace one catalogue
does for all, and if there is one in the
party with some knowledge of art they
often dispense with the book. I think
mVSelf that ma oninvu n x;o<,.o ~no..:s