Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-06-16

About one half of the whole number are
paintings in oil, the remainder being
statuary, water %colors, pastels, engrav-
ings, etchings, pen and ink,
charcoal, black and white and
other drawings. There is not a dull
or undressing work in the lot. Every
one has had to run the gauntlet of q jury
of admission; the whole collection is an
example of the survival of the ittest.
There are hundreds and hundreds of ia
nous paintings and statues, many of
which will tempt the visitor to linger a
half hour or an hour.
But suppose you start out to see the
whole display, piece by piece, determined
to allow but a minute to each one How
much time will be required? One hun
dred and thirty-fve hours, or twenty-five
and a half days of six hours each.
The Art palace, therefore, is tremendous
in size. 1t represents the best the artists.
of the world can do. Those who are IA
miliar with the art displays of past exposi-
lions declare this to be by long odds the
finest and most representative collection of
works ever brought together under one
roof, and we may easily believe them.
What most astonishes the average visitor
IL not, after all, the magnitude Of the dis
play. This may be the first of his sensa
tions, but after an hour or a day or two
spent In the galleries-there are 1877 dis
tinct apartments or alcovesin the palace
he Is overwhelmed with a consciousness
That until this minute he has never
realized what modern art is. Having
been too busy earning his bread and butter
to give more than passing, careless atten-
ton to such things, he had in q general
onrf If mo forr,nl <1o sloo xl.k .--
sisted principally of nude statues, busts,
figures based on mythology;of pictures of
nymphs, madonnas, bathers, bits OF scenery,
peasant life, windmills, fishermen and
ships. He never had had an idea that art
goes forth to every walk of life, and
transcribes to canvas everything there is
In the world that has character, feeling,
soul, beauty or drama in it.
To go about in this palace is like being
in a place where master minds and skill
full hands have portrayed the world and
its contents for yourinspection. Here you
have the world on a wall. 1t is not only the
world of nature and her beauties, not
alone the world of the beautiful and the
ideal, but the world of reality, of drama,
of tragedy, Of comedy. Modern art is not
satisfied with the classical, nor with
scenery, nor withstudies of color and action
furnished by commonplace or traditional
subjects. It ransacks all history for great
events, for crises, for occurrences which
have stirred the world and sent their
echoes through time. 1t hunts through
all literature for scenes and characters. 1t
goes to the prison, the workshop, the
poorhouse. the morgue, the hospital, the
rolling mill, the locomotive, the steam
ship, the railway, the mine, the scat
fold, the army, the camp, to the desert
and the ice field, the surgical clinic and
the operating room, to the death bed and
the baptismal font-it goes every place
where feeling or passion may be found
for its inspiration.
The tendency Of modern art seems to
~me-though I don't claim to know much
about it-toward the intense, the drama
tic. At any rate, this palace IL filed with
paintings and statuary which fire the inn
agination, warm the blood and stir the
soul. And some day I hope to write you
q letter about the pictures here which
have this dramatic feeling in them.
WALTER WELLMAN.