The record-union., 1894-02-13
ART IN NEW YORK.
The Annual Water-Color Stag" in
the Metropolis.
interesting Comment on Art and Art
1sts-PracticaI Ideas Taking the
Place Of Romantic Ones.

called the Water-color "Stag." 1t is the
informal opening Of the annual exhibit
ton of the American Water-color Society.
originally this first night was arranged
1or the press, but the critics found the
good cheer and company too much of
diversion, so that while they like to be
present, they do their work in the after
noon beforehand. Friends and patrons,
picture buyers and women also are ex-
cluded. They are given more fashiona-
BILE occasion, which is known as the ''pri-
vate view,'' on the following day. From
this artists are expected to be absent. for
the reason, as one of them said, that they
are in the habit of standing before some
other fellows picture and by damning it
interfere with visitors judgments. How
ever this may be, the stag" is chance
to see the painters themselves and to get
general notion of their ideas, purposes
and work rather than TO study particular
pictures.
At the twenty-seventh annual ''stag"
in the Academy OF Design last Friday
there must have been nearly 500 men.
Nearly all were artists. but Outwardly
they looked like any other large gather
ing of men. For the artist nowadays
has lost all trace of the eccentricities of
appearance and manners. His fellow
artist, the novelist, and his half-brother,
the caricaturist, have changed both his
barber and his tailor, SO that now he is
we'll groomed well dressed, well behaved,
sensible man. Some Of the Older men
wear velvet still, and their white hair
wanders in the curls Of early vanity.
But, Judging by the men | saw last night,
| conclude that the modern American
artist is young, and the young men are
free from romantic peculiarities.
No box-
dominating influence in the character
and method of art work, as we'll as in
giving tone to social gatherings of art
lists. They hang the work of the old
chaps well, and make them the officers
and hosts. J.. q. Brown, the veteran
painter of newsboys is President of the
society. He greeted the guests Friday
evening at the head of the broad stair
way, and his picture had the most con-
Spicuous place in the ''big south room."
But this was courtesy. L accepted cigar
from the box he carried under his left
arm but passed his Free From Care' TO
smoke in front of some young mans
picture, perhaps the first or second he has
exhibited.
This young mans work, if typical, is
not sentimental. There is feeling, but it
is deeper, more lasting than tear can
express. You would not smile and feel
choked, but would understand and be
pleased, if not edited. The painter has
seen something worth seeing, and he re-
ports the facts or a phase of something
and you are apt to see it. If he has done
it well, you get an impression and have
feeling as he did, but it may not be just
his 1t is yours, and it is the one the
scene would have awakened in you, if,
on viewing it. you had had your attention
centered IN it as it is by his frame. He
cuts it out of all the rest of the landscape,
and, as l said before, reports it.
There is distinction in method here
well known in all the arts and in busi-
ness, too. 1t is the difference between
telling a man that thing is, for example,
thrilling. and so telling him what one
saw that he has q thrill, or, it is the differ
ence between saying that horse is cheap
for the money and letting the customer
ride it and find out that it is cheap
American artists have learned their lesson
from the Frenchmen, and have avoided
the example of the English in this re-
specU. In London the fault is carried so
lar that the artist often uses a title which
gives a feeling nowhere painted in the
picture. Thus picture of a beautiful blue
sea in MONDAY calm, fills the spectator
with the feeling of immense peace. but
the painter calls it "Britain's Realm"
The Englishman at once loses the sense
OF peace and feels proud; good enough
feeling, but to foreigner 1t is bloody"
disagreeable.
In the catalogue Oh Inc w al0r color
Exhibition l found a decrease of literary
titles. Only the older men use them.
They still paint a female figure and call
il "a pretty woman" But the younger
school paint her pretty and call her "a
woman" and leave one to see that she is
lovely.
More than this to be commended, how
ever, is the evidence one finds of serious
ness of purpose With the vapid, sickly
sentiment has gone the theory of in
spiration. Men are working for some
thing, not waiting for it to rise up within
them. The explosion of the notion of in
born genius has helped make artists
practical, and no men in the world work
harder. Both in the pictures themselves
and in the comment of the painters this
earnestness appears very fOrcibly. Even
that cleverness which is the bane of
young writers (and many of the veterans,
TOO seems to be losing its hold on paint
ers In number after number around the
walls l saw pictures that were sincere
efforts to represent things truthtully.
MANY were the misses, but the mistakes
are in the pictures, not in the men-a
most saving consideration.
This is partly the cause and partly the
effect OF the discovery that water-colors
can be used for higher purposes than mere
prettinesS. They are an easy medium,
Dronotiye of speed, and long were availed
of to do careless work. Men dashed Oft
s'effectS'' and impressions" OF white and
pink or blue or red nothings, and got
certain charm from the easy freedom OF
trifiing performances. Our commercial
magazines, with all the harm they have
done in many ways, have had part in
rectifying this. They have needed illustra-
tions, and have paid well for work done
quickly. Water-color was just the thing;
but the business man on the magazine
demanded for this money picture that
really ilIustrated-and he got it. The
mink and white men could not meet his
requirements with their roses and clouds,
and the Door devils with brains and am
bition were drawn about him. He hired
them on their way to high art and helped
them for stopping. They, In their turn,
found that great deal could be SAID with
the liquid colors, and have made them
tools, not playthlngs.
This connection of art with the maga-
zines has had another effect on our artists.
IL has made them business men, capable
of driving a close bargain. It may rob
the artist of the last vestlge OF romance,
but | saw with an American sense OF
qualification that the stag was
market in a way, and one III which the
painter was a match for the business
man. / was with one artist when he
made an arrangement to go to Europe
for the Century and he goes on as good
terms as the buyer for a wholesale cloth
ing house. His expenses are paid sal
ary is guaranteed and the illustrations
are paid for over and above. There was
no nonsense and no advantage to take OF
the artist.
Awarded Highest t