The San Francisco call., 1896-06-28
Odd Titles Of Fronch
Pictures
Woman to the Fire." "In the
Park of Oysters" and the
Brush Powder" The
Old Salon

PARIS, FRANCE. June 10.-There are
9O2 numbers in the catalogue of the old
salon of the Champs Elysees; there are
1894 paintings alone in the new salon.
The amount of work done is appalling,
especially when we take into account the
fact that these two exhibitions are re-
peated yearly and that the same picture
or sculpture can be exhibited but once.
This year we have general exhibition in
Berlin; in Vienna, in Prague, in Munich
large and important picture shows. Add
TO these the paintings at Burlington
House, at the new and the Grafton gal
Ieries, and the imagination refuses to go
further abroad.
What becomes of all the pictures! 1
have wandered between miles of land
scape peopled with strange allegorical or
NEUROLOGICAL figures; the portraits of
celebrities that stared blankly from under
ponderous gold frames would have made
the fortune of dealer in wax works. And
still the landscapes continue to unfold
their purple and green, or gray and dun,
or brown and yellow charms, and still the
inanimare figures frown violently, or smile
insipidly,
The art of to-day is a colossal expert
ment, and originality is the aim of the
whole painting world. Originality at all
costs, even if it be eccentricity or fagrant
vulgarity hardly disguised. If the techni-
cal gymnastics which distinguish so many
pictures exhaust and bewilder the artist,
the sincere and tireless student, in what
unenviable frame of mind must they
leave the art amateur, the amiably cul-
tured traveller with thirst for knowledge
and desire to express pleasure about the
right things?
Blank he asks of one artist, "Blank
is undoubtedly great painter2'
Blank" says Blanks disciple, "is the
coming man. What power, what deli
cacy, what a marvellous way of hiding
his technique under a form of complete
naivete or by means of this marvellous
light, which is so bright that nothing is
visibler' and so on, with praise and care
full dissection of transcendent merits ad
nauseam.
And so Blank is your coming manT
says the honest traveller to a painter of
another school.
''Coming!" he replies. "You mean go
ing! Why all that trickery he practices
is not art-in medicine you call a man
who experiments on his patients quack.
] think an artist who experiments on the
public fully as much of a charlatan. And
that is what Blank is. He paints pic
ture, then rubs it all off with his coat
sleeve and calls it a nocturne. Only one
man ever could paint nocturneW
"Whistler?" demands the humbled and
patient listener. making note of the re-
mark for future USE
mo, Chopinr' and he pIunges his
hands into the pockets of his veIveteen
coat and oongratulates himself on the
neat humiliation he has accomplished.
In the Champ de Mars we have every
form of Monets and Observation-Disclosures
sionism and unimpressionism, return to
the Byzantine or early FIorentine ideal in
cadaverous shapes of unearthly pallor, in
which even the cathode ray could not dis
cover a trace of human anatomy-but
we have them all well hung, with
space between each picture, and
no sacrifice of one artist to
another. In the Champs Elysees the
frames are almost dovetailed; the hanging
seems indiscriminate, a delicate little
study dependent entirely upon quiet and
full regard for half tones is extinguished,
absolutely put out of existence by the can
vas above or beneath or beside it. which
may be a symphony in white paint with
faint blue and pink streaks and most reck-
less abandon in the prosaic questions of
well-modeled earth and the preservation
of certain scales of distance.
If in the Champs Elysees we see the good
and the bad of the old school and not
little of the new; in the Champ de Mars
we see even worse and even better work
and with the distinct advantage of the
most intelligent arrangement. In discuss
ing an exhibition or two exhibitions OF
such enormous proportions, a criticism
must be merely selection and compari-
son. 1t must be at once personal and
generous, or it degenerates into an emu
meration of pictures and sculptures al
most as entertaining as the catalogue it
self.
The comparison of the illustrated cata-
logue is not hattering to the old salon.
The reproductions are surprisingly poor,
and in turning the leaves the choice of
pictures seems remarkable chiefly for a
peculiar appropriateness. A picture in
which color is the predominant quality is
reproduced in line, and vice versa. The
catalogue is hopelessly commonplace and
entirely without interest.
The Champ de Mars uses a photo
graphic process, in which delicate values
are frequently sacrificed. but. as whole,
is as satisfactory as cheap reproductions
can ever be, and in turning the pages
there is at least suggestion to spur the
treacherous memory or to awaken the de.
sire to see. In one question alone there is
room for great improvement. 1t seems
impossible in this enlightened age that
such translations of titles can be printed.
They add not little unexpected enter
.alnment. Hero are few examples for
The delectation of those who have not yet
studied this new language:
LIE Pavilion de Flore-The Flag of Flore.
Femme qui Sc chauffee-W Woman to the
ire.
Marchandes de pots = Pots trades
Eomen.
Jeune file en- blanc Young girl in
wight.
Ideal-Country.
La Pensee qui s'eveille-The thought