Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-12-07
B0WD0lN's PICTURES.
4 Visit 10 the Recently Established Walker
Art Gallery.

Summer visitors to the coast OF
Maine who pass through Brunswick. as
a goodly proportion do, would find
themselves repaid for stopping over
until the next train, writes a traveller
to the New York Post; for apart from
an agreeable break in the somewhat
tedious journey from Boston. there is
not little to interest in the old town.
where in its palny days retiring sea
captains built for themselves spacious
homes which have gone far in helping
to create that American style or
school, Of. architecture promiscuously
known in these days of its renaissance
as colonial. Here and there in the
least expected places one comes across
an inviting porch whose ample door is
surrounded by leaded-glass windows OF
elaborate and elegant device, and, pc:
chance, through the Hospitality open
door one catches glimpse of a spa
cious old hall, with it's antique table,
hall chairs. and old-tiWe. clock. stand
ing exactly where they have. stood
since they were brought new into the
curves, up past the hugh and intricate
lamp. suspended from the. dome on the
top floor, is seen hand-carved spiral
| stairway.ts. s,~. sEs
But. sometimes. alas! these fine old
mansions have fallen from their once
proud estates to baser uses, and are
occupied 3W business purposes, or are
infested q that be the, word) by
French. Canadian mill operatives and
atheir proveibially numerous families,
\ The Andfoscoggin river, too, at Till
point, is picturesque as well as useful
But, perhaps. to the general outsider,
the chief point of interest Is the ex-
quisite building. with it's contents, OF
the new Walker art building on the
beautiful campus of Bowdoin College
which was dedicated in 1894. and Of
which, it may be remembered, Charles
F. McKim of New York, is the archi-
tect. AS reproductions of both the
building and the noble decorations by
Messrs. Elihu Vedder, Kenyon Cox
and Abbott Thayer, have already beer
published in one of the leading period
icals, it may seem superfluous to give
any further description of them, but Of
decorations in particular it is quite i'm
possible to form anything like a just
opinion in that way, since usually more
depends perhaps on the color than
upon the lines. 1t is only when the
work is in its permanent place with all
it's surroundings. as they are to remain,
that one ought to judge a decora-
ton. This well known and self
evident truth has been freshly i'm
pressed upon the writer's mind
by the fact that he had had the
pleasure of seeing the decorations OF
both Mr.. Thayer and Mr.. Cox in their
respective studios in New York, where
the impression, though most agreeabl
was necessarily incomplete.
Now, in all New York there are prob
ably no two reputable artists whose
work Is less alike than that of Messrs.
Thayer and Cox, and yet. curiously
enough, the work of each is. in color
sense, complimentary to that of the
other, the sumptuOus orange and gold
tones OF Mr.. Cox's Venice developing
the subtle tolor-qualityo of Mr.. Thayer's
Florence" whose dominant tones are
those of pearls and opals. In this lat
ter production the three chief figures