Omaha daily bee., 1898-07-24
ART At The EXPOSITION

NJ. Julien Dupre must not be COMPOUNDED
with Jules Dupre, who was the friend of
Rousseau and Miller and who died in 1889.
Jules Dupre was q couutrymau who com
menced his artists career by painting on
china, but later devoted himself solely 10
landscape and marine. He and his friends
OF the Barblzon school In France and Con-
stable in England were ct the head OF The
new movement in landscape painting, They
revolted from the conventional. historic
landscape and became ardent disciples Of
nature and had for their object the de-
liverance OF captive nature from the bond
age in which she had so long been held
by the academical painters. "Dupre loves
to paint the scenery OF western France,
where barren hlllocks, low-lying plains
| overgrown with heather, stagnant pools of
water and ragged shrubs are found at the
base of the rocky mountains. sometimes
he shows us cattle In a meadow near a
wood, sleeping under an oak, or wading
through O shallow ford; at other times some
dreary and desolate howell under the lea Of
| wind-tossed trees; or he leads us across
| a sunburnt common, by the side of a bit
of forest, toward the deserted village, when
the atmosphere overhead is dry and OPP
pressive in the heats OF midsummer. He
Is always true in his rendering of the ut
| mosphere, of the cooling moisture in 1t
that rises from saturated vegetation after n
storm, or the sultry glare OF drouth, or
the dance of a sunbeam, or drift OF a
cloud, or the mirror of the sky in n pool;
Il is always the air-real air that you seem
to breathe, that fascinates you, and gives
life and reality to the canvas
Thus writes q critic of Dupre's WORK,
yet compared to the Dupre of today MS
pictures seem brown. thick and heaVy as
one can see from the two examples at
| the exposition-Nos. LAP and 14S. Julian
pupre. while not n painter of light as was
Bastien Lepage or Manet, or many of his
fellow artists of today, shows a knowledge
and power of representing aerial perspec-
tive. a grasp of chiaroscuro of which the
other Dupre knew but little. He is above
all a painter of cattle and of simple farm
ward subjects. His pictures are not Ideal,
nor philosophical, nor especially intellec-
tual. they are realistic portrayals OF the
unaffected incidents Of the humble country
folk. He is content In depicting a peasant
woman watching her COWS drink from the
tubful Of water, with sheep browsing near
by-No. 145-a commentary on the quiet
~peacefuI life of the country woman. Or he
represents her at her busy hour-The Milk
ing Time-a picture exhibited here several
years ago, and which most OF us remember
with pleasure. In No. 144 he shows what
a master he is of the anatomy of the
COW. The picture depicts a conflict between
the COW, in her efforts for freedom ana
her mistress will. The peasant woman has
Just driven in the tether-stick with the
maui, which Away. lies in the pasture for
that purpose; she Is about to leave the
cow to Craze there, when in its longing
| to ioin some cattle in the middle distance,
| it breaks the tether. She grasps the broken
rope and with. the full weight Of her body
braced backward she pulls in one direc-
ton, while the cow strides on. This is not
a drawing room animal like the sleek crea-
ture of William Howe-No. 267-it is shaggy
and dirty, strong and natural. 1t is diff
cult matter enough to paint the figure Of a
woman in such violent action, but as q
cow will not pose it Is necessary that the
painter should be a master Of the anatomy
to represent SO forcibly its movement. The
whole composition is interesting. In the
distance a cottage with smoking chimney
n~estles among the trees; in the middle dis
lance some cattle are comfortably lying in
the pasture, through which flows a little
stream. In the foreground the peasant in
her wooden shoes struggles with the cow,
While the picture is not vibrating with the
light which many painters make the frs,
object and many critics demand as the first
requisite of a good picture, 1t is atmos-
pheric, the drawing is mastery, incom
parably firm and the general impression
quite of the first order. Others may have
greater ingenuity and subtlety and have
carried qualities of execution much fur
Their, but Dupre observes the character, both
human and animal, with an unfailing truth
%fulness and shows quiet good taste in the
arrangement of his simple subjects.
He is not an idyllic poet, as Jules Breton
Is; neither does he depict the more serious
aspect of country life, as does Dagnan-
Bouveret, nor the pathos of the toilers, al
did Bastien Lepage, nor the endless labor
Of the peasantry, which Lhermitte paints
He is rather a bucolic poet, content with
the small. everyday incidents and affair.
Of country life, which he paints in @
str"'0htforward. frank manner.
THE Van