The times., 1899-02-19
AN ARTISTS VIEW
OF WINTER PICTURES
Masterpieces Of Bruce Crane
and Walter L. Palmer.
Why Laymen Cannot Get the Point
of View.
Something About the Pot Boiler and
the Painter Who Minglcs
With Society.

| Rejecting upon the unusual weather con-
| ditions of last week, it is apparent why
artists paint few winter effects, beautiful
as they are The memory is not a pleas
ant one. People do not care for pictures OF
winter, excepting always that pretty, su-
| gar-coated variety out Of which all the real
truth has been carefully sifted. There is a
kind of winter twilight with a house and
old barn against the sunset sky, sometimes
an old mill and a bridge over the adjacent
stream, all SO sweet and sugary, so harm
! less, that the thermometer would not GO
! below 10 degrees placed anywhere in the
landscape. These are not uncommon, and
give the true artist a feeling of distress.
There is no truth. and certainly no beau
ty, in winter picture that does not look
cold There is in snow infinite charm of
tone and quality, subtle refinements of
tint and graduation, which delight one of
true artistic appreciation.
They often paint this aspect of nature,
but such efforts are invariably over the
heads of the laymen who turns away from
such pictures with a shiyer.
These studies are hid away in port
folios and are only brought out when some
artist friend or sympathetic and apprecia-
tive connoisseur drops in at the studio.
Then the winter picture finds friends who
revel in its loveliness. 1t may be ever so
bleak. dismal. and dreary to the point
where a glance might give anyone but a
painter the blues"-but invariably the
more bleak the more charming.
Beyond Explanations.
The layman wants to know why? Like
Howelrs Traveller from Alturia," his per-
picking why is forever coming up. The
artist can see 1t, and can make others,
whose eyes penetrate to the open secret, -
see it as he does, but to explain 1t is not
within the power of words. 1t is quite the
same with the connoisseur who must have
an objective picture. The scene painted
must be such as u word picture might de-
scribe as well; good man that he Is, it is
still past his comprehension that there
can be something more charming; some
thing that may inspire rapture so fine that
no enjoyment on earth may be compared
with it; and all this in Il picture barren
of all objective interest-barren of con-
ventonal beauty-perhaps containing OBJ
jects SO humble that they might be cata-
logued as ugly.
1t is his theory that all this beauty OF
technique, quality, and tone is wasted on
such a composition. and that the same skill
and energy might better be spent on some
beautiful subject, thereby producing
picture with double interest, objective
beauty and beauty OF technique tone. color,
and rendering 1t sounds plausible, and
is the point of view of many who know
great deal about art, but who can never
know the deeper enjoyment of painting
until they throw aside this theory. and,
having received more light, accept art
for its own sake. When they learn that
painting may have small connection with
tod vet hn hi
inexpressively lovely, the whole face cf the
earth. animal and vegetable life, the air.
the sky and the sunlight in unexpected
places will be beautiful as they never
dreamed it could be.
An Art Revelation.
They will see with the eyes OF painter,
and fortune may frown, and friends become
estranged, but they can never be unhappy
with this Aladdins lamp always at hand to
produce visions of delight This revelation
Of inner secrets of higher art is the ample
compensation granted to all those patient
Workers and worshipers who, in arts fair
name. remain faithfully devoted to the
study of nature.
The winters of 1894, 1895, and 1895 the
writer spent in country studio, in Con-
necticut. In an unpublished manuscript is
this tribute to the beauty a painter finds
when the first snow fall whitens the roofs
of barns, till the last worn and bedrag
gled snow bank disappears in the spring,
l delight in observing the tones in snow.
At times find fairy winged opalescence
in pure snow which, it appears to me. is
not illogical since white is a combination
of all the colors of the spectrum. There
is in it then. with my poets leave, a mel
ody far too illusive for transmission by
word of mouth.
This afternoon without sign of snow
in their purple depths, these wooded hills
frame in an enchanted field (the frozen
lake covered with snow whose outer edge,
a wavering CLEAN, is q melting line of be-
witching sweetness. l Hnger over this
simple picture, with its sober loveliness
until the wall between fact and fancy
grows very thin. All the beautiful thoughts
In pictures, in music and in the books |
hold dear pass in stately order across the
snow. From out the velvet depths of for
est gloom, | catch the music of the
spheres | mark in that celestial compa-
ny the voice of Constable, OF Corot and of
Wyant and the voices of my fayorite com
posers.'