The record-union., 1899-11-26

halls of the Louvre) the lifelike statue
from the Metropolis of Memphis, to
which the Arab excavatoIs spontalie-
olsly gave this name Of Sheikh-el-
beled. from its resemblance to one Of
their own well-fed village chiefs" 1t
is a statue of the Fourth Dynasty-the
Pyramid Builders-and dates back at
the lowest calculation to 25OO B. c..
which is 1890 years older than Mar
seilles. Mariette even claims for it
the respectable antiquity of more than
1000 B. c. Already, at that early age,
sculpture was far advanced, and labor
was organized. But so is the wild
beast in man, in the shape of war, and
Napoleon cut off the heads of Sheikhs
where Cheops made them inspectors of
his public works. OF course, Napoleon
was dealing with subject and inferior
races, such as the French are still en-
countering in Africa and other republic
cans in the Philippines. Wondrous pro-
gress of the human animal towards
civility after 5000 years!
Chicago News: NJ Gerome, one of
the most eminent of the older French
painters, has recently expressed some
interesting opinions on the condition of
modern art. An interviewer visited
him in his studio at Clichy and ques-
toned him about the prospects of the
art section of the great 1900 exhibition
in Paris. Concerning the exhibition
NJ Gerome was not encouraging. He
himself will send nothing to it. There
are" he said, too many pictures, too
many artists. A flood of pic
lures, of works of art of all descriptions,
will pour in from all quarters of the
globe to fill the buildings reserved for
their reception at the Champ de Mars.
Quantity rather than quality will be, 1
fear, the rule; endless walls of can
vas, par terres of plaster and terra Gotta.
There are forty times too many artists
and a general public growing ever more
Indifferent to their productions.
l fear that our poor confreres must die
of hunger
These depressing views are not those
of man whose temper has been soured
by misfortune, for the career of M.
Gerome has been one of singular bril-
lance from a worldly point of view.
His pictures have sold readily for vast
sums, and medals, honors and decora-
tions of all kinds have been showered
upon him. But he feels that 1.-The age is
against art with it's reposeful calm of
pictorial and plastic form; people want
the vivid actuality of the moment, the
excitement of sudden emotions of which
they will soon tire. Nor is he at all
sure that the present frequent displays
of pictures and sculpture are of any
material benefit to art But in spite
of the pessimism of the French paint
er the art galleries viii probably be one
of the chief attractions at the great
exhibition of next year, and it is to be
hoped that artists of all schools will be
worthily represented.
The work of woman artists, too,
should take a more prominent place
than in Chicago in 1898, when they car
ried off number of medals for paint
ing and sculpture. At the last Paris
International Exhibition QSS9) the
women artists who gained honors were
comparatively few. The list of honors
contained the name of one woman
sculptor, Miss Edith Gwyn Jeffreys
Mezzotints constitute the first of
series of exhibitions to be held at the
Wunderlich gallery during the coming
winter in New York.
There are 245 exhibits in this years
delphia.