New-York tribune., 1900-09-30

Faolo Michetu is conspicuous in the small
group which includes Tito and Boldini. His
small studies Of peasant children tending
their herds or carrying pumpkins through
the fields will be remembered with gratitude
for their slight but genuine artistic charm
he had, in the cid days, something of that
oeftness and magic which made the fame
Of the Hispano-Roman school, Fortuny's eva
nescent creation Examples of him in that mood
exist in several American collections and there
are two here, less brilliant than their predeces-
sors, but still attractive, which might well find
their way to New-York But the two immense
designs in which Michetti takes far more pride
viii probably never cross the sea They repre-
sent the artists later preOccupations. He is
faithful to his peasants only in far as they
serve the purpose of fantastical mysticism
Once he seemed TO love the sunshine for it's
sake Now he is sOmbre and even morbid
In Les Estropies' he has painted a company
OF peasants moving along dusty road on their
way to little town among the hills. Abject
figures horribly crippled, are scattered along the
roadside. Cattle look down upon the strange
scene from rise in the ground that overhangs
the highway. Why. rave these grim figures
been painted? Some Of them manned and
almost helpless, all of them are stamped with
the squalor Of grinding poverty. Perhaps there
is a hint of uplifting thought be forced into
the painting. Perhaps these suffering mortals
are on their way TO seek comfort at some
shrine. But if Michetu has any such idea to
express he has left it. obscure Les Estropies"
as il stands is simply the relentless picture Of
heartrending scene. the kind of thing from which
one turns with horror This being the case, and
Les Serpents"-a picture Of some pagan festi-
val in which the actors carry living snakes in
their hands-being also revolving. the eminence
granted TO Michetti may excite some bewilder-
ment- The explanation lies in his sincerity, in
the largeness and solemnity of his work, in the
distinction which remains after all deductions
have been made from his later and unlovely
pictures He knows how to draw how to put a
peasant on canvas with poignant realism He
seems, in his maturity. to be sunk in gloom; but
- there is nothing cynical or trivial about him;
for all that he offends by the dubious character
. Of his subjects ne continues to impress the be-
holder a painter with brains and ability.
One admires him, while deploring the mystical
eccentricities to which he is abandoned.
1t would have been better for the late Clio
vanni Segantini if he had eschewed mysticism
and all the ways of the symbost. The Italians
justly make him Of their heroes upon the
present occasion. There are sixteen paintings
and studies 10 his credit in the show, and in
every of them there is the robust flavor Of
his strong temperament. In of them
there is also visible the disintegrating influence
of those weird ideas which he felt with all the
honesty Of his soul, but lacked the poetic power
10 interpret with conclusive effect. In justice
to him these hybrids may be neglected Segan-
TIM at his best is the Segantini Of huge land
scapes painted in the lower Alps spacious COM
positions in which pathetic figure occasionally
appears, but in which the first consideration is
the veTacious and novel treatment of nature.
The technical mannerism by which he was
afiicted-the kneading and rekneading of his
pigments 50 that his surfaces often sadly
granulated and opaque-could not seriously dis
turb the balance of his big landscapes. Three
of his larger designs, called respectively ma
ture" Life and Death" reveal in full his
virtues and his defects. The first Of the latter
is the technical trick just mentioned. From it
proceeds a confusion of stones with turf kind
of rigidity in the line Of demarcation between
one plane and the next in the landscape But