The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1901-07-04
american FRI at
the Pdn.RmeriCan

IT is SURPRISING what a number
OF very intelligent and cultured
Americans know little about the
artists OF their own country. They
may be pretty well up in Italian
art, can tell a Raphael Madonna from
one of Murillo's, are familiar with the
Slstine frescoes and know the sybils
apart, and can give a glib description
OF masterpieces in the Louvre and in
the Dresden gallery, yet are very un-
certain regarding most of the noted
names among American artists. They
Know when a Botticell is bought by
some of our -milIionaires and can
single out a Jean Francois Millet or a
Landseer. but they can scarcely name
i've great landscape artists who are
known as Americans. They are the
ones who consider the Art Gallery in
the Pan-American exposition to be a
very trivial thing and are always
quoting the Salon or the Worlds Fair.
%
The exhibits Of American artists do
not make up such a collection as were
shown at Chicago. That is not TO be
expected. Visitors who are familiar
with art In a great sense will miss
loan exhibition. the Corots, the Jules
Bretons, the works of Diaz and others
whose names are never forgotten, but
they will be able to gain more real
knowledge Of painting from the
smaller Pan-American collection than
from those miles of galleries where
the visitor was weary unto death with
sightseeing and by the time he
reached the Art building viewed It
with about as much intelligence and
discrimination as the brides and
grooms look upon objects of interest
in the exposition of 1901.
O.
Oh those brides and grooms-how
they do throng the Pan-American,
and why on earth they are there only
an omniscient Providence knows.
Surely they would be happier in a
lodge in some vast wilderness. or.
like Omar, with "A loaf OF bread, a
jug of wine and thou than in the
midst of this ceaseless. tired and un-
sympathetic multitude. They go
about, the poor things, either hold
ing hands-and you know they've
come from the interior Of Canada
somewhere or New York state--or
gers, when the rice is still tricklng
visibly down their unhappy necks.
They don't see n solitary thing but
each other and they bump against you
tiresomely because of their self pre-
occupation. They wear suspiciously
and painfully new shoes and collars,
and never get careles and look just
any old way only so I, ; comfortable,
like people who have been married six
beautiful time, and so would every
body else. If only they would take
themselves off to some quiet spot.
where they could look into each
others eyes uninterruptedly and not
he rudely awakened from frances by
having people almost pull the chairs
out from under them at the American
Inn. because of the stress of hunger
or necessitating the sending Of a de-
the drill ground, where they've mad
vertently wandered just as the sunset
drill is to take place.
They moon in the Art Gallery in the
same fashion and occupy seats in
which people who are there for edifi-
cation would rest. These are a few
of the things which brides and grooms
Except those Who come from Scran-
tom persist In aimlessly doing. I
can't begin to tell you how they act
at Niagara Falls. It's a wonder there
aren't more drowning accidents at
that resort.