The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1902-01-11


real rain. wet, soft. warm and refresh
ing. The grass is bent by the rain and
the wind and the light green tender
spring day is full of poetry and har-
mony. The diffused light of a rain
storm has it's own fascination, and Mr..
Barnard has apprehended it.
Night and the Waning Day recalls
the picture by Watts. Love and
Death The tone is low; the great
figures are full of tenderness and pow
er. Enveloped in a half light, night
supports the fading figure of day with
assurance, and day leans upon her as
love leans upon death. 1t is not the
day of the symbolic picture; but sym
bolists are always with us. and when
they chose to express themselves in
line and color instead of blank verse
or rhymed couplets we can only ad
mire especially if. as in this case. the
picture is drawn with Miltonic power.
]. Carol Beckwith-how we have let
him slip out of our consciousness! He
paints in the old style, hard and dry.
Two portraits, one of a woman with
black drapery about her face, and
half-length portrait of a man. The
woman is softer, becoming her sex; the
man might have been cut out of paper
painted and pasted to the background
for all the artists recognition of
backgrounds rights and of its rela
tionship to the figure in the fore
ground
And yet the note in the program
Sa, What stimulating actuality! So
direct and telling in its relation to
facts and yet with a pleasant artifice
in the arrangement of background that
gives the figure pictorial support with
out detracting from its due predOmi-
nance. The color is dry, perhaps even
a trihe harsh, but this portrait has dig
nifty" Perhaps so; but it would make
Whistler hop. Such a portrait per
forms an admirable, a Spartan func-
ton, by closing the discussion as to
whether or not the impressiOnists have
contributed to the historical develop
ment of picture painting.
Frank w. Benson, he of the free hand
and free mind, unburdened by tradition
and confident of his own translatiOns
of light and the circumambient air, has
a picture Summer" Without break
ing the laws of the actual Mr.. Ben
sons young girl floats. There is no
breeze, but her light slow movement
and the capriciOuS summer air fiutter
her garments. The program says there
is a suggestion of BOtticelli in the lines
of the drapery. The eye Immediately
confirms Madame Grace Wickham
Currie's statement. Something of Bot
ticelli there is in this picture: but
whether it is in the draperies or in the
oval lace and features or in the glad
someness of the figure and its abundant
life and moven;en it is difficult to say.
The vibration OF the air through which
she so gently moves is very apparent.
The soft. warm greens OF the helds'
and her gown, of summer MADE Is
pleasingly symbolic.
1t is hard to believe that the SAFE
man who painted the immortal
Alice" and the 'Shinnecock Hills
painted "A Friendly Call a picture
of two commonplace women in a COM
monplace room making a common
place call. Perhaps next to Sargent
Mr.. Chase has accomplished more
noteworthy pictures than any other
man in America. but evidently he has
done some rubbishy things too.
Mr.. F.. A Bridgman has sent two
pictures. One. Souvenir of Armenon-
ville,'' charms by the Illuminated, fire
fly hackgrnund and by q white feather