The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1904-05-13
|@vAeAeonDs OF TtiE MlNo
Men and Women of This Country as
They Appear in Art.


They Appear in Art.
Harper's Weekly: Among other OBJ
serving gentlemen who went to last
American art galleries in New Yorl,
was Mr.. II. ID. Sedgwick. A piece in
the Atlantic Monthly. called The New
American Type embodies some re-
suits of his observations there. He
SAW some old pictures n some new
ones, and was profoundly impressed by
the contrast I'VE the subjects of
portraiture in the eighteenth century
and those in the twentieth. The change
in American men and women between
the time of President Washington and
President Mckinley left him saturat-
ed with astonishment. He calls Stuart
and Irumbull to Witness that a num-
dred years ago a British type Of body,
face and mind prevailed from Massa-
Adams, Hamilton. Madison, Jay, Van
Rensselaer, he sees eighteenth-century
Englishmen. Reynolds, Gainsborough.
Romney and Hoppner We're at hand to
tell what eighteenth-century English
people We're. Mr.. Sedgwick finds the
men calm. hardy, untroubled by doubts,
sustained by definite principles. And
the women We're simple. natural. Sc
rene, lovely, and. above all, calm. The
eighteenth-century portraits, whether
English, French or American, seemed
to Mr.. Sedgwick to mak a most hap
Ply and attractive picture of life. They
chant a chorus of praise, he says, for
national character, for class distinc-
lions, for dogma and belief, for char
acter, for good manners, for honor, for
contemplation. They portray a pure
national breed wherein like bred with
like in happy h~omogeneity, deep af-
inities herded together, the disquiet
apI IiCfrncc ne ~ - 81; .--.
avoided, and peace of body begot peace
of mind.
Turning from the eighteenth century
TO Mi. Sargent, the Atlantic's com
mentator is conscious of sensations
such as result from a blow in the solar
plexus. Sargent. he says, was born to
depict d hybrid people, v%agabonds of
Geological and physiological trans
formation in the evolution of a new
species. The obvious qualities in his
portraitA are disquiet, lack of equili-
brium, absence of principle. His wom-
en-, physically delicate, reveal the strain
of physical and psychical maladjust-
ment. The testimony he bears is sus-
tanned by his contemporaries, who show
American womanhood restless, ply
sically frail, in eager pursuit of an UNI
known good. The men, as the painters
show them, have lost the old English
calm and poise, and show adaptive
characters. In Zorn's portrait of Mr..
Daniel Lamont, Mr.. Sedgwick finds nc
trace of imagination, logic, intellect,
or faith. Craft, promptitude, n vigor
are there, but not reason; amiability
n domestic kindness are present,
but the logical faculty is omitted. Tho
chief trait in this typical Portrait Mr..
Sedgwick finds to he ability to react
quickly and effectively to stimuli of the
immediate present. In Senator w. A.
Clark's portrait by Besnard he finds a
the strait ompass of the present,
knowing no past, unllampered by rev.
erence or respect, foreseeing nc future.
unhindered by faith or upliftedness.''
He thinks. though, that it is an ex-
aggerated example of certain Ameri-
can traits, and that Zorn's portrait rep
resents the normal type of the present
generation.
Recognizing the possibility that
Messrs. Clark and Lamont may wait
on MIR. Sedgwick and constrain him to
some amendment of his reflections on
their looks, we may still admit that he
has caught and Gagged in impression of
much interest, and probably of consid-
cradle truth. 1t is possible that in a
hundred years the American people has
gone off it's looks. 1t is certain that our
head men don loo so much like
eighteenth century Englishmen as they
did in the DAYS of the revolution. 1t
may be fairly doubted, however, wheth-
er n collection of modern portraits
of Americans affords a safe basis for
congratulations about the contempora-
o American type. The persons who
have their portraits painted by the
best painters in these times are, as a
rule, persons who are exposed to the
wear and tear of ~eXpending exception
ally large annual incomes, and trying
to get the worth of their money. 1t
is the rich Americans for the most part
that Sargent and the other eminent
painters depict, and it is the rich
Americans who are the most restless.
They plunge from end to end of the
country, pass n repass the seas, live
in q dozen places in the course of the
years, and seeem- to feed the crust
growing always hot under their dane
ing feet. The common run Of US take
life somewhat easier. and though we
may not rival the calmness OF the
eighteenth century British squires and
the placidity of their danes, yet our
wheels certainly do not revolve as fast
as Senator Clarll's, and it is probable
that competent portraits of a scratch
lot of us would shoN a somewhat high
er average peace of mind than Mr..
Sedgwick noticed at the portrait show.
Moreover, there is not in actual life
quite SO much mixing of breeds as he
suggests. though there is a good deal.