The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-17
AROUND THE GALLERIES.
when Mr.. George Moore wrote his sting

husband and wife sweetly indulge in Ia
venture a Quatre mains"-the phrase IN
Manet's-he excepted one name from his
wholesale denunciation OF women painters
that Of Berthe Morisot. This comedy OF
sex in art is recalled after a view OF Mary
Cassatt's pictures, now at the Durand-
Ruel Galleries, 5 West Thirty-sixth street.
Miss Cassatt, such critics as Charles Morice
and Camille Mauclaire concede, is the equal
Of Berthe Morisot. lacking her grace and
delicacy, but Boosting a robustness OF
vision that called forth the praise of no
less a critic than Huysmans. This present
exhibition includes etchings, pastels and
oils. Some Of the pictures are new to us,
though the majority have become familiar
through earlier expositions and repro
auctions. Her pastels are broad, brilliant
compositions, full Of bold rhythms and
still bolder simplihcations. The babies are
her pictorial passion; babies spraying in
the arms; babies sitting bolt upright and
peering at the universe from a background
OF wonderfully arranged harmonies in
white; babies playing in the sunshine with
their mothers, and babies, pot bellied,
crisply rendered and pink and mottled OF
flesh. w~allowing in fat and with wistful or
gleeful eyes, naughtily toying with the
fingers Of the inevitable admiring feminine
brigade. Childhood has its most sympa-
thetic interpreter in Miss Cassatt.
An extremely interesting early work OF
hers. one painted In the '7Os, may be seen
In this collection. II Is the head and bust
of q bonneted woman seated in q theatre
box. The joint influences Of Manet and
Degas may be noted. Simple is the pose.
the modelling strong: the brushwork Is
L--.1 NAAra sa No affannnf nf hatNhQn or
divided tones; and the general effect Is one
~ sincerity. The dark tonal scheme and
the problem Of the profile in its relations
TO the quite summary treatment Of a few
persons in the adjoining balcony are alike
admirable. Miss Cassatt has learned to
mani pulate paint more howingly since
then; yet she has seldom struck such a
forcible chord Of design and treatment,
notwithstanding the fact tha this picture
represents her in the Initiative and develop
ing period.
At the Montross Gallery, 372 Fifth avenue,
Mr.. Childe Hassam presents some five and
twenty canvases, pastels, water colors and
paintings. 1t may be said hat while he
has given us larger pictures, the air OF dis
t~inction, OF quality, OF alertness and joy
BUSINESS has never been 80 apparent as in
this grouping. A sun worshipper, not
without a touch OF the Monet sun madness,
Mr.. Hassam has succeeded in making some
dazzling as well as discreet variations on
his beloved theme. Bar Harbor and Old
Lyme are still his favorite territory. He
still paints woods saturated with sunlight,
shivering with broken, exquisite light;
the familiar dryad in pubic or Diana-hke
attitudes prepares for the bath or Is seen
immersed to her hips, enjoying the wet OF
the waters, her flesh with its symbolic
stippling betraying her n~onchalant salts
faction In a purely pagan and glorious
existence. But as lola said Of Corot: why
are these nymphs not peasants2'
In one of these pictures a nude lady is
confronted by two waddling ducks, two tiny
notes in the foreground. These creatures
are all making for a cool creek. There is
n seductive moonlight in the old lane at
Lyme, and a marine that recalls Whistler's
Bognor picture, though more in sentiment
than style. The Isle of Shoals group Is
faithfully rendered, and Hassam does not
seek to elude the tumble of opposing hues
In rocky qualifications. No modern painter
except, perhaps, the Norwegian, Edward
Munich, has dared to handle these crude,
unrelated tones with 30 much audacity.
The most notable picture Is that OF the
Brooklyn Bridge, recently painted. 1t il
n far more credible bridge than Hassam's
own Ponte Vecchio across the Arno at
Florence, exhibited at the Comparative
Show a few seasons ago. There Is some
thing spectral, unsubstantiS, something
of the dream architecture OF Piranesi in
the spidery lines Of the Brooklyn Bridge
when a ghostly mist has begun to eat away
its massive towers, its sweeping cables
--.I uaaoav ~ hao caught
the rhythmic music, the sense OF mystery
gray wintery sky above, metallic river
below-and to emphasize the growing aric
blur he has introduced some snow covered
roofs. a drab city snow in the foreground
The impression Ia a harmonious one. II
s,ch a low scale there is nevertheless mucl
variety: the eye is soothed by the soft
b~riuiance, the gentle modulations OF graz
against gray, Of land and sky and water
And the bridge is 40 contrived that ittouchef
the Imagination without being tortured by
the painter into either a spectre or 1
symbol.
Il Is like leaping many ~octaves, as the
musicians say, TO 20 from the shimmerine
atmosphere OF Childe Hassam 10 the dark
austere and often chilly canvases Of Var
Perrine now on exhibition at the New Gal
lery. IS West Thirtieth street. But there
the contrast ends; Hassam is master OF hi
moods and material, Van Perrine sh owi
the traces OF his struggles with both. IL
a not in absolute command OF his technica
RESOURCES, relying too often in happy i'm
nroyisation. And IL must be confessed
that his improvisations are sometimes yer!
happy, except in those pictures where h
too evidently attempts TO force natur
into q melodramatio pattern, instead o
seeking for her own rhythms and patterns
That this young man has power and fuenc'
is not to be doubted; but he is fond Of scent
displays that recall the designs, even tn
brushwork, OF the eccentric John Marti
and occasionally the anecdotage OF Gustav
Dore. His three trees, a favorite storr
blasted heath-or is it the top OF the Pail
sadesp-are q Rembrandt motive theatrical
lied, with q violent shaft OF light strikin
them from an apooalyptio cloud mass. Blu
Van Perrine has studied faithfully the shap
and gait Of clouds. He knows the heaven
l-am Aroclxoat ua daliUhta in dapiCtin