Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-04-11

vas only after suffering great priva-
 tions and hardships. It is the first
 time that the scenes of the far arc tic regions have been painted right on
 the grounds, and that is the remark
 able feature of this collection of paint
 ings and explains the striking effects
 which have been produced Vienna
 saw the work of this painter of polar pictures and acknowledged that "noth-
 ing of the kind had ever been seen"
 there before. Paris, sated as it Is
 with exhibitions, fell under the charm of what was described as "a new rev elation in the art of painting;;" and
 for few weeks past all London has
 been trooping to the Grafton galleries to admire the product of an artist treating of an almost unknown pic torial field.
 Alexander Alexeievitch Borissoff, to give him his full name, is shy, unas- suming man, Al years of age, of the true Russian type, broad-shouldered and somewhat stockily built. with high cheek bones and eyes set far back be- meath massive forehead betokening imagination and intellect. From a cas- ual glance nobody would suppose that this rather ordinary looking man had been through a desperate venture in a land of snow and ice, and had brought back, fixed upon canvas, realistic re- productions of scenes in that fascinat- ing frozen north of which so many dauntless explorers have sought to penetrate the fastnesses and unveil the mystery.
 Borisof's pictures and studies have all been painted in the ice zone beyond the seventieth parallel of north lati- tude, in the district between Arch angel and the Yalmal peninsula, in- cluding the great island of Novaya Zemlya, between the Arctic ocean and the Kara sea. As one critic has. said of them, flor the first time we west erners and southerners have here re- vealed to us the richness and vari- ety of the aspects of the frozen world of the polar circle. There in a region which our ignorant imagination has covered as with a shroud of sepia tones, the sensitive artists eye of Borissoff has detected such gradations of light and shade between the ap- palling blackness of the chill abysses of the Arctic ocean and the dazzling radiance of the snow sheets as scarce ly any master in chiaroscuro, however favorable his opportunities, has ever noted"
 Two of the pictures belonging to the czar are on exhibition at the Grafton galleries in London. One of them shows the almost fantastic lights and shadows of Novya-Zemlya under an eclipse, while the other is a weirdly desolate shore scene on the same coast. where after an exceptionally se- were winter number of poor hunters had perished. Reverently the sur viyors of the little band had inferred their comrades. setting a rude cross over their resting places, until the last had perished. and solitary white fox. surrounded by a few bleaching bones. is the central figure in a haunt ing picture. From the French gov ernment comes a study of the Kara sea, with its chill contrast of dark wa ters and towering icebergs. For the most part the pictures are small can- vases, depicting glaciers. icebergs. the beginning of a thaw. inhospitable coast scenes. Samoyedes at home or with their boats and sledges. reindeer. dogs. foxes. and. in- deed. something of all the conditions of life under such inhospitable sur roundings. Every imaginable at- mospheric effect is depicted. from the wonderful glow of the midnight sun to raw. hanging fog that can be we'll rfSh folt