The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-07-14
AT III MUSEUM.


There are warmer places in the city on a
summer Sunday afternoon than the Metro
politan Museum OF Art. This fact 10 appre-
cated by a large number OF folk. hailing
principally rom the East Side. You meet
them there any time after the dinner hour
German mode-snd In any OF tho side
streets from Sixtieth to n Hundredth,
starting at Avenue A. They wear holiday
clothes and they beam with satisfaction.
A treat 10 ahead Of them. 10 wander in the
grateful COOL twilight OF the lower galleries,
70 fiirt in the face OF Egyptian mummies. TO
giggle and gossip among the monster
plaster casts Of the Parthenon groups, to
stare at the marbles or sit placidly before
bright coiored pictures-what Joy for the
-unoultured' GLASSES Of the East Side! And
isn't IL d that these same foreigners"
seem to be In the majority among the visi-
tors 20 our noble museum in Central Park?
You see them streaming up Fifth avenue.
Their faces are shiny. II lie hot, the weather
No nnatteri Fathers and mothers with
families, sometimes numbering eight TASK the
doorkeepers. who groan and growl as the
entire rnispoodh attempt to push through
thel turnstile). Russians. Italians. Poles,
Hungarians. Germans, Serbs. Croats. He
brews many Of them, Ale in and ramble
about, content to be reminded OF some
European or semi-Asiatio city where once
they looked at pictures with the same ap-
probation and on their native heath.
A Walt Whitman catalogue alone could
sum UP tho clinical and kaleidoscope
variety Of the mobs that besiege the museum
gates on summer Sunday afternoons. A
decorous. at times reverent crowd-espe-
cially before pictures with sacred subjects
and sometimes startlingly CARRIED. The
children prefer the ground floor. 1t 10 OF
stone and cooler, and there are -queerer'
things TO DO seen. Sleighs shaped like
boats. and dead men and women in marble.
tombs and churches; above all, Notre
Dame and the Pantheon. How delightful
they would be for toys at home! How the
babies would crawl in and out the big doors,
Perhaps they might burn IL enough straw
could DO gathered. The mummies-what
a Jolly set Of ugly mugs in painted amos
like ooveringsl What q glorious ride on
that Colleoni horse, whose feet must wear
invisible seven league boots. 30 magnificent
the possibility OF their stridei The George
Barnard group always elioits puzzled re-
marks. A wrestling match with the under
man down and out forever. is the usual
verdict. But before Borglum's horses OF
Diomedes there is no such doubt expressed.
A good run for your money. say a sporty
youth, with hair plastered on forehead.
His girl mods. 1t is IN object lesson in the
psychology Of sex to watch the procession
pass before Makart's monster panel with it's
riot of females in their dazzling nudity.
The girls always gaze unaffectedly at the
axptoalua tipfa and 1arna Er1f,Ad rraafttrao
Their masculine escorts look carefully
away. Why? 1t may not be amiss to state
that the museum authorities are displaying
admirable common sense in their refusal
to cover modern ~statuary. Even at the
Louvre. At the Vatican. this distressing and
needlessly offensive custom prevails. New
York. with all its internal prudery, has not
disfgured Robins superb bronze. -L'Age
d'Airain.' now on view in the room Of the
recent accessions.
Ii Is Rodin At his best - nervous the touch,
sinewy the figure, the planes OF which melt
into the ambient atmosphere 10 matter
from which point you approach. 1t is not
much inferior to the Luxembourg original.
Its stark power carries, however, no mes
sage for the Sunday guests, though you
may note an occasional look OF awe. But to
the multitude it is one naked man the more,
therefore to be ciroled warily. What charm
turks in the new bronzes Of Jules Dalou-
same room! Mothers Love- evokes the
most admiration. George Fl. Smillie's land
scape is also a centre OF attraction. As for
the lace collections-they were difficult to
reach because Of the women. The merits of
Monet or Whistler or Manet may be left to
critical mankind; but every woman who
enters the building, whether she wears a
shawl on her lead or rides to the perron
in q SIC, 900 motor car, il authority on lace.
Go and Judge for yourself. Mrs. W. X.
Vanderbilt has given a creation in Brussels
applique, once the property of Isabella,
the Queen Of Spain IA lacelike lady in her
diaphanous day. As it is a baptism dress
with veil the women are literally mad over
1t. But let us fight our way upstairs.
On the main staircase We saw a family
party quietly settled for luncheon; the cold
hard shell eggs had been tapped when an
attendant, on the verge of righteous apo
plexy, came TO the rescue, and walls OF
indignation arose from the lungs OF six hum
cry children. Art be hanged, is what the
father muttered in Czech, as he piloted his
crew out to the green and more hospitable
park. The museum men have their troubles.
Some one recently wrote to q newspaper
complaining that he was Swallowed in
every room OF the museum. II the writer
had ever been in French or Italian museums
and suffered from the impertinenoes of the
Official cicerones. who bhndly-for revenue
inform you that Raphael painted the I'M
mistakable Raphael in front Of you, or that
Michael Angelo sculptured the Medici Tomb
you walking slowly all the while amid the
brooding figures-his feelings might be tenn
pered in regard to the Metropolitan Muse
um's working stan. Our men are silent
until spoken TO, and it they are on the alert
the reason il not far to seek. Sundays the
collections are safe. The great volume of
people protects them. But on some week
days the galleries are often empty. The
vandals who infest every public place are
always ripe for the work of destruction.
Hence il is that any one is seldom alone in
a gallery. Though we have no Chambre
Carrie, no Tribuna, there is Gallery No. 20.
and with its priceless Rembrandts, Halses,
Van Dycks, a fendish ~iconoclast might play