New-York tribune., 1910-01-16
WILLIAM NJ. CHASE.
Il Retrospective Exhibition Of HIS
Paintings.

hibtion composed of about one hundred and
fifty of his works. These paintings illustrate
every phase of his career. from his return to
New York after period of study in Munlch
down to his still energetic labors at the present
time They offer solid testimony to the truth
of the laudatory things that were said about
him at the dinner given in his honor last
Wednesday night One of his best claims to
our respect and admiration happily en-
forced by his old friend and fellow artist, Mr.
j. Carroll Beckwith, who spoke of the resolution
with which they both came back from their
foreign training thirty years ago. They made
up their minds to do all that they could for the
cause of American art. Mr.. Beckwith justly
placed high estimate upon what his comrade
had done for school 1t was not simply his
work teacher his activity in the So
cety of American Artists and other organiza-
tions that made him useful. 1t his whole
attitude toward the art of painting.
There is a saying in a famous preface OF
Matthew Arnolds praising the generous catho-
licty of oxford which may apty be applied to
Mr. Chase. He has given himself to many
tauses in modern art, but never to the Phlis-
tines. There a number of canvases in the
present exhibition chiefly portraits which go
perilously to looking like pot-boilers. AT
any rate, they suggest the ready craftsman
ccuting a given problem with something less
than his wOnted inspiration. But take the col
lection a whole and it is eloquent of but one
thing, the painters delight in his medium his
gusto for experiment. his love of the work for
the works sake. Even in the portraits aforesaid
ii is plain that if Mr.. Chase's facility has some
times threatened to betray him it has never
landed him in mere dull convention. He has
always had vitality; he has always had
tain interest in his technique if not in his sub
ject 1t is this technical ardor of his which has
done much for his work and has
acted so benefically upon many Of his coevals
and even a greater number of his juniors.
Quickly susceptible to external influences, but
too able and too self confident to let them do
more than fertilize his natural gifts, he has
made his studio in sort a clearing house
for European ideas While others have talked
or written about these ideas he has put them
to the test, not an imitator but as OPEN
minded of flexible talent, finding stimulus
~ the examination of this or that hypothesis.
Go with minute through this exhibition
- d you will repeatedly catch echoes of certain
traditions indvdualites Before the early
Ready for the Ride" Of the handsOmest
pieces of painting Mr.. Chase put to his
credit, you naturally think of the atmosphere of
Munich in the 7Os Before THE Anti
Iuarian Shop" you recall Fortuny; number of
The open air scenes such the Beach at
Zandvoort," send the memory back to the pict-
called when One Is Old" is clearly sugges-
tive of Israels. But it does not for moment
to you that Mr.. Chase ever consciously
sat at the feet of any of these men. You feel
simply that at one period another an inter-
esting mode of painting in the air. and h.
quite spontaneously, and with a wonderful zest
brilliantly played with it. He has always been
playing with paint, after the fashion of the true
artist, and what is more he has done this
of dalif
and originality of this exhibition. 1t contains
no facttiouS arrangements of form and color
no "Whlstlerian harmones developed from the
outside, with dry formula. Mr. Chase has
kept his eye the object he has sought 10
draw and model truths; he has cared for light
and has assiduousy put it into his work He
has the artists feeling for the sensuous beauty
in textures In his numerous paintings of still
life, which loom impressively in this exhibition
the masses of color he has found in inanimate
things are glorifed in terms of paint and made
astonshingly beautiful. With all his versa
ultY and there has been no more versatile
figure in American art, Mr. Chase has nevertbe
less neglected the dramatic motive Pcrbans
passlonately rejected the sort of subject which
your devoted technician characterizes as "anec-
dotlc' and scOrns as irrelevant to the nainter,s
essential purpose. This exhibition amnlv vim
hOin