New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-15
FRENCH ARTISTS SALON
Open Air Work Dominant in
This Years Exhibition.


! Pierre Gourdault and Andre Humbert-
all exhibit open air pictures.
| Paul Chabas. among the younger
| French painters, best understands the
poetry and decorative effects Of water.
/ Three young girls are bathing In the
opalesque greensh- blue Lake of Annecy.
They are waist deep in water, and hang
with their hands from the protruding
branches of q tree. The atmosphere is
that of hot, misty midsummer morn
| ing, The reflections Of mauves, greens
/ and whites on the childrens flesh i'm
part transparent limpidity to the sub
| ject The picture fairly vibrates, with
! luminosity. There is marvellous skill In
revealing the decorative effects Of the
| infinite variety and transient reflections
/ Of light and water
| The most pleasing landscape in the
Salon is view of a Brittany fishing
village perched high on the cliffs. The
pale green, stormy Atlantic extends far
away in the horizon. F>0aming breakers
make lace fringe of white surf on the
dark, sharp cut rocks. Village folk,
dripping with rain and bearing basket
loads of mussels, ascend a narrow, wind
ing pathway through green pastures
dotted with stones toward their bleak,
gray huts.
There is q full measure of delicate
sentiment in Pierre Gourdauits well
composed picture of a burial in village
OF the Deux-Sevres. A group of peasant
girls in dazzling white forms a blaze of
virginia. purity, offset by a congregation
of dark, sombre mourners, led by a
genial and venerable priest. The only
reproach to be made in regard to this
work is that it is suggestive of Cottet's
famous burial of Ornans. NJ. Dujardin-
Beaunetz, Director of Fine Arts, has
done well in purchasing this picture for
the Luxembourg Gallery.
i Andre Eumbert, who for the last two
years has been devoting himself to
| Sicily, exhibits two excellent works, both
showing concentration of thought and
vigorous realism. His picture of the
primitive thrashing of wheat in the
| fields near Girgenti is repIete with life
and local color. Picturesque groups of
children, peasants and donkeys, all
working in the rays Of an almost tropi-
cal sunshine, convey new impressions of
| the rude, swarthy toilers of Sicily
M. Humbert also gives another Sicilian
color note, more delicate and more mel
anchoIy, in his ferryboat, scuIIed by a
dark, muscular youth, and containing a
group Of women and girls returning
home after their days work in the fields.
| The legend Of Saint-Gens, worshipped
by the peasants near Avignon, induced
Paul Vayson to paint q large, heroic
trtptych, radiant in color and strong in
drawing. The first panel Is the young
Gems, converted to Christianity, preach
ing the Gospel to heather shepherds.
| The central space is devoted to Saint
| Gems, who has his hand to a plough
share drawn by white cow and a Iusty
wolf. A bright-feathered iay-bird has
perched on the plough. Quail, pleas
ants and partridges pause to gaze at the
odd team. The third panel shows the
tomb of Saint-Gens guarded by a howl
| ing wolf This is the finest work that
| Vayson has achieved. It is original.
fearless and successful, for the artist
|
culties OF his subject.
The most prominent and probably the
| most popular series Of pictures in the
| Salon is the military canvases by Jean
! Paul Laurens and Edouard DetailIe.
! The surrender OF the British at York
town by Laurens. executed for the court
house at Baltimore, seems less satisfac-
/ tory than the painting commemora ting
the same event by Horace Vernet, in the
Versailles Museum. Rectangular, rigid,
relocated soldiers march in perfect or
der. with drill book precision, to lay down
their arms. They pass between equally
| rigid, precise lines of American and
French infantrymen. Horace Verner
was one Of the first painters to free mill
tary pictures from pseudo-classic meth
DDS. Laurens, in his highly decorative
quadruple panels, seems to bark back to
that obsolete, pre-Napoleonic conven-
tionality destroyed by Vernet.
This same tendency may be found also
in the large historic pictures by Edouard
Detaiile. Is not this Photographic ex-
actitude of detail the contrary of arts
I
are reproduced with conscientious labor.
| worthy of curator of museum of mil
itary costumes, of the prescriptions of an
army tailor or of a hard working quar-
termaster sergeant.
Detaille's superb composition of the
military burial of General Damremont
after the capture of Constantine by the
Due d'Aumale's army and the defeat o.
Abd-el-Kader is panorama rather
than a truly artistic picture. The same
criticism applies to the "Barricade,''
picturing an incident of the revolution
of July, 1880. when the combatants
| cease fighting as they perceive the tri-
color flag hoisted on the south tower OF
Notre Dame Cathedral, indicating the
victory of the people over the half
hearted troops of Charles y. One has
only to gaze at this picture and after
ward to read the stirring description of
the game barricade in Victor Hugo's
Les Miserabies.'
There are nevertheless, magnificent
qualities in Detaille's work. The atmos-
phere, permeated with smoke. here and
there illuminated by stray rays of sun
shine: the attitudes and expressions of
the insurgents and soldiers and the mas
terful pose of the frail. nervous student
Of the polytechnicai school, show the
military painter at his best.