The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-01-04
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

exhibits given in the eastern part of
this country annually are found in the
Philadelphia Academy OF Fine Arts.
Many of the most celebrated artists
this country has produced have been
graduated from the schools of that in
stitutiOn.
Not long ago-three or four years
the Philadelphia Academy celebrated
it's hundredth anniversary.
The current exhibit in the public
art galleries, therefore, made by the
Philadelphia Water Color Club, is in
teresting.
Interesting for several reasons.
Because here is an aggregation of
water-colors and pastels by those who
handle the medium with consummate
skill.
And because an exhibit without oils
is more or less unusual.
Also because there is less academic
ism displayed than seen in exhibits OF
local groups from the larger centres.
The ensemble impression. if il
could so be put. in entering the larger
gallery is one of warmth, life and col
or.
There are some good things on dis
play.
Also some Indifferent.
None positively bad.
Hugh H. Breckenridge's two larger
pastels smite you between the eyes,
as it We're.
Or whatever peculiar nerve or emo
tional center is stirred by the pictured
art.
breckenridge is, seemingly. a law
unto himself.
Without disregarding any of the set
canons of the painting art he is still
bold and individual.
Summer" the large picture on the
south wall and whose composition is
dominated by nude, is exquisitely
delicious with lucious color-as warm
and rich and ripe as that on a hot
house peach.
Especially is this noticeable in the
arm.
Few nudes are convincing.
Tolstoi made them the object of de
uuuIldlOIS tOHlLlSHI
Not from the standpoint of morality
but of art.
Tolstoi was. at one stage of the
game, an unrelenting realist. This, in
combination with an absolute lack of
humour made his comments on art, as
bodied forth in his book What is
Art" amazingly and extraordinarily
funny.
And yet his interrogatory attitude
was 4 proper probing at the roots of
things.
Why. he asked, did artists paint
nude figures?
The average person rarely, if ever,
saw the human body unclothed.
What was their raison d etre, there
fore?
Why should they be placed on can
vas and hung at exhibitions?
Telsto with his determination to
rout out the meaning of all things
and their reason for existence and
their use and function in the social
body saw no excuse for the nude.
Its capitalization or sheer beauty
made no appeal.
Tolstoi, therefore. would possibly
have found little to hold his attention
in Disadvantages Summer"
The latter's symbolization is indeed
negligible, although obvious enough
The pose of the figure is alluring
and a certain shadow on the neck fas-
cinates.
But the charm of the picture Is in
its absolutely divine color.
Centralized. concentrated. brought
to climax in the flesh of the girl.
The color also draws magnetically
in his landscape. The Winding
Stream" But the composition is some
what messy, or at least chaotic, and
the atmosphere of Summer" is lack
ing. 1t is, however. enormously at
tractive-because of its use of color in
the medium handled.
On the other hand Summer Even
ing" by Edward Dufner. is an illustra-
ton of a certain affectation.
The landscape itself is convincing
and radiates the sentiment of the time
of day which it seeks TO depict but the
vi I"O NIUE ueuItS
makes the picture an absurdity.
When an artist loses his sense of
life values, even though he paints
like a god, his handiwork loses its
power to draw and hold.
Here is a picture which embodes the
reason for Tolstois protest.
1t is a social anachronism on can
vas.
The Breckenridge nude is the pic
ture.
The Dufner nudes are in the picture.
And they are not part of it.
1t is affected, a palpable imitation.
an attempt to symbolic without i'm
agination.
It's too bad that American artists
can't be natural.
That they try to initiate their for
eign masters and confreres or ape
them if they have not been under the
latter's instruction.
The american point of view is not
the continental point of view.
The mongrel Anglo Saxon is not the
Latin.
Why can't the former be simple and
natural and direct and unaffected.
This is one of the things that is the