New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-03-15

fine sky which we begin by appreciat-
! ing for its color and end by loving for
| its haunting originality. There was
genius in Homer Martin. His pictures
here may lack the splendid orchestral
quality of those painted by Inness, but
they have an extraordinary personal
power in them. He also could sound
many notes. He could paint, as in the
"Blossoming Trees or the Normandy
Landscape" pastorals as simply
charming as those Of Daubigny Then,
in a picture like ION the Hudson" with
its iridescent sky and its dreamlike
view of distant buildings, he could be
as romantic as Turner.
Inness and Martin are both types of
gusty, variable emotion. They go up
and down the gamut, paint in different
keys as they are differently moved,
and, by the same token, sometimes pay
the penalty of uncertain feeling. Both
masters were acquainted with failure.
Wyant suffered the same experience,
but for other reasons His work in the
mass is more uniform, and when it is
not at its best we surmise that it was
less because of any deviation Of his
spirit than because of mere manual
fatigue. If one may judge from his art
he must have been man OF equable
temper going steadily about his work
and building UP one composition after
& Iii md Of npTCiGt-
ence. The poetry in him kept him from
falling upon the deafness Of routine,
the poetry and the passion for truth
which was likewise at the centre of his
being. More than once on this occa-
sion we wonder if he did not refer
little too closely to some external inf1u-
ence. such as that of Diaz, but in the
main Wyant suggests only the disciple
of nature, absorbed in reverie before
her. rcpeIling all Journalism and record
ing in an almost artless manner lust
what he saw and felt in field and wood.
WANT is the great naturalist of the
group. the closest in some ways to the
men Of Barbizon.
There is only one Winslow Homer in
the show, but that is a great picture,
the weather Beaten" in which the sea
thunders in vast clouds of surf upon
the mass Of slanting rocks which fills
the foreground. We call it a great
picture, but it is interesting TO note,
by the way, how this other naturalist;c
master nominally leaves the pictorial
motive TO take care of itself. His pur-
Dose seems to be only to record the
thing seen, like any Impressionist, but
as you study the work you see that one
of the chief sources of it's strength and
beauty is to be found in its perfectly
balanced design. George Fuller is rep
resented, and, as always, his work has
something to say to us, something deli
cately beguiling, but the technical
weakness which logged him marks all
three of the paintings shown. Hunt,
too. is not quite as impressive as one
would like him to be. Moving water
is painted well enough in his Niagara
landscape, and there is a Rembrandtish
picturesqueness about ''The Amazon,
but no one would divine from either of
these works the brilliant painter of
"The Bathers" There is an interesting
example of La Fargo, one of his large
Oriental subjects, remarkable for inn
aginative, rather than for technical,
qualities. and the list is rounded out by
two of the younger painters dead in re-
cent years, John Twachtman and Theo-
dore Robinson. The latter might bet
ter have been omitted. for neither of