New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-14
In SEARCH OF
GOOD PORTRAITS
Mrs. Whitney's Effort to
Throw Light on a Diff
cult Problem
AN EXHIBITION OF
AMERICAN EXAMPLES
NJ. Charles Duvent and His
Impressions of Battle
fields of France

iiNiuO VI diNN
At Mrs. II. p. Whitney's studio,
West Eighth Street, is another group OF
portraits. nut there TO help or to per
pick those persons likely to ask. "To
whom shall ! 80 for my portraitT
This is the second exhibition of the
series. There arc fifty-six numbers in
the catalogue, which includes paint
inss, photographs, sculptures. pencil!ed
and etched drawings. The collection,
despite the greater variety of mediums
displayed mas not the range OF the one
that preceded it; the range either in
ideas presented or in which may be
inevitable language. Monotony rides
the show You find mediocrity in album
dance there. too, a great compromise oil
impulse, cowardice. a want Of magma
tion and wit This last our portrait
painters need Badly as do our novel
lists. Blind TO the personality beneath
the surface. they give us more or less
good photographs; Implications Of the
shell, unlighted lamps, rows OF
Mosques. The romanticism which
sometimes, haphazardly, is allowed to
step in and lend weight of thin color
to the conception never either exceeds
the merely pretty or rings with SIM
cerity. There is rarely an intimate re-
lation between the painter aud his sub
ject rarely an idea about the subject,
and almost invariably a docility on the
part Of the painter which to the casual
observer is ugly-usly because il would
seem to be the creature OF commercial
ism. We like material success so much
here: and business carries fear with II
into art. and both Of them. insidious
conspnators. end by doing away with
the heart of the man, which means
doing away with his art.
But these pictures are not all bad.
Mr. Arthur b. Davies's Matte" is ten
der and romantic and not overloaded
with sugar. We should go elsewhere
for q portrait. however. Mr.. Davies is
constantly repesting the IDEAS of Mr..
Davies. painting himself, moulding the
sitter in the shape that better suits
y
tales, in which the model is a bit OF
clay 10 be pushed this way and that
until the tale is told. 1t is an effective
tale, and il may be a sublime one, but
we had not asked for ii at all, and are
to be pardoned. therefore, even resent
ment, though il is quite probable that
Mr. Davies's original intention was not
20 make a portrait. And then. in CIV
ing us a work of art he has given a
flower TO allay the sameness of this so
nearly barren field. We can ride over
other contributions more rapidly. Mr..
Harris Browns gigantic portrait of a
daughter of LORD Ribbesdale, with
gray pony: Hugo Ballin's portrait
of Mrs. Balm. contradiction in
terms Of paint, the manner borrowed
here and there from the early Italians,
borrowed without wisdom or economy;
Laszlo's too awfully clever rendition Of
Mrs William Payne Thompson; has
kel's so con scientiously and so weakly
painted reductions-the word is used
advisedly-of Miss Joan and Master
Jock Whitney, and the very vulgarly
seen and executed full length portrait
by Tambourini.
These pictures suggest no reply to
the questioning slogan of the show,
nor do MIR. Lawton Parker's Mrs. Mary
Potter Leigh" for, though the color IS
rich. the portraiture is casual and
powerless; Mr.. John Lavery's Portrait
Of Mrs. Landon Ronald" in a black hat
and gown that accentuate to the point
of ghastliness the white OF the face
and carmine of the lips, and Mr.. Luis
Mora's "Xona"; a page out OF his very
limited book Of types. A portrait
painter must have new eyes for each
new sitter and the faculty to believe
that the world revolves around every
one of us. He should be neither SUI
perior nor inferior to his sitter.
John Butler Yeats presents George
Moore here i'm 2 character that IL would
be difficult TO dislike, and John Sloan
presents Horace Traubel, TO whom Walt
Whitman has been a singular prophet
for a good many devoted years now,
with equal kindliness, even If with less
color. The sculptures are more gen.
orally authoritative. They are by Ches-
ter Beach, Mahonri Young, Pierre
I Troubetzky. Charles Carey Rumsey,
Laura Gardin, John Flanagan and Nal
vina Hoffman Edouard Steichen shows
his effectively posed portraits OF &c.
p. S" and the late Mr. John Pierpont
Morgan; Steiglitz, honest photographs,
considerable in force. of A. Walkowitz,
Konrad Kramer and Marie Jordan
Rapp.
At the Museum of French Art is a
collection of water colors by Charles
Duvent of the battle fields of France
and OF the American war relief work.
! They are 10 be seen until the 18th OF
this month, and an admission fee Of so