New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-07
A Multitude of Recent Pictures

most exploited by our landscape paint
ers, is big and broad and calm. The
American landscapist himself, stepped
in its indolent influence, resembles II
in many particulars.
He uses a broad brush to cover a
broad plain; he builds his trees in
symmetrical forms, his compositions in
the easiest and most obvious rhythms,
his colors in tonal harmonies which, in
the majority of instances, please the
casual eye. IL is an easy going, good
natured kind of painting, dominated by
directness Of purpose and simplicity Of
mind. We find this note repeated with
consistent recurrence throughout the
National Arts Clubs collection. We
find it and dislike it only If we require
an occasional bit of spice or tempest
Of impulse. But in requiring this we
ask a great deal Of 4 self-consclous
race of painters.
The place of honor is given to Will
lam RitschePs THE Enchanted Pool,
California" for one reason or another
not readily discerned. although the SIZE
Of the canvas is appropriate to the
size of the mantel over which 10 hangs
and the work has special ruggedness
Of form for which we may search IN
avalling!y in many Of rs nelgnbOrS.
The George Bellows, for example,
Grandmother" hanging TO the left OF
it, Is painted with an insistence upon
the value Of contrasts that lends an
effect far more theatrical than natural.
This canvas is one of those, coming
not infrequently now from his easel IN
which. despite a tremendous accent.ng
and a real rounding form, there % a
want Of thickness or sOldlty and az
the same time a use Of the grand
manner" described by Hazlitt, az the
expense of intimate appreciation and
under tau ling OF the subject The
more casual Henri, the right-hand
pendant 70 the Ritschel, "Orlentale,'
which we feel may be one of a series
of studies rather than a single unit,
painted at the expense Of the painters
uninterrupted energy; the more casual
Henri, anyway, has a greater reality
As a spot of color this Henri may in
deed be the most beautiful of the pict-
ures here. and IL has also a certain
sinuousness in the line and charm in
the form. We might wish the face of
this fine Jewish type Of young woman
to be little less a la Henri, but that
is quibbling. and painters, moreover,
are not given more than one pair OF
eyes and hands.
In Clifford Beaps Marlborough
Cliffs" and Robert II. Nisbet's The
Valley Road" are exaggeratiOns Of
greens needing the relief of com
or q sequential color. These
and especially Nisbet's,
are surely a return 70 truths about
nature, obvious truths, that painters
have been trying to forget ever since
Corot's famous dictrm about economy
of green paint. Gardner Sym0ns
sweryes over 70 reds in his Vibrant
Notes Of Autumn" and Putnam Brinley
back again to green IN "The High
Hills; green here subdued by com
blue, and the forms OF nat
ure disguised. made in the likeness Of
putty, through heartless imitation OF
the manner of our modern demi-god,
Monsieur Cezanne.
Annie T. Lang presents william NJ
Chase in His Studio, Bruges, Belgium
with p piduancy of brushwork and color
sometimes reminiscent Of Alfred Stew
ems and sometimes Of Boldini before
the portrait period. Mr. George Elmer
Browne gives US more boats in deco
ratiye arrangement, Mr. Daniel CARRIER
another vista seen through another cur
tain Of leaves, Mr. Ivan Ol!nsky an
other more or less pretty young lady
against a tapestry background and +.
Luis Mora, in the usual rounded, edge
less, monotonous line, two more Mora
We must excuse, perhaps, ~
painters the repetition that we do not
excuse in story tellers. The Birch
and the Beach" by Frank A. Bicknell,
continues a Barbizon tradition. while
resembling the color .he golden color
OF Murphy and Crane. The story IS
old, and old, too, the one Paul Dough