New-York tribune., 1918-12-10
By ROYAL Cortissoz

the American Art Galleries. This cx-
hlbitlon of hundreds upon hundreds
of drawings. Autographs, paintings
and other works offers the beholdcr
an emotiona1 experience which pushes
critical considerations into the back
ground. In the presence Of the i'm
measurable tragedy upon which the
curtain has not yet been rung down
one shrinks from applying to these
myriad Impressions of it the ordinary
touchstones of aesthetic appraisal. At
the outset the issue does not seem
aesthetic at all-it is the pathos and
| grandeur of the drama that count.
we go through room after room, sub
lect to deep STRINGS Of the magma
ton. The thing itself that the artist
puts petore US is so moving that we
: forget for the moment to notice his
personal intervention in the matter
But to that intervention we are bound,
sooner or later, TO return, and as we
40 we draw near to our clew.
Almost as soon as this war began
there arose tide of speculation as to
the effect it might have upon contem~
porary art. Now that it is ended we
see that it has exercised no mystical,
tailsnlanic influence. The artists Of
the world have suffered no "laying on
OF hands," they have received no new
ana strange inspiration, they have
oeen IN no wise transformed by CON
tact with the great theme. And on
careful reflection we must see that
TINS failure of new doors to open in
the realm of art was inevitable-be-
cause of the nature of the war Let
tEe reader recur in his minds eye to
what Frenchmen love to call the
"epopee Napolienne," and consider
what 1T meant to its most famous
laureate, Ratfet. That lucky lithog-
1rapher had, in the first place, a CO.
lossal personality to place romantic
accent upon all that he did and
secondly, he drew his designs in an
epoch of open warfare. A battle was
lor nm glorious spectacle, playing
naturally into the hands of a pictorial
composer In our own day all this has
oeen changed. No matter how firmly
convinced we may be that Marshal Focn
is In military genius the peer of Ma
poleon, we cannot visualize him as "ty-
ing together" the episodes of the great
war after the manner of his predeces-
Sor, and' furthermore, his scene has
ooeen, on the whole, totally different
rom that of the Emperor Trench
OF artist save Raffet. 1t has
called, rather, for the master of de-
tail. Here we come close to the secret
OF the present exhibition.
us most characteristic, most inter-
esting qualities are those of the docu
mentary record. There are pictures
lncluded, 1T IS true, and to some of
these we shall return with appreciation,
put ~ is not IN the group of large oil
ndlnt1nTG tc ho1I A. Al.
salon makes its truest affirmation.
mat is to be sought, rather, in the
COLLECTION of drawings made by the of
hclal artists of the United States Army
IL the war has produced anything for
US 1T has produced these snapshots in
water color or pencil They vary in
aappeal, according to the temperament Of
lne draughtsman. Captain George
Harding is notable. for his dramatic
spirit, for the picturesque elan with
Whici' he sketches our troops. Captain
j.. Andre Smith is interested in making
literal transcripts from nature. He
and Captain Ernest Peixotto and Cap
tain w. j. hyiward are students Of
topography rather than of military
action. They supply the setSng of the
war, so to say, the traits of SCARED
landscapes and ruined buildings. In
Captain Wallace Morgan's drawings, as
in those of Captain Harding, we get
more of the soldier type, more of mill
tary movement. Captain Morgan, by
the way, is especially rich in touches
of character His poster, "Feed a
Fighter" is magnificent portrait
Looking at all these drawings in the
mass--and they are so numerous that
it is frankly impossible to deal with
them otherwise-one kindles to their
truth, to their unmistakable value as
~; ;ct;
cance is another matter.
If we have been steadily skeptical
! as to the wars having any esoteric eff
! feet upon art it has been for the rea-
son that in art you can never get away
from the question of style. Not the
most heroical of experiences will add
that priceless element to an artists
equipment He must be born with it
or go without it to the end of his days
] And without it he may be never so
clever, never SO faithful and proficient,
and yet fail to strike twelve. That,
in sober truth, is the conclusion to
which we are forced by the drawings
aforesaid. They are good drawings,
properly to be preserved and admired
for the light they will always throw
upon the facts observed by the
draughtsmen.. They are not, as draw
ings, as works of art. at all distin-
guished. The English have had the
same experience as our own in this
regard. Their men at the front have
all done valuable work, but only one or
two of them, G. Spencer Pryse and
Frank Brangwyn, have put upon the
common theme an uncommon stamp.
Pryse we may note in passing, is per-
haps the most compelling figure in this
show. His Autographs are large in
conception and are executed with a
fine, swinging stroke. Wherever o
drawing of his is placed we are bound
to pause. There are, of course, in the
great body Of black and work
here, innumerable things that for one
reason or another arrest and repay at
tenton. The savagery Of Raemaekers,
the daintiness in the etchings of Ca
prom, the humor in George Wright's
! Pelham Bay sketches, the consummate
virtuosty of Forain, the humanness
of Stenlen, the poetic grace of Charles
, Shannon-the and divers other strains
! of personal force unquestonably give
i pleasure. Nevertheless, amongst the
draughtsmen Mr.. Pryse maintains an
unchallenged supremacy, rising we'll
above that subiection to detail which,
as we have said, the nature of the war
has irresistibly imposed upon most art
lists.
The painters, working in their
studios, have naturally been freer to
! throw off the all-pervasve handicap,
though it is perhaps significant that the
best picture in the exhibition is a
piece of the most circumstantial real