New-York tribune., 1918-02-17
Mountain Courtship-By James r. Hopkins
From The international Studio

the Mountains we turn to THE Moon
shner,' very different in spirit-for there is
less thought of pattern and no attention is
given to the modelling of the forms The
subject itself seems to demand such a treat
ment. The outlaw of the mountains sits
just inside the entrance of cave. The light
plays over the tense face and the corded
hands that grasp the gun. In the back
ground is the darkness where are hidden the
still and the moonshine. Dramatic in the
truest sense of the word.
"A Mountain Courtship' tells story so
poignant that in it lbsen might have found
inspiration. Two lovers walk along the
banks of the Cumberland in the falling
shadows of late afternoon. The girl is deli
cately beautiful with the freshness of
youth, the man degenerated to degree of
idiocy In front of the two walks, with staff
in hand the stern mother of the girl. There
does exist the tall, magnificent mountaineer,
but at times one finds a condition bordering
on idiocy due to continued intermarriage
OF families in small communities, as in the
case of the mountain courtship. With the
spirit of the true artist, Hopkins has made
no attempt to do a composite type embody-
ing all the characteristics of the people, but
has found models among them to paint using
the background of their lives to produce a
picture. If the story told is sometimes un-
pleasant there is always the beauty Of line
and color to appease the supersenstive.
1--WE hear much talk Of emotion, feeling,
soul and such phrases, but he has realized
that conscious aim can be nothing save
the pleasing presentation of the visible. To
attempt the abstract-to consciously force
into ones work that thing called soul, is
to achieve the maudlin sentmentality reached
by few of the Pre- Raphaelites. Far from
Ignoring this element, he lets it, alone know
ing that this elusive quality is not mat
ter of deliberate exploitation, but always
subconscously expressed. Though he has
not been before the American people for
any great length of time, he has won the
consideration of a discriminating public, such
recognition as is claimed by artists of far
greater experience than his. Certainly he
has style of his own, one that he might
be said to have evolved himself, but very
secondary to this is the amazing sureness
OF his arrangements-th precision and in
valuable quality of each touch that calls
the design into being. To the layman his
methods are very disillusionng. There is no
wllc frenzy On the contrary. the problem
OF composition is attacked in most cold
Hooded and systematic manner Each stroke
is premeditated, whether the spaces and
harmonles of color are to resolve themselves
into the form OF nude or preacher
'Ot late years honorS have come to him.
The first was the Walter Lippincott prize at
the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and
the most recent the Norman Wait Harris
bronze medal at the Chicago Art Institute.
But in between come the bronze medal at
the international Exposition at Buenos Ayres
and the gold medal at the Panama Pacific
Exposition, with the sale of canvases for the
permanent collections of such museums as
I, the Cincinnati Museum Association, Memo
rial Hall Museum, in Philadelphia; the Chi
cago Art Institute and the Museum Associa-
ton of Atlanta
"And in this we have an excellent example
OF how a man imbued with feeling for
design may very often arrive at a result in
which the pictorally beautiful and the sub
jectively interesting are happily united, if
added to his inheritance from old tradition
is an influence vital and poignant with
meaning
But words at best are literature while
good pictures do not tell stories save in the
abstract. The futility of criticism and con-
cretely expressed appreciation crushes any
desire to go further save to suggest to all
who read the story of the beautiful wherever
written more intimate acquaintance with
the work of James r. Hopkins"