The sun., 1918-10-27
By HENRY Mcbride.

go on public view in the Brooklyn Mu-
scum next Wednesday, is his Christian
name, Boris. The name Boris will lead
the tourists on, fear, to expecting more
vodka, mujiks, monks and sudden assas-
lsinations than they will get. His pictures,
in fact, sprang from his fathers side Of
the family, the Anisfelds.
And mark you, names can be so very
Russian. Take Nine. Vera Kommissar-
jevakava's, for instance, the lady whose
theatre gave this Boris his first commits
sion to do theatrical scenery and so started
him on that portion of his career which
has had most success. Isn't that name
for youf / dare say there are lots of i'm
pressionable young men about town who
are quite capable of proposing marriage
to a name like that even without an inter-
change Of photographs. But for my part,
not being impressionable (no critic can
last long in this town who has a heart)
confess 1 should insist upon seeing the
photographs. Boris's portrait, for the
benefit Of our numerous young lady read
ers, is reproduced upon this page. Not
that there is any intention whatever Of
changing this art page into a matrimo-
NAL bureau, so you may as well know at
once that if letters or anything of that
sort arrive for forwarding / shall charge
heavy and prohibitive commission. Be-
sides he's married already.
The Anisfeld pictures, to drop the
Boris, since it appears that Boris had
nothing to do with them, occupy several
large galleries in the Brooklyn Museum
and are afterward to tour the provinces
in state. This of course is a pretentOus
bid for popularity, and our public, which
is VIGOROUSLY amiable, may stand for it,
but it is not altogether likely. At the
private view on Tuesday 1 believe there
are to be tea and Russian music. This will
be great help, but unless the museum
consents to give away tea and free Rus
sian music every day don't think they'll
induce many people to accept Anisfeld as
being in the Zorn-Zuloaga class.
For one thing, Mr.. Anisfeld DOESN'T
paint very well. His touch is quite repel-
lent, and in his biggest and most ambi-
tious canvases, such as "The Garden of
Eden" &C., it is impossible not to wish
that the design had been carried out in
damasks or tapestry or anything except
oil paint The color is not always often
sive, but in the imaginative works it GER
tainly is cheap.
The imaginative works themselves are
restless and contorted to a degree. 1t is
so easy TO be imaginative if one only let
ones imagination work. Hans Christian
Andersen's pen pictures are as clear as
crystal and simple enough to please chill
dren. 1 suppose Mr.. Anisfeld began
imagining things too late in life, and even
then to order That is always hard.
Fancy holding pistol to a grown mans
head that had never imagined anything
and saying: "Be imaginative" Some
thing like Mr. Anisfeld's horrid "Blue
Statue" would doubtless be the result.
No, only children or adults who are
children at heart can play the imaginative
game.
The portraits are restless and contorted
too. The best are those of himself, for
this artist is one of those who is at ease
only when posing for himself. The por-
trait that makes chief bid for local inter-
est is that of Chaliapine, the opera
singer who flashed for a short and
troubled season upon the stage of the
some years ago. He sean
dalized our staid music lovers by insist
ing on appearing in the first act of
''Mefstofele' without any drapery worth
upon his huge torso, and it
was given ont at the time that Mr.. Chali-
apine considered himself beautiful. But
according to Anisfeld he has gone off
greatly and cannot have any vanities of
that kind left. He is both heavy and
puffy, a sort of Pecksnifian blacksmith,
Mr.. Anisfeld says, and / can believe it.