New-York tribune., 1919-05-04

which the artist has been engaged for
q dozen years. These canvases are
on large scale, about twenty feet
wide and ten or twelve feet high.
Monet has been studying the subjects
for them from the little island in the
miniature lake which forms part of
his property at Giverny, the lake which
has been made famous through one of
the loveliest of his sequences of easel
pictures. The island has served as a
kind of pivot for him. From it he has
faced the trees on the opposite shore
at new angles and in new phases of
light and color, moving gradually in
circle that has finally embraced the
whole domain. Always at his feet the
still water CLEANS and the lily pads
float, the subject is in sense ever
the same; but it is ever different,
changing constantly in mood. Years
ago in the Giverny studio he told the
present writer of his habit as painter.
He would bring many pictures home,
but only to sift them out. Those
which thoroughly dissatisfied him he
burned. The studios at the Durand-
Ruel gallery are the survivors of just
such a resolute destruction. There
were two or three other paintings of
the same series which were so good
that M. Durand-Ru had hoped to
fetch them also to this country, but
after much pondering over them Monet
concluded that they were not quite
what he wanted them to be, and so de-
stroyed them.
His vast decorative scheme is COM
posed Of three sets of designs. He has
worked on them a long time and will
continue to work on them. Just where
hey will ultimately go is problem
His idea is that they would fit we'll
into some large hall, but their precise
destination he leaves a matter on the
knees Of the gods. In the mean time
he busies himself with them out of
pure enjoyment. They constitute q
labor of love absolutely. AS the reader
might infer from ali this, the examples
in the present exhibition disclose no
rigidly defined formal purpose. Monet
the decorator is still Monet the land
scape painter, confning nature in no
hard and fast pattern. Composition is
there, but it serves simply as the right
artistic basis for an entirely spon-
taneous impression. One of the pict-
ures, the "Saule Pleurer," gives view
into the heart of solid company of
weeping willows. The effect is of a
mass Of greenery, in a flood of illumi-
nation. The architectural motive which
we associate with decoration is in no
wise perceptible. Neither does it pro-
claim itself in the two other late can
vases, both bearing the same title,
"Coin du Bassin aux Nympheas," but
in these there is nevertheless a closer
approach to formal pattern. 1t is dis
cernible, as we have said, in the char
acter Of structural groundwork, a
purpose keeping pace with the artists
aim as regards color. 1t is color that
above all seizes his imagination.
One might describe the scene por-
trayed in these pictures and use fairly
ordered terms, referring to the water
growths in the foreground on the Sc
rene surface of the lake, the trees and
ines beyond the flowers that flash
mid the foliage. But it is perhaps
more expressive to state that Monet
has here painted something like the tail
of a peacock, leaving nature to make
its artless appeal, after the fashion of
his familiar impressionism, but so
choosing his moment that the ensemble
is just a glory Of color. The deep lus-
cious greens of summer make kind of
screen, and upon this is flung the iri-
descence of countless blooms, not heed
lessly placed, but very judiciously al
ways with the good sense of the ex-
perienced designer. Monet has never
been more conscientious in his wonted
role as the painter of a portrait of ma
ture. And never has he been more ar
IDENTIFY the colorist and the poet, inter-
preting nature as we'll as reproducing
her tangible facts, bringing out her
sensuous beauty as in a gust of crea-
tive energy. He is an old man to-day,
but he has all the originality and
power Of his prime. These studies have
the compelling charm of any Of his best
sets, the Rouen Cathedral series, or the
one devoted to the Thames, or the one
which commentaries the beauty of his
lake when it is, so to say, in flower.
The new designs have, too, richness
of body, as harmonies of color, that is
exceptional to the great mass of his
work. 1t is an interesting point, by
the way, that the proportions of the
canvases are somewhat novel, for him.
He has chosen a plan considerably
taller than it is wide 1t is one source
of the effectiveness of the compost
tions. They fill US with the keenest
desire to see the whole decorative fab
ric upon which he has embarked.
These late productions naturally
overshadow in interest the paintings
dating from other periods, some of
them souvenirs of the early eighties
but the collection contains a great
deal that is fine. One of the West
minister Bridge pictures is shown, q
beautiful study of color. saturated in
fog; relic of his later Venetian days
is present, and the series dedicated to
the nympheas is we'll represented in