New-York tribune., 1919-05-04

The retrospective exhibition of Mr.
Abbot II. Thayer's paintings has been
opened at the Carnegie Institute, in
Pittsburgh, and now that the list is
in hand we are doubly envious for New
York of this extraordinary oppor-
tunity to study at full length the work
Of great American artist. Fifty of
his canvases have been assembled, ten
of the most important coming from
Mr.. Freers collection, which with all
It's other treasures is within year
or two to be placed permanently in
Washington as a gift to the nation
The Pittsburgh show illustrates all
periods and phases Of Thayer's career.
1t contains portraits and landscapes.
studies OF, flowers and animals, and, of
course, number of those winged
figures for which he has been famous.
The "Caritas" is lent by the Boston
Museum, and from the Freer collection
comes the "Winged Figure Seated on
note appears: "This picture is never
to be retouched-not one Pin-Point."
There are also two pictures on which
the artist is still working, sent by him
"to show all 1 have achieved up to
date" Finally there is a group to IL
lustrate his great discovery as
naturalist and artist-the discovery Of
protective cooration in nature.
n 20 1o =
fers some brief but interesting pas
sages of information. 1t appears that
lhayer began to paint before he was
ten years old, with special interest in
birds and animals. The first commits
slons for which he was paid were por-
traits of dogs. When he was a student
at the Academy Of Design, in the 6Os,
he was absorbed almost entirely in ami
NAL painting, and he has said that his
object in going to Europe was "to
study with leading French animal paint
ers, such as Auguste Bonheur. Dur
ing his four years in Paris, however,
begun in 1875, his experience as a
pupil of Gerome at the Ecole des
Beaux Arts directed him to the cele-
bration of human models. In this in
PRODUCTION there are some fragments of
his talk on the Importance to the ar
tlst of "the divine gift of vision" He
protests that the artist is born, as the
I poet is born. "You cannot make an ar
tist." The conception of a picture is
a God given gift, and. developing this
point, he says:
1t is as though a man were shown
crystal, q perfect thing, cleaning be-
low depths Of water-far down beyond
reach He would dive and dive again,
driven by his great desire to secure it,
until finally, all dripping, he brought
1t up. But that in the end he could
bring it, a perfect thing, to US, was
possible solely because he had first
seen it cleaning. Others might dive
and dive, might work. and labor with
endless patience and endless pain, but
unless they had first seen the crystal
unless they had been given this di-
vine gift Of seeing, this vision-they
would come up empty-handed. The oc-
casional so-called genius does not make
the crystal, but he alone sees it, where
it lies cleaning below depths of water,
ana py MS eHOrt Drlngs IL TO US. Inc
whole question is how absolutely, how
perfectly, the artist sees this vision.
BY this process, too, Thayer AYERS,
not only beauty, but truth, is brought
to the surface. Geuius arrives at it by
the operation of that law of intuitive
selection which is at the foundation of
art. Thayer's exhibition, the quality of
which we can easily imagine, must be
superb affirmation of his principles.