New-York tribune., 1920-03-07

and others. This collection is to bt
sold on April 22 and %.
American Artists
In the Open Air
We have no recollection of ever see.
Ing before An independent exhibition
OF landscapes by Mr.. Bruce Crane, and
looking now at the collection Of TWEEN.
ty-tEree canvases which he shows at
the Mich gallery we wonder why he
has taken so long to exercise an un.
questionable right. His work has made
itself favcrably known for years at the
Academy and further back in the dis.
plays Of the Society Of American Ar
lists. Perhaps, though, he was we'll ad-
vised to delay. He makes, at last, the
exhibition Of painter who has solved
all his problems and produces pictures
fully expressive of the best that is in
him His best belongs within certain
clearly defined boundaries. Tho col
lected works OF almost any artist will
have. necessarily, a "strone family
likeness" Mr.. Crane ia one Of those
types restricting themselves to a few
motives. This might seem 10 threaten
him with something like monotony, and
there are times when we discern in
him. a. We do in Mr.. J. Francis Muir
ply, with whom he has q measure Of
aesthetic kinship. tendency toward the
hardened picture makers formula.
Meeting in Mr.. Cranes landscapes with
what appears to be kind Of property
wood pile, with one log detached from
the bulk, We rather balk at meeting
it 200 often. And yet, on reflection, we
cannot quarrel with the episode. Since
he makes beautiful pictures 1t cannot
really hurt them.
He makes them beautiful in the first
place because he Is a faithful observer
OF the American scene. Over and over
again he paints his fayorite pastures.
their struggling rail or stone fences
and their trees generally half leafless
under autumn winds, and with such
sensitiveness does he interpret their
simple, familiar charm that in spite of
ourselves we find variety in his almost
stereotyped compositions. Then. too,
there supervenes upon his veracity the
suave quality Of his style. He is what
in the jargon Of criticism is called a
".tonalist," one who seeks his effect
largely through the manipulation of
pigment; and he adheres as it happens
to quiet scale, ranging from rather
cool, dark grays to soft. golden browne.
The outcome is that his appeal is Of a
delicately sensuous nature. He wins
US through the truthfulness of his i'm
pressions Of the American countryside
and heightens our pleasure by the in
dividual beauty Of his color, color
which is drenched in atmosphere.
A painter who, as a technician, ought
to be tn the same gallery with Mr..
Crane, but whose ideas and temperament
lead him to curious deviation, is Mr..
Rockwell Kent, now exhibiting a group
Of Alaskan pictures at the Knoedler
gallery. Last spring Mr.. Kent showed
at the same place a quantity of extraor-
dinary drawings in which he set
against his Alaskan background the de-
signs Of man having points of con-
tact with the mind Of William Blake.
His conceptions also disclosed original
force. They have just been published,
by the way, in a book called "Wilder-
SmcoU ~ . pr%uovo,. Ccrc\ ,~l 49,.
wonder II the text will prove as full as
the illustrations are Of an authentic In
spiration. We had anticipated in the
paintings the play Of that same inspira-
ton. looking for It the moro confidently
because this artist had previously done
good work In color. We have never
Waited the Daniel gallery without paus-
Ing to admire the early painting by Mr..
Kent which hangs In the passage. But
tho new canvases at Knoedler's do not
quite fulfill expectation. They leave a
mixed impression. They still are elo-
quent Of the Icy calm Of the North; they
still touch US with y sense Of the paint
er's powerful grasp upon linear SIM
plicity and Of his serious, interesting
point Of view. What we miss Is the
beauty toward which We had felt that
so poetic q temperament was decisively
heading.
An element In It hs successfully
handles. He knows how to express the
silent grandeur Of his snow peaks. his
austerely rocky headlands, his deep seas.
But it Is In the purely artistic investi-
ture that he would give them that he
stumbles. From the nature of his sub
ject he has been moved, perhaps uncon-
sciously, to take a leaf from the book of
Whistler, to define his theme in simpu-
fed patterns Of few purs tones. With
this idea his groundwork, so to say, was
set. But going on to develop It we
should say that he wanted the requisite
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