The New York herald., 1922-04-02

band who sponsored impressionism In
America and his figures of young women
posed outdoors with yellow lights and
purple shadows used to be thought as
tonishing by a public that had rather
strict ideas of art. Mr.. Reid became one
of "The Ten" when that group decided
to exhibit together, and for number of
years he. with Mr.. Chase. Mr. Hassam.
Mr.. Tarbell and the others, enjoyed
much fashionable vogue.
For some time past he has been living
in Colorado. and the pictures shown re-
fleet the new influences TO which he has
been subjected. One or two. giving
views of certain valleys and vistas OBJ
servable from the mountains that hedge
IN the famous Garden OF the Gods, are
much In his old manner. They are in
agreeable color and with clever appre-
citation OF the compositional value Of the
| topography. From a true landscape
point of view they are literal. Such a
man as Constable would have had mono
with them. He once wrote to friend:
Last Tuesday. the finest day that
ever was. we went to the Dyke, which Is
| IN fact the remains of Roman en-
campment overlooking one OF the grand
est natural landscapes in the world and
consequently q scene the most unfit for
| a picture. IL is the business Of a
painter not to contend with nature and
\ nut In such a scene, valley filled with
/ imagery fifty miles long on a canvas or
a few inches; but 20 make something
out OF nothing. in attempting which, you
\ understand, he must almost OF necessity
become poetical."
| AS though feeling something OF this
| himself Mr.. Reid has turned to the study
or the curious formations in the Garden
| OF the Gods and sought to interpret
I ~ al
doubtless the result of prolonged study.
and whether Fasteners quite succumb
/ or no to the mystic figures he reads
| into tho rocks. II Is apparent that some
westerners already sponsor them.
Lloyd Shaw, who has evidently com
pared the canvasses with the formations
that suggested the pictures. writes:
Under the spell OF the moon the Gar
| den of the Gods shows a surprising char
acter 20 those who have only known its
\ garish reds beneath the full sun. IL is an
eerie place where massive rocks shade
| insensibly into the substance of the sky
or glow with a strange glory or moon
light. or are blotted out In soft pull
sating shadow. And as the moon creeps
slowly across the sky the shadows
change and flow, now gliding on from a
jutting rock and revealing unseen forms.
now stealing over an angular mass and
| swathing IL In velvety warkness. Many q
! lover of the garden has vaguely felt
spirit forms lurking in those shadows.
has sensed unseen beings under the
| brooding silence. But it was Robert
Reid who found them, who saw them
with the eye. standing out unmistak-
ably-the gods themselves.
"Sketching there in the stiffness OF the
night. the artist was studying the battling
color of the rocks, the strange qualities
| OF our western moonlight. and as ne
watched the changing shadows they took
| actual form-a great spirit with bowed
head was there. whose terrible wings
reached up into the sky. She breathed
and lived: then the creeping shadows
| left her and she became angular. un-
shapely. grotesque. He painted what he
had seen, and in that painting he caught
| the spirit with the form, the life with the
| line.
Even those who knew and loved the
garden felt that he had but syrnbolized
the spirit OF the place. They could not
believe that the gods were actually there
/ shared their feeling until stood be-
fore that spirit form as II was born from
the shifting shadows. Then / not only
saw her stand out before me, but al
most felt her breathing. so real she was.
l would question myself. / would believe
that spell had been cast over me. that
II was my imagination that saw that
| awful form, had not taken others there
to bear witness to its reality. But when
a laughing crowd OF adolcscent boys and
girls suddenly cease their chatiering and
sit In hushed awe as the angel forms
are born and fade. one is sure OF their
reality. l have seen that.
THE gods are in the garden. Robert
Reid has painted. but the truth, resisting
temptation to invent and imagine. And
in the painting OF those battling colors
weird lights and spirit forms, he has
given 81 new wonder to his art"