Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-03
BY LEILA MECHLIN.

u more criticism than the eXnlplLlon
of contemporary Belgian paintings
and sculpture which opened 10 Gays
ago In the Corcoran Gallery Of Art
The so-called modernist movement
has been sweeping the field of art
throughout the Western world for some
years, developing strength as it gained
in momentum. But Washington, not
being an art market has up to the pres
ent time been little conscious of the dew
astating stream which at the present
time threatens to submerge the old and
traditional. AS a result of this flood the
world may be made anew, good may
come, but 1t is difficult to stem the
stream and TO keep ones head. Because
of the well remembered mistakes In
Judgment of past generations, OF the
tendency of reactionaries TO prevent
progress. and of the triumph of those
who in their day have been miSunder-
stood and oppressed, there Is disin-
elination to condemn, timidity to de-
nounce.
william M Chase, when asked some
years ago what he thought of the works
of the then young moderntstS, said, with
characteristic liberality, How strange
IL would be IT, after all, these young
fellows proved to be right and we old
fellows, from Rembrandt down, proved
to be wrong" 1t is hardly possible to
believe that this can be the case. AS
Thomas Jefferson once said that which
generations have agreed to admire may
safely be taken as model of correctness
But one does not have to be very old
to recall the merriment which the works
of Monet and other impressionists
brought forth when first exhibited. And
truth to tell, there is no absolutely right
way and absolutely wrong way in art;
there are many ways. or this we may
be certain however, that paintings and
sculpture which possess no inherent
beauty, which have no universal sig
nificance no matter how well done or
how momentarily impressive, will not
live as works of art. Temporarily they
may have a vogue but ultimately they
will pass into the discard.
AS Homer Saint-Gaudens, director OF
the department of fine arts OF the
Carnegie Institute. Pittsburgh, recently
said In q talk on the current interna-
tional exhibition which he has lately
assembled, it is absurd to suppose that
in any era only masterpieces were pro-
duced. There have always been PAD
painters as well as good painters, but
the good have survived. To like or to
dislike a work of art is not measure
of merit, for criticism presuppoSes UNI
derstanding, and the effort should al
ways be, on the part of the observer, to
arrive as nearly as possible at the
artists viewpoint.
Many Of the paintings in the Belgian
exhibition now on view in the Corcoran
Gallery OF Art are shocking in their
ugliness and offensive to the majority
of visitors, vet to some few they are
intensely interesting and more signifi-
can't than works in the established
tradition. For the most part the
painters here represented have not
attempted to present nature as they
see it, but rather their own reaction to
nature, no matter what that may be.
Herein lies the crucial difference between
the old art and the new, and when the
painters of today are able, in the new
vernacuIar, to give free and full express
sion to beauty-emotiona as we'll as
visional heauty-then they will, indeed,
produce again great art.
A catalogue has lately been published
of paintings in the collection of Jules s.
Bache, paintings by the great masters
Z Of the past, on the fly-leaf of which, in
little type, Is printed the following quo
tation from Tennyson, we needs must
love the highest when we see It,"
TT is interesting to know that at the
same time that this exhibition Of
contemporary paintings and sculpture
by Belgian artists, extremely modern
istic in tendency, is being shown here
in Washington an exhibition of paint
inEs by the early Flemish masters has
been assembled and is now on view in
the Kleinberger Galleries. New York.
This exhibition, the largest OF Its KIND
ever held in America, has been assem-
bled from public galleries and private
collections and demonstrates the truth
= asA al in
at the Corcoran Gallery recently, that
those who wished to study historically
the art of Flanders must now journey
to the United States, as so many OF the
early masterpieces are here.
The Kleinberger exhibition (Which, by
the way, is being held for a charity
the Free Milk Fund for Babies COM
prises S6 paintings by some OF the
greatest Flemish masters of the past,
such as Van Eyck, Van der Weyden,
Dirk Bouts, Hans Memling, Metsys,
Mabuse and Van Orley-portraits and
religious paintings, beautifully painted
with the consummate art of the great
technician, but the refinement Of feeling
of the great artist-glorious achieve
raent of which Belgium as a nation may
be vastly proud.
Among the choicest of the exhibits
is a Portrait. OF a Woman" by Roger
Van der Weyden, lent by the Secretary
of the Treasury, Andrew w. Mellon.
Mr. Mellon has made a second loan Ia
a Hans Memling, Madonna and Child
With Angels" an exquisite composition.
Other distinguished lenders are Jules s.
Bache, Edward A. Faust, Michael Fried
sam, Henry Walters, Martin A. Ryerson'
the John G. johnson collection, Ralph
H. Booth and the Minneapolis Institute
of Arts to mention only few.
How interesting it would be II these
great works of the past and these
strange works Of the present could be
exhibited under one roof for comparl"
son and study. But it should not Oe
forgotten that the older works have
stood the test of time; that the newer
works represent an experiment, a youth
full adventure.
The exhibition at the Kleinberger
Galleries will continue but for short
time and be dispersed. The exhibition
now in the Corcoran Gallery will go
from here to the Philadelphia Museum
of Art, then TO Brooklyn, then, in sue
cession, to Buffalo. Detroit. Chicago ST.
Louis, Toledo and Rochester
&&*
IF one wishes TO see how much paint
\ ings may add to the beauty OF the
home q visit TO the exhibition at w. b.
Moses ~ Sons. which opened last week
and will continue throughout THIS
month, is recommended. Possibly II
would be more correct to call this
demonstration than an exhibition, for
such, in fact, it IS
ON the sixth and on the third floors,
as last year have been set up number
~ littIS rooy1s furnished as in n home,