Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-08-05

DMOEND ". 1AnDELL
fashionable art. Tarbell's
paintings have a lot more to
commend them than do the
paintings of the fashionable
art of the SOS, abstract ex-
preSSioniSm. When the bloom
of fashion departs, as it is
doing, from these latter,
there is very little left. A
fashion can create an entire
mystique for paintings in.
say. flat blue broken by a
line or two of red; intrigued
by the mystique. We accept
the paintings as embodi-
ments of it. When fashion
passes. we are confronted
with paintings of flat blue
broken by a line or two of
red and they don't seem to
be much more than that.
In Tarbell's case, when
fashion passes, as it has long
since. there remain several
enduring values. He was no
Raphael, but Tarbell could
draw. and baSically sound
drawing remains the founda-
ton of most Of his work.
Good drawing is always en-
joyable except during a fash
ion which denounces drawing
as over-restrictive.
A NostoIeie View
Most Importantly, though,
there remains an affection
ate, modest. engaging and
not really nostalgia view of
the domestic American world
Of the first three or four dec
AIDES of this century. Tar
bells work, on the basis of
the present exhibition, splits
right down the middle into
two related but vastly diff
ferent kinds. The more en-
during artistic values reside
in the half that was probably
valued less by the official
art world, the artists peers
and the artist himself. The
show is divided into official
portraits and informal scenes
Of women and children at
home. AS in any well-run
disaster at sea, it's women
and children first. The por-
traits are a very poor second.
The pictures Of people hav-
ing to do with World War I
include President Wilson, fu-
ture President Hoover and
assorted generals, most nota-
bly, Marshal Foch. In these
works fashion served the
artist in very poor stead. APP
parently he knew what he
was doing and how to do it,
but what he was doing was a
mistake. He was m aking
icons, exactly in the spirit,
though not the style, of
Greek and Russian sacred
images of early Church Fa-
theirs. Unfortunately, even
President wilson doesn't
quite have the power over our
imaginations exerted by such
holy exotics as Chrysostom
and Nazianzus. The result is
an odd stiffness not in execu-
ton but in conception.
The younger Herbert
Hoover looks as if he were
made of rubber and inflated
with air. Henry Clay Prick,
steelmaster and art collector,
looks as if he were about to
urge us all to take his pat
ented pills for our livers.
Academic Robes
Tarbell by Tarbell, or "por-
trait of the artist as recipient
of an honorary degree" furn-
ishes the key to this fault of
perception. The self-portrait
shows the painter, palette on
arm, brush in hand, dolled
up in the robes of an honor
airy doctorate awarded him
by Dartmouth in 1929. Our
immediate response is like
that evoked by Leutze's
famous picture of Washing
ton crossing the Delaware:
"Sit down, you're rocking the
boat" Here. we feel that
academic robes make much
too lush painters smock.
Tarbell, in the company of
most official portrait artists
of his day, was unable to see
either the subject he painted
-althnllph there Ia aluraus O