Evening star., 1962-09-02

sonian's purpose Of "the in
crease and diffusion of
knowledge among men," The
gallery maintains a superb
Eastern library and it and
the unexhibited collections
are open to scholars every
day.
On the other hand, the
changing, restless, progress
sive, dynamic art of the West
is frozen stiff at the Freer.
The American collection, con-
Sisting Of Whistler and other
turn Of the century artists,
is stopped where Is was when
the founder died in 1919.
The situation makes q Gu
rious contrast, for the Orien-
tai collections have been
vastly expanded and refined
in the almost 40 years of
the Freer Gallery's existence.
The American collection
stands still and it doesn't
really stand up. The great
Whistlers aren't here. They
are in London, where the
artist spent most Of his adult
life, in Paris and in the Met
ropolitan. At the Freer are
some sound picturs but also
several rather embarrassing
nudes done in what Whistler
fancied was an Oriental
orchestral manner, and the
monumentally embarrassing
Peacock Room.
Sargent and Homer
AS for the other Ameri-
cans, there is q lovely Sar-
gent and several fine Win
slow Homers. But the bulk
Of the collection seems to be
Abbott Thayer, George De-
Forest Brush and others Of
that ilk. There are, to be
sure. paintings by Childe
Hassam, Albert Pinkham
Ryder, John Henry Twacht-
man and Dwight Tryon, none
of whom was exactly a
slouch. But the American
room is dominated by Thay-
er's mawkish Virgin" and
that spirit does seem fairly
to represent MIR. Freer's taste
in American art.
Charles Lang Freer is a
fascinating bit of Americana
all by himself. He began his
working life at IA in King
ston, N. Y, moved as o clerk
into railroading and devel-
oped q genius at corporate
organization. At the century's
end he capped his corporate
achievements with the merg-
er Of two railway car works
and retired from the business
world. He was A.
About Is years earlier Freer
had begun to pick up an oc-
casional piece Of art. Orien-
talism was in the air in the
Paris art world and the young
collector favored the fashion.
Among his first acquisitions
was a set of Venice etchings
by Whistler. When the busi-
nessman retired from busi-
ness he devoted the rest Of
his life to building up his
collections, an enterprise
that eventually made the
gallery one Of the great as
semblages Of Asiatic art.
Freer continued to collect
Whistlers and when the op-
portunity arose he picked up
the tabled Peacock Room, the
artists most ambitious and
disastrous attempt at in
terror decoration. oddly
enough, before Whistler ever
set eye or brush upon what
he made the Peacock Room,
it had been designed as an
almost free standing shell
within a London room.
Hence, 1t was easily dis
mantled and moved, once to
a London art dealers, once
to Freer's home in Detroit,
and finally to the gallery
here.
Artists and Settings
OF may be that artists are
unfit to choose settings for
their own pictures. Certainly
the student Of Renaissance
paintings is shocked the first
time he discovers any sub
stantial collection of Rem
naissance decorative objects.
The spirit seems so different.
Can Raphael, who painted
the Sistine Madonna, also be
the author of the nervous,
picking decorations in the
Vatican loggia2 Impossible.
Yet he was.
Whistler, on the other
hand, had already demon
strated his mastery Of the
art of decor. His own Lon
don white House." now a
century past, created a bare,
stripped down style that still
persists. It was light, airy
and informal and its example
has been followed ever since
by Anglo-Americans inter-
ested in the arts.
In the Peacock Room, he
had, or rather seized, the
rare opportunity for an