Chapter 4

Of all the foreign nations represented, with the exception of Japan and China, none possesses so distinct a national character as the art of Sweden. I cannot help expressing my personal conviction that it is the best national section in the whole exhibition, showing, as it does, not merely easel painting, but also many splendid examples of so-called applied art, which often permits one to get a deeper insight into the standard of art of a people than easel painting alone. It is true that certain examples of painting in the French or American sections are more appealing to us, but in the light of the national characteristics of the people and the country, Swedish art has a very definite quality, consistently shown. Their work has a robustness which has nothing to do with the salon aspect of the art of southern Europe, particularly France. In fact it is almost opposed to the art of the Romanic races, and distinctly apart from the art of Germany. It is fortunate Sweden could make such a splendid showing without the support of the art of such a man as Anders Zorn, who, while decidedly Swedish, is after all much of a cosmopolitan painter, with all the earmarks of an international training. The art of the most artistic of all people, that of the French, is often said to have a decadent note. In comparison, Swedish art may be said to be absolutely robust, healthy, and vigorous, without being coarse. To those who pretend to find a certain physical brutality in Swedish art, I should like to point out that the most delicate pictures in the entire exhibition - those of John Bauer - are the chief asset of the Swedish exhibit. The great variety of the work in this section makes it very interesting, and permits, as said before, close insight into many phases of modern art.

The most pronounced individualities in the collection, covering all fields, are Bruno Liljefors, Gustav Fjaestad, Carl Larsson, John Bauer, Mr. and Mrs. Boberg, David Edström, Mas-Olle, and others too numerous to mention. Bruno Liljefors for many years has been known internationally as one of the best of animal painters, and particularly of sea fowl. He has had the experience common to many great artists, of working himself up from very academic beginnings to a wonderful personality of marked freedom. His canvas of the nine wild swans is perhaps the biggest single picture in the entire Exposition. It is immediately suggestive of a decoration, and to think of it in that sense, as a part of a wall seen from a great distance, makes one almost tremble with expectation. This truly great picture is a rhythmic masterpiece. The placing of these graceful swans is marvelously well studied from the point of view of design, yet none the less does an expression of reality animate these divine birds. There is something about swans which puts them even above the king of birds, the eagle. I can conceive of men killing any animal, but the thought of one of these noble birds falling victim to man's perverse desires is incomprehensible to me. Of the other pictures by the same artist, the flock of wild geese, standing in the shallow water of a stony beach, carries all the conviction of being well studied which applies to any of Liljefors' pictures. The eagles and the seagulls are scarcely as interesting as the swans. Liljefors is never better than when he depicts flying birds - and fly they do. There is never any doubt about it. Those swans are actually in the air, and moving. A certain disagreeable fuzziness in the skies of all of his pictures interferes somewhat with their full enjoyment.

Of the other painters Mrs. Boberg should be mentioned next. She is the wife of Ferdinand Boberg, the architect of the Swedish Building, who himself, as a true artist excelling in a number of things, has a splendid collection of etchings in the long black and white gallery adjoining the Liljefors' room. Mrs. Anna Boberg's pictures, in a very small gallery at the eastern end of this section, are not advantageously hung. Her work is so decorative, and so painted for distant effect, that to see it close at hand is disappointing. The eleven of her pictures are unusual in subject and for that reason win less sympathy than they deserve. All of them were painted on a trip she made with her husband to the Lofoden islands, and when one considers the proverbial coldness of the Arctic seas, her interpretations seem marvelous in their beauty and richness of colour. A study of their titles in the catalogue seems hardly necessary for understanding of their meaning, and I for one am perfectly satisfied to feast on the gorgeous colouring and the great veracity they possess. Some of them are already sold, a most surprising thing when one considers that to most people a picture actually executed in three dimensions is seldom considered meritorious. I do think that while the physical width and height of Mrs. Boberg's pictures are governed by conventional considerations, a little less depth of paint might accomplish the same solid appearance without making one feel like slipping sideways past them into the next gallery for fear of knocking off a few lumps of paint.

In the adjoining gallery, a somewhat larger one on the east, Gustav Fjaestad's very fine decorations form what we are in the habit of calling a "one-man show." Mr. Fjaestad certainly has the decorative feeling, whether he paints a picture or designs a rug. In fact all of his pictures look like designs for rugs. And why not? If a wall rug is a decoration, a picture should be one in just the same way. It is hard to single out among the many good examples the best one, and it may be left to the taste of the individual, who among nothing but good things cannot make a poor choice. The time will come again when our artists will find it honourable and profitable to apply their talents to utilitarian art, as does Fjaestad, and the interrelated activities of the Swedish in both fine and applied arts afford a lesson which is by no means new. It is the basic condition on which the art of the Renaissance flourished that develops men like the Swedes.

There is a big difference between Liljefors and Mrs. Boberg, or again between her and Fjaestad, but not any greater than between all of these artists and John Bauer. John Bauer's paintings are exquisite, and even such abused adjectives as "sweet" and "delicate" are not out of place when applied to his work. I hope we have some enlightened person among us who can afford to buy the whole batch of them, and do it quickly, before any more of them are sold singly. It takes more time to enjoy these little fairy tales than one can afford to give to them. They possess everything a good illustrative painting ought to have. A wealth of ideas imaginatively represented, good drawing, and intimate feeling tell of the keen pleasure the artist must have had in producing these gems.

As an illustrator, though very different, Carl Larsson appeals in a comprehensive group of pictures in another gallery. Carl Larsson's extraordinary resourcefulness in getting everything he needs out of the confines of his home has for years been the cause of his great popularity abroad, and in his thirty-three cheerful drawings he discloses his entire home life, in all the variety of happenings which makes married existence a success. His drawing is faultless, his sense of colour supple and refreshing, and his ability to make such extensive use of the relatively narrow atmosphere of his home without exhausting it proves his caliber. Larsson has a roommate of great distinction and modesty in Oscar Bergman, who has contributed some twenty tender bits of northern landscapes and marines. They are reminiscent of the Japanese, although it becomes almost foolish to think of the Japanese every time someone develops a capacity for acute observation and drawing. Bergman's little lighthouse is particularly convincing and, like most of these things, should not be allowed to return to the artist.

I shall probably have to retrench in attention to the American section if I keep on giving pages to this section. But in spite of their great merit, the work of Kallstenius, Schultzberg, Carlberg, and Osslund will have to go with only meager reference. Osslund's pictures are somewhat startling at first, owing to a complexity of technical treatment. He does not seem to be working in the right medium, for I believe his Japanesque landscapes could be far more sympathetically presented in watercolour. Of the group comprising his work, his "Waterfall", "Summer Evening", and "Evening on Angermann Land" are very fascinating. Mas-Olle's portraits are interesting not only for good technical painting but also for fine characterization. His portrait of an old peasant of Dalecarlia is almost faultless. Near the Mas-Olle portrait Herman Lindquist has a "Sunny April Day" of unusual poetic claim. Schultzberg's big sunlit winter scenes hardly need recommendation to justify their increasing popularity. Alfred Bergstrom's poetic landscapes add more interest, in the small adjoining room on the east. Marine pictures by Hullgren are the only contributions in that field, but quite sufficient to maintain the general standard of excellence. The drunken man seated at a café table is psychologically interesting. As an object lesson to discourage the consumption of liquor it is the most effective picture I have ever seen, and certain interests would do well to buy it for that reason alone, not to speak of the relief this would afford. Ernst Küsel's animal pictures, opposite John Bauer's delightful group, seem quite out of place. His ducks and the goats are satisfactory enough, but I wish he had to live with that calf picture and see it every day. Küsel is undoubtedly humourously inclined, without knowing proper limitations.

The sculpture of the Swedes is of the same unusual excellence that commands so much respect in their other work. Edstrom easily outranks his fellow-artists in his group of naturalistic and conventional architectural heads, in the Liljefors gallery, while in the long and narrow adjoining gallery a multitude of excellent etchings, drawings, and black and white work compel mention. They hardly need any explanation, since in their very character they readily convey their meaning. One could dwell at greater length upon this most representative of all national displays, but I fear that it would have to be done at the expense of the American section, which hospitality has already placed under a disadvantage.

Holland

The Netherlands representation is conspicuous for its conservative note, together with the absence of any single picture which might unduly excite one by its merit. I do not wish to prejudice the art lover who strolls into this well appointed section, but coming from Sweden, as we do, so to speak, since it is Sweden's next door neighbor, it gives one rather a shock. Most of the Dutch pictures are good, almost too good, in their academic conventional repetition of the timeworn subjects we have been in the habit of seeing for the last twenty years. The Swedish section is full of real thrills, but the complacency of the Netherlands section can hardly be explained by their national temperament alone. While the Swedish people seem to be blessed just now with an unusual number of men of great gifts in the field of art, the Netherlands have entered into what I hope will be only an interregnum of not overly original painters. The last quarter of the last century saw their glory in the careers of men like the elder Israels, the Mesdags, the Maris, Jacob and Willem, Bosbom, Mauve, Weissenbruch, Poggenbeck, and many others who have departed during the last ten years, or who, if still living, have scarcely maintained their high standards of earlier days. The most illustrious name among the older men is Willem Mesdag, who can hardly be expected at his age to be doing his best. Speaking of Mesdag, one of their best marine painters of the older days, one is forcibly reminded of the fact that though a people of the sea the Dutch do not seem to possess a single strong marine painter. One looks in vain for any pictures of the open sea reflecting the seafaring traditions and activities of the Dutch, and if it were not for Mastenbroek's masterly harbor pictures, one would have to console oneself over this lack of the briny element with a view of the Amsterdam Marine Aquarium. Mastenbroek's big canvas is full of life and well painted. It shows the harbor of Rotterdam animated by a host of vessels of all kinds and descriptions. While there is a fine feeling of loose accidental arrangement about this big picture, it is nevertheless well composed. His small canvas in the adjoining gallery is technically superb, and to my mind the best canvas in the whole Dutch show. In the middle of the same wall Gorter's very decorative autumnal landscape, of a group of beech-trees, commends itself by an unusual feeling for colour and design, so lacking in the two almost monochromatic, untemperamental Witsens on either side. Almost opposite in the same gallery, the most western in the Netherlands section, hangs a broadly painted canvas by Breitner, of the timber harbor of Amsterdam. It is not so original a subject as one is accustomed to see from Breitner, but fully deserving of the best place on the wall. Thérèse van Duyl-Schwartze's portrait alongside is equal to her usual performances, and very broad in style and full of vigor. Jurres' "Don Quixote", Goedvriend's little canvas, and Bauer's "Oriental Equestrian" should all be mentioned in this gallery.

In the middle gallery, on the right of the big Mastenbroek, Christian Addicks' "Mother and Child" charms by its richness of colouring, while in the left corner hangs a very decorative still-life in the best manner of such old Dutch painters as Hondekoeter. Nicolaas Bastert has a typical Dutch canal, and Willy Sluiter a good study of a Volendam fisherman. One gallery is entirely devoted to etchings, woodcuts, and mezzotints, and the standard maintained in this gallery is high. Martinus Bauer's three etchings are among the finest to be seen anywhere in the exhibition, and the work of Harting, van Hoytema, and Haverman do not fall much below his standard. There is young Israels (Isaac) with some very snappy sketches. Nieuwenkamp is intensely interesting in the few things he has there, with a certain sense of humor which is conspicuous for its absence in most Dutch work. The woodcuts of Veldheer are vital and unusually free from any academic feeling. Considering the relative size of the Netherlands, they have a remarkably large number of artists, but scarcely of sufficient bigness of caliber and independence of character to live up to the traditions of this people.

Germany

Very modestly tucked away and surrounded by art of the few remaining neutral nations, in a small gallery adjoining Holland and Sweden, Germany unofficially and probably even without her knowledge is represented by a small group of pictures which after many adventures reached the hospitable shores of California. Originally exhibited at the last Carnegie Institute Exhibition at Pittsburgh, they found themselves on the high seas on their return voyage at the beginning of the war, only to be captured by an English cruiser whose captain was so painfully struck by the undeniable evidences of German Kultur that instead of taking them to England he returned them to the United States, to be included eventually in our exhibition. It would be very wrong to generalize upon the standard of German art from this small display, but a number of these pictures can well afford to go entirely upon their own merit.

Zügel's cattle picture is a canvas of the first order, by one of the very important modern animal painters, a man whose fame has penetrated into all lands where art is at all cultivated. The silvery light of a summer morning, filtering through overhanging willow-trees upon the backs of a few Holstein cows, is full of life and admirably loose in its treatment. Above Zügel, Leo Putz, another Munich man, has a lady near a pond, broadly painted, and executed in the peculiar Putz method of square, mosaic-like paint areas which melt into a soft harmony of tender grays and greens. Stuck's "Nocturne" is affected and unconvincing and scarcely representative of this master's style. The many other men give a good account of themselves, particularly Curt Agthe, whose classic "Nude at the Spring" is of wonderful surface quality. Wenk has an Italian marine and Benno Becker a landscape from the same country. Göhler's "Castle Terrace" has a particularly fine sky and a true rococo atmosphere. Hans von Volkmann's "Field of Ripe Grain" is typical of this Karlsruhe painter, whose stone lithographs have given German art a unique place in the art world.

The United States

Almost one-third of the entire Fine Arts Palace is occupied by the art of the United States, and considering the privileges it enjoys, we have no reason to offer any excuses. One thing should be said, a fact which must force itself immediately upon any careful observer - that we have been very hospitable to the foreign nations at the loss of our own physical comfort. The growing demand from some of the foreign nations for more space than originally applied for has crowded the American section in some instances into rather uncomfortable conditions. On the other hand we do not seem to have acquired such attractive ways of hanging our pictures as the Swedes, Hollanders, or Italians practice; probably for lack of funds. At any rate the American section looks very businesslike and very democratic, without all the frills and fancies of other nations, where every psychological advantage has been taken in order to make things palatable. We have even been criticized for our lack of spaciousness in hanging, but let us not grieve over this, since it does at least save steps in walking from one picture to the next.

Gallery 60.

Our historical section is largely a mausoleum of portraits which really have no other excuse for existence than historical interest, unless one excepts the always excellent portraits of Gilbert Stuart, who certainly stands out in all that dull company of his fellow-painters of his own time. He is about the only one who can claim professional standards of workmanship as well as lifelike characterization of his sitters. His group of pictures on wall A does his great talent full justice. The mellow richness of the portrait of General Dearborn stands out as a fine painting among the many hard and black historical documents in this gallery. The Captain Anthony portrait above is not less important. I think his technical superiority and breadth of manner must be doubly appreciated when one considers the absence of any artistic inspiration in this country in Stuart's time, although he had the advantage of several lengthy visits abroad, where he was received with approval by profession and public alike. Most other portraits in this gallery are lacking in any individual note and are hopelessly stiff and academic in colour. Not even the very apparent influence of the great English portrait masters of their time could save them from mediocrity. The only pictures worth excepting from this classification, outside of the Stuarts, are Charles Elliott's "Colonel McKenney" and S. B. Waugh's portrait of Thorwaldsen, the Danish sculptor.

Gallery 59.

In an adjoining gallery toward the north, our chronological investigations bring us into an atmosphere of story-telling pictures of the most pronounced Düsseldorf and Munich styles. This period has always been the source of delight to the populace, which has no concern in the technical qualities of a picture, a contention which led, more than anything else, to the healthy reaction we now enjoy as the modern school. The sentimental tone of most of these pictures and their self-explanatory illustrative motives no doubt make them easily the lazy man's delight, but I cannot help feeling that most of their themes could much more successfully be approached through literature than through the painter's art. Most of them explain themselves immediately, and those which do not are helped along by descriptive titles fastened to the frames, as the taste of that school demands. The great men of this school in Germany were primarily great painters. Men like Defregger, Knaus, Vautier, Grützner, Kaulbach, and others will always command high respect by their technical achievements, no matter how we may disagree with their choice of subjects. The really worthy ones we have produced in this field of genre painting are to be found in other galleries and are represented by men like Hovenden, Currier, and Johnson. The only real painting among the many figure pictures in this gallery is Peter Frederick Rothermel's "Martyrdom of St. Agnes." Very rich in colour and big in composition, it compels great respect.

We have now reached the middle of the last century, when the influence of the Barbizon school asserted itself and caused increasing interest in landscape painting, a field which up to that time had been mixed up with historical motives, as in a typical composite canvas by Cole (Thomas), who generally ranks as the most important of the Hudson River School of landscape painters. There is really not enough artistic moment to this American group to dignify it by the name of a school. For historical reasons, however, this classification is very convenient. Cole's four sketches for the "Voyage of Life" show strong imagination, giving the impression, however, that he was more interested in mythology than in the art of painting.

The first intimation of a really original step in American outdoor painting, as based on the discoveries of the school of 1825, the Barbizon school, one receives in this gallery in a number of small canvases by some of the men we have chosen to classify as the painters of the Great West. Into this group are put Thomas Moran, Thomas Hill, and Albert Bierstadt. They are so very closely identified with the West that they are of particular interest to us. Their artistic careers were as spectacular as their subjects. Stirred by the marvelous tales of the great scenic wonders of the West, they heroically threw themselves into a task that no artist could possibly master. They approached their gigantic subjects with correspondingly large canvases, without ever giving the essential element, of their huge motives, namely, a certain feeling of scale, of monumentality, as compared to the pigmy size of the human figure. Really great pictures of the Yellowstone, the Grand Cañon, and the lofty mountain-tops still remain to be painted. The daring and courage of these men has benefited our art very much in a technical sense. The study of panoramic distances and the necessity for closely observing out-of-doors new subjects which could not be studied in the work of other painters, led to a facility in the handling of paint which really constitutes the chief merit of these artists. In this gallery (59) two small outdoor sketches by Thomas Hill give a good suggestion of this Californian's great dexterity in handling paint. His career has been so closely identified with the Yosemite Valley, where he lived and died, that these two sketches will serve as a reminder of the very faithfully studied larger pictures he for many years produced. Peter Moran, a brother of Thomas, has a cattle picture in this gallery which needs the backing up of the reputation of the whole Moran family to be accepted.

Gallery 58.