Chapter 5

Chronological order is not entirely maintained in gallery 58, where two large Bierstadt pictures are in control. Bierstadt, with all of his good painting, does not get any nearer the real spirit of the lofty mountaintops than all the others of this school. Big and earnest as his efforts were, they fall short of real achievement, not so much for his lack of outdoor colour as for the misunderstanding of what is possible in art and what is impossible. Another landscape in this gallery, belonging to the contemporary school, however, is Henry Joseph Breuer's "Santa Inez Mountains". It is a faithful study of a most difficult subject and very successful in its big feeling, in spite of the introduction of great detail. It is easily the best Breuer in the collection. The note of variety in this gallery is maintained in several portraits and genre pictures of unusual merit. On the right of the Breuer, Thomas Hicks' "Friendly Warning" atones for a multitude of mediocre genre pictures in the preceding gallery. Eastman Johnson's "Drummer Boy" shows good composition, and J. H. E. Partington's study of a man's head is as fine a piece of painting as was ever done in the eighties.

Gallery 64.

In a big central gallery we meet the more meritorious work of our painters dependent upon foreign influence. Portraits, genre pictures, landscapes, and marines tell the story of many individual men working out their salvation in more or less original fashion. I have spoken at some length about the pitfall of genre painting, but Thomas Hovenden's "Breaking Home Ties" redeems the entire school. Irrespective of the fact that it is a picture very popular with the large public by reason of its sentimental appeal, it is well painted, and it will always be considered a good painting. It is devoid of colour, in the sense of the modern painter, but its very fluent and simple technical character recommends it highly. Hovenden was a master of his trade. Anybody who doubts this from his large canvas can easily be convinced by studying the "Peonies" to the left of it on wall C. The large area of this wall is covered with six canvases by Thomas Eakins, showing a variety of subjects. His "Crucifixion" is very good as an academic study but of no other interest. In the "Concert Singer" he added an interesting subject to very admirable painting. His other canvases are all sincerely studied and well done, and they will always be sure of their place in the history of American painting. Opposite the "Crucifixion," Church's "Niagara" reminds one that the painting of water involves more than mere photographic facility. All that one can say about this serious effort is that if it had been painted under a different star than that which guided the painters of his time in outdoor studies, it would doubtless look more like water. Another canvas on the right, a marine by Richards, has the same feeling for drawing without showing any understanding of either texture or atmosphere. The old and the new overlap in this gallery by the inclusion of some of Remington's paintings and also of a few pieces of sculpture. Remington's paintings will never be classified as anything but very good illustrations, and in the company of easel pictures they look much out of place. Their interest is only of a passing kind. His sculpture is lacking in repose and looks wild and ill-mannered in the presence of the older things. Homer Martin's appeal, in two big landscapes on the same wall, may not be very immediate, but a serious contemplation of these big and noble landscapes will make them reassuringly sympathetic. Martin's pictures are not exhibition pictures. They suffer in an exhibition which is after all as much of a specimen show of conflicting varieties as a display of canned goods in the Food Palace. Martin, while never having enjoyed the popularity of an Inness, will always rank as high as any of our best interpreters of the Barbizon school.

Gallery 54.

We have to go over into this gallery in order to get the full meaning of that great company of men who had something which is so difficult to discover in many artists, namely, style. Inness and Wyant above everything have style, a quality which carried their otherwise not very original work above that of their fellow-painters. We shall never tire of such canvases as "The Coming Storm," "The Clouded Sun," and the limpid pastorals by Wyant. They maintain their position as classics. Winslow Homer occupies a position all by himself. An entire wall full of specimens by him shows the evolution of the man, his struggle with the problem of the choice of subjects, and his technical development, culminating in that one really great theme in the center, showing his studio in an afternoon fog. Homer's colour is always disappointing, even in his best, but his sense of design and a certain simple restriction to a few essentials make up his chief claim upon distinction. Dennis Bunker's "Lady with a Mirror" would scarcely be believed to belong to the older period of American art. One of the finest pictures ever produced by an American painter, it yields a most unusual degree of artistic pleasure. There is real distinction about this picture, not only in the graceful idealization of the lady, but also in the refined colour scheme. Currier's art is very much like Duveneck's, an observation which is made emphatic by the fact that each one's masterpiece is a whistling boy, of great simplicity. After a discussion of Duveneck's work, Currier's artistic antecedents will easily be established, so no more need be said of his work.

Gallery 85.

Across the hall more of our academic school of painters are grouped. There is George de Forest Brush, the painter of the "Boston Madonna", in some of his earlier illustrative canvases and a very fine pre-Raphaelite "Andromeda". Brush is so contradictory at times that this small group is quite insufficient to do him full justice. Horatio Walker clings persistently to his conviction of the supremacy of the older methods, without giving any indication of contact with modern art. His superiority depends largely upon the human-interest stories he tells with wonderful breadth and sympathetic understanding. Charles W. Hawthorne's canvases seem fumbled rather than painted. They are very hesitating in a technical way and are not sufficiently endowed with interest to grip one.

Gallery 57.

In another gallery in this neighborhood, Edwin Abbey's art is presented very comprehensively in a number of large and small illustrations - canvases of more than passing interest. While they are largely illustrations, their interest is made permanent by reason of the subjective note which all of them have. Abbey's intense imagination allowed him to carry a convincingness into his work which is largely responsible for the very high rank he attained. His art is not the art of an American in any sense. It is true he was born in Philadelphia, but a long and successful life spent in Europe has left on his work the imprint of an aristocracy foreign to our interest. In design, in colour, Abbey's work is always supremely interesting, and with the astonishing development of illustration in America, it seems incredible that we should not have been able to make him return to the land of his birth.

Galleries fifty-five and fifty-six are modern in aspect and their contents came into this part of the building for practical reasons. Wedged in between older periods, it is difficult to combine them with the rest of modern American art, largely represented in the north side of the Palace.

Gallery 56.

Here two interiors in distinctly different styles stand out among the multitude. Marion Powers and Elizabeth Nourse add considerably to the achievement of our women artists in these well-painted canvases. Miss Powers is very original in an older school, while Miss Nourse displays all the technical dexterities of the present day. Hitchcock's "Dutch Tulip Beds," with figural staffage, remind one of a most original American who after a long struggle established himself with these colourful designs. His recent death came entirely too soon.

Gallery 55.

This room is intensely animated by Potthast's six seashore sketches, which are composed and very sympathetic in their fine sunlight. Evelyn McCormick's "Monterey Custom House" is no less sunny, and conscientiously studied in detail.

Gallery 65.

Of particular interest are the pictures in this gallery, constituting an achievement which few other nations could rival. Devoted exclusively to the work of living American women artists, it contains convincing evidences of the good results which the emancipation of women in this country allowed them to accomplish in the field of art. The standard in this gallery is very high, and one must admit that Mr. Trask's daring innovation of putting all the women artists in one big gallery was justified. They do hold their own, and they do not need any male assistance to convince one of their big part in the honors of the exhibition. On two opposing walls, Mary Cassatt and Cecilia Beaux give full expression of their very vital work. Miss Beaux's work is compelling in its vigorous technique, fine colour, and daring composition. Her study in purple and yellow is bold and unusually successful. On other walls more portraits by Ellen Emmet Rand continue to hold our attention, particularly the little girl and the black cat. The portraits of our women painters are all far more original in composition and colour arrangement than those of the men. Mary Cassatt's reputation is so universally established as not to need any introduction. Her art is more French in the many tone gradations of atmosphere than that of her American colleagues who are more decorative. Among others Jean McLane, Mr. Johansen's wife, and Annie Lang excel in a certain breadth of style; while Mrs. Richardson charms by the sympathetic rendering of the pride and happiness of the young mother. The composition of this picture, while it is unusual, is successfully managed. The impression one gains from this large gallery is most satisfying in every way. The many portraits done by men seen in various galleries of the exhibition would scarcely make as good a showing in a group as the work of the women, and it was very wise not to attempt it.

One-Man Rooms

An approach to the rest of the American section might be made through the one-man rooms, and since we are on the south side, and for other perfectly good reasons - not the least, that of importance - we might start with Whistler.

Gallery 28.

Whistler.

No gallery reflects so much the really serious artist, in his eternal struggle to express himself simply and exhaustively in line, form, and colour, as does this Whistler group. A feeling of dissatisfaction, expressed by many indications of experimentation and change, of searching for the right line, is clearly indicated in all of these paintings. He often gives you a chance to choose between a number of tantalizing forms and lines. It is very apparent that he set himself a high, almost an unattainable standard, toward which he worked with varying success. His emotions must have been constantly swinging between the greatest heights of joy and the abyss of despair.

The numerous Whistlers in this gallery show him in many periods and many styles. On wall D, at the lower right, a portrait of an auburn girl, one of his many fascinating models, shows Whistler more as a pure painter than any of the other canvases. This doubtless belongs to the period when he was under Courbet's influence. The richness of pure paint, dexterously applied, is scarcely found in the many portraits on the same wall, in which a certain thinness of paint is too much in evidence, no matter how distinguished and suggestive these canvases are. His sense of composition, of the placing of areas of different tones and colour, is markedly evident in all of his work, no matter how experimental and casual it may be. The "Falling Rocket" is the most wonderful example of this quality of design. If it is true that it hung for weeks upside down in the present owner's house, then most decidedly this fact speaks well for its excellent quality of design, irrespective of its pictorial meaning. The many small sparks descending rhythmically from an impenetrable sky are carefully considered in their relative position and size so as to insure that feeling of pattern which he almost instinctively gave to everything he did. This picture of the "Falling Rocket" is of particular interest as the picture which made John Ruskin, the Slade Professor of Art at Oxford, accuse Whistler of flinging a pot of paint at the face of the public and having the impudence of a coxcomb to ask two hundred guineas for it. Surely this carefully and cleanly painted picture shows Whistler as hardly a flinger of paint, and we can only rejoice over the kind fate which saved Mr. Ruskin from extending his career into the present age of paint flingers, who, had they lived in his day, would have proved fatal to the learned professor. The farthing damages which Whistler received in a mock trial were scarcely as valuable as the universal admiration this picture receives.

There never was a painter who manipulated paint with more regard for the medium than did Whistler. His portrait of Mrs. Milicent Cobden has a noble beauty of restraint. It is very sensitively painted, and tender almost to the point of thinness. It fascinates in its subtle appeal, which the observer is induced to supplement by his own emotion. This quality of subtlety is the one attribute which makes his work so beloved by the artist and so difficult of understanding for the layman, who, try as he may, is not equipped with sufficient technical insight to do Whistler's paintings full justice. Uneven as his work is, as every painter admits, it will always be more and more cherished by the profession and remain more or less of a mystery to the puzzled public, who would like to follow this painter into the realm of his interests.

The six figural compositions on the opposite wall show Whistler as concerned with design pure and simple, rather than meaning or psychological expression. They are beautiful for the fragrant looseness of their spacing of delightful, tender areas of neutralized colour, emphasized here and there by a stronger note of vermilion. Things like these express his attitude far more than any other thing he ever did. They show his understanding of the fundamentals of painting - a small part in the whole unity of beauty of which the world consists. His work as a painter is, after all, negligible in comparison with the principles he preached by his many artistic activities. His historical position, as time goes on and as his associates die, becomes more and more mystical, and even at this moment his personality has assumed an almost mythological character.

Gallery 93.

Twachtman.

It is not a far cry to Twachtman, who presents a peculiar combination of Whistlerian tonality with the methods of the modern impressionist. His work is relatively high in key, and devoid of any colour resembling black. The covered skies of early morning, before the breaking through of the sun, are his chief motives. Snow plays also an important part in his work, which is most suggestive in the tender beauty of the few values and colours it is composed of. There is absolutely nothing of the sensational about his work. To most people of not sufficient interest on first acquaintance, on better familiarity they yield to the serious student and sympathetic lover of nature unlimited pleasure. His poetry is of the true sort, and in finished work like "October", "View on the Brette", "Bridge in Spring", and "Greenwich Hills", he rises to a very high level.

Manship's small statuettes are very effective features of this gallery. Their linear decorative architectural quality has put Manship into the front rank of our younger men, and he will have no trouble to maintain his place.

Gallery 89.

Tarbell.

In an adjoining gallery, Edmund Tarbell is much more striking, in a number of canvases containing certain qualities, which easily account for the great popularity he justly enjoys as one of the best of our American painters. To the student of pictures who does not care whether they are well painted or not, they are intensely interesting subjects, reflecting the happy domestic atmosphere of the painter's home, which has furnished him for years inexhaustible material for many delightful interpretations of similar subjects. This ability to produce so many things of equal excellence in a relatively small circle, in one way proves his greatness. In the last analysis, he has practically everything in his work one looks for in a work of art. In addition to having an easily understood idea, his pictures are well composed, without showing the consciousness of it, as does Whistler. Fine in colour and handling, beside the idealization of everything he includes in his work he achieves a certain something which we recognize as style. He may be a realist in every sense, but he shows how to deal arbitrarily with his figures in such a way as to endow them with admirable distinction, without losing the expression of reality. His recent outdoor work has not the unity of expression of his indoor subjects. It is difficult, and not really necessary, to single out any work in a one-man representation of unusual uniformity of excellence. Every one of his pictures has the earmarks of having been carefully studied.

Bela Pratt's statue of Nathan Hale is much less academic than the other sculptures arranged in this gallery. Compared with the high standard of American small plastic art his works are somewhat dry, though always conscientiously done.

Gallery 88.

Redfield.

As a realistic painter of the outdoors, E. W. Redfield holds an enviable position in the field of American art. He is the painter par excellence, without making any pretension at being anything else. The joy of putting paint on canvas to suggest a relatively small number of things which make up the great outdoor country, like skies, distance, land foregrounds, is his chosen task. He is the most direct painter we have. With a heavily loaded brush, without any regard for anything but immediate effect, he expresses his landscapes candidly and convincingly. He is plain-spoken, truthful, free from any trickery - as wholesome as his subjects. His a la prima methods embody, to the professional man, the highest principle of technical perfection, without falling into a certain physical coarseness so much in evidence in most of our modern work. His sense of design is keen, without being too apparent, and the impression one gains from his works is that they are honest transcriptions of nature by a strong, virile personality. Winter subjects predominate in his pictures, and he expresses them probably more convincingly than others - though his Autumn is marvelous in its richness of colour, and in the two night effects of New York he shows his acute power of observation in two totally different subjects. His art is altogether most refreshing and free from all artificialities.

Gallery 87.

Duveneck.

Paradoxical as it may seem, Duveneck's art is carried by the same painter-qualities found in Redfield. From his dark colour it is self-evident that he belongs to an older German school - a school which has been superseded in the affection of Americans by French methods. We know relatively little, entirely too little, about the generous methods of the best men of the Munich school, of which Duveneck is so conspicuous a member. His importance in the history of art can hardly be set too high, for the soundness of his methods alone. Only the greatest ever attain the capacity for direct painting which characterizes this astonishing collection of his pictures. Juiciness is the only word which will adequately express the result of his brush. The pictures here are most interesting for the reason that they were all done while he was not yet twenty-five and while he lived in an atmosphere of workers of whom Leibl was probably the most famous. There are few paintings - and then only the greatest - which give one the same satisfaction at a big distance as well as at close range as Duveneck's do. Men of his caliber appear only at great intervals. This Duveneck collection, if brought together permanently, as we are fortunate enough to see it temporarily here in San Francisco, would become the Mecca of all painters who want to refresh their memory as to what constitutes real painting. Unfortunately these canvases are owned by different people, and to think that they will all have to be scattered again among individual owners is a shocking thought. The uniformity of excellence in the Duveneck room forbids any attempt at picking out individual works; however, Duveneck's equally great accomplishments on another wall, in the field of etching, are apt to be easily overlooked. The sarcophagus of his wife, done by his versatile hand, increases the admiration that we, must hold for this liberal genius. Duveneck's art, no matter how much it is rooted in foreign soil, will forever make its influence felt for the best of American art.

Gallery 79.

Chase.

Balancing Duveneck's gallery on the south, William M. Chase continues the Munich traditions, in the successful treatment of a variety of subjects for which he has always been famous. Closely associated with Duveneck, and showing all the rich qualities of the Munich men, Chase's picturesque personality finds a reflection in his subjects, which all seem to have been chosen to give him an opportunity to display a certain bravado of handling which characterizes all of his work. The Chase collection gives a good idea of the career of this most useful of all American painters, who in an astonishingly active life has been teacher, friend, and counsellor to hundreds of the younger people in the field of art. His life has been most useful - always in the interest of the very best, with conspicuous success in aiding the uplift of American art. His still-lifes have for years been famous for their fidelity of interpretation of a variety of contrasting things, like fishes, copper bowls, and onions. No less interesting have been his portraits of the great mass of people who have sat for him. He has never been afraid of painting anything, and whatever it may be, he has treated it with great breadth, fine pictorial feeling, and charm of colour. His "Woman with the White Shawl" has become a classic during his lifetime, and some of his still-lifes are sufficient to serve as a permanent solid foundation for his reputation. Chase's art, while decidedly academic, excels in esprit, in a certain elegant yet energetic expression which after all is nothing but the painter's own personality reflected in his work. The delightful set of small landscapes of Italian and American subjects adds much interest in this collection, which is very well hung against an effective blue background.

Gallery 78.

Hassam.