Part 8 (1/2)
An excellent test of the quality of all such temporary structures is the satisfaction hich one thinks of thes No other of the palaces would wear so well in its beauty if it were set up for the joy of future generations It would be a glorious thing for San Francisco if the Fine Arts Palace could bematerials would cost much, but it would be worth while San Francisco owes it to itself and its love for art to see that this greatest of Western works of art does not pass away As it stands on the Exposition grounds, it isthan any of the other palaces To induce the loan of its priceless contents, the building had to be fireproof But the construction is not per of exquisite and manifold beauty, is only plaster, and can last but a season or two Even were the building solid enough to endure, its location is impossible after the Exposition closes
It should be duplicated in per of water and trees, can best be found in Golden Gate Park The steel fraallery could easily be transferred there and set up again While it would cost too much to duplicate in real marble the pillars of the colonnade and dome, yet these can be reproduced in artificial stone as successfully as they have here been imitated in plaster In the Pennsylvania Railroad station in New York travertine has been counterfeited so well that no one can tell where the real ends and the iins
Every other considerable city in the civilized world has its art gallery San Francisco has already the full-sized model of surely the most beautiful one in the world Made permanent in the Park, this Palace of Art would not only honor San Francisco, but would be ”a joy forever”
to all America
The Fine Arts Exhibit[1]--The Palace of Fine Arts contains what the International Jury declares the best and most important collection of modern art that has yet been assembled in America The war in Europe had a two-fold effect on this exhibition While it prevented so their paintings and sculptures, it led others, such as France and Italy, to send more than they otherould have sent The nuht have was limited only by its funds available for insurance So a and the Jason that an Annex was required to house them
It must be remembered that this art exhibit, like the other exhibits of the Exposition, is contemporaneous It represents, with exceptions, the work of the last decade Most of the exceptions are in the rooent, Whistler, Keith, and other loan collections, and the great Chinese exhibit of ancient paintings on silk
In general, the paintings and sculptures made famous by time are not in the Fine Arts Palace Its rooms are mainly filled with the latest work of artists of the day, exhibited under the Exposition's rule which limits competition in all departments to current production This explains, for instance, why the French Government has placed its Meissoniers and Detailles, with Rodin's bronzes, in the French Pavilion
A Michelangelo, works of Benvenuto Cellini, and s and statues are in the beautiful Italian Pavilion Other paintings of value are in the Belgian section of the French Pavilion, and in the Danish Pavilion
This lireat representation of the men of today The Palace contains a multitude of splendid pictures While of course, as in all such collections, there is some inferior work, the most pertinent criticiss, and the scope of the collection is too broad, to be seen with due appreciation in a li of different schools, styles and lands, that one is liable at first to be bewildered But the exhibit is ing the galleries is significant of the value the people put upon art Excellent as the collection is as a school for artists, it was made for popular enjoyment and education The best result to be looked for is its stimulation and culture of the public taste The people are already in love with it, and what they love they ed in fifteen sections, consisting of national, sectional, or personal, collections of paintings, besides s, prints, drawings, and tapestries The art of the sculptor is abundantly illustrated in grouped statuary, single pieces, panels in low or high relief, and wood carvings Passing the heroic eory inisthan the hundreds of small bronzes shown In brief, the Fine Arts exhibit embraces all the classifications of modern art, save the ”arts and crafts” exhibits, which are scattered a the several exhibit palaces
First in importance to a citizen of this country is the art of the United States Possibly it n visitors For the phrase ”Anized that A of its own to offer the world,--a style developed within the last, two decades The pri boldness, brilliance and a laxity of detail in portrayal, the art of America, as shown in this exhibition, e the in mind the fact that the Palace contains little A marked individualities, even in their acceptance of popular precepts The virile men of the day love luminosity; it doht; they restrain the too bold stroke of the radical Impressionist, but outline with firined by the observer, even when an expected delineation is absent Even the older h still under the influence of earlier tradition, show a distinctiveness of style that sets thelish, French or German contemporaries
The International Section, in Roo in that it erprints of each country represented There is a and profitable study Unfortunately, because of the war, the gallery contains no special rooland and Germany Both countries are represented only by loan collections Of Gers
France, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Portugal, japan, China and several of the South American countries have installed representative collections in the Palace; while the Annex, made necessary by the unexpected nuarian art, a Norwegian display, filling seven rooroup of pictures by Spanish painters, showing that the influence of Velasquez is still powerful in Spanish art The Norwegian display is one of the largest foreign sections, quite as characteristic as the Swedish, and certain to arouse discussion because of its extreme modernisreatest of Norwegian painters, and to whoned, is sure to be a bone of contention a ( widely froh hardly less modern in style, will also attract much attention The omission of Munch from the honor list is really a tribute to his eminence An artist who has won the Grand Prix at Rome and awards in every other European capital was deemed outside of competition here
Axel Gallen-Kallela, the celebrated Finnish painter, winner of the Exposition's medal of honor, fills another rooress through twenty-five years, is the only one in the Exposition to illustrate the developreat painter from his student days The collection runs froraphic in its care for detail, to his present mastery of Impressionism, wherein by a few strokes he expresses all the essentials
The Italian Futurists are well shown in the Annex, and for the first time in this country The Futurist pictures hitherto seen in Ainators of the mode A sample Futurist title, ”Architectural Construction of a Woman on the Beach,” may or may not indicate what these pictures reveal The Annex, too, has a splendid exhibit of the etchings of Frank Brangwyn, the great Englishman, who is no less renowned as an etcher than as a painter, and who has won the Exposition's ement of the rooh when the key is supplied The United States section is in the center, and, with the historical roohly, half the space, flanked by the foreign roo Four rooms of the United States section are separated from the rest and forallery The prints, drawings,a strip along the all of the building
The United States section is opened by a central hall opposite theon either side through to the foreign sections The central hall is chiefly devoted to sculpture, including Karl Bitter's strong and characteristic group, ”The Signing of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty,” Daniel Chester French's ”Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial,” both winners of the medal of honor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's fine central fountain, and other i with ancient tapestries of great interest, and paintings, h Robert Vonnoh's ”Poppies” and Ben Au Haggin's ”Little White Dancer” are adold medal
Historical Section--South of the United States section, a block of ten roole of the central hall, is devoted to painters who either have influenced Aes Room 91, on the east side of the block, contains old Dutch, Fle, though Teniers, Watteau and Tintoretto are represented Roo the tier next to the Italian section, show chiefly exa those of the Barbizon school, who have influenced later A with other nany, Courbet, Charles Le Brun, Meissonier, Tissot, Monticelli and Rousseau It has two Corots, one a delight Room 62 is even more important It offers a Millet, far from typical; a capital Schreyer, two portraits by the Ger sample of Alma Tadema's finished style, and the sensational ”Consolatrix Afflictorunan-Bouveret Better still, in Jules Breton's ”The Vintage” and Troyon's ”Landscape and Cattle” it has two of the noblest paintings to be seen in the entire Palace,-- pictures that show these great masters at their best
Room 61 is mainly devoted to the early Impressionists, with seven canvases by their leader, Claude Monet, and other landscapes by Renoir, pissaro and Sisley, and a brilliant interior (No 2343) by Gaston La Touche The pictures by Monet illustrate his progress from the hard conventionalishtful eallery contains no more triumphant piece of Impressionism than the saucy ”Lady in Pink” by the Russian, Nicholas Fechin The story set afloat that it is the work of an untaught Russian peasant sinorance of this master Every splotch of color here breathes technique As if by way of contrast, the opposite wall shows one of Puvis de Chavannes' classical e room No 63 shows a Venetian sunset by Turner, two portraits by Goya, another attributed to Velasquez, a splendid Raffaelesque altar-piece by Tiepolo, the like of which rarely leaves Italy, and canvases by Guido Reni, Ribera, and Van dyke Al space is taken up by excellent examples of the British art that influenced the early American painters, with soarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hoppner, Beechey, Allan Ramsay, Lawrence, Raeburn, and Romney The last four are especially well represented In this rooure, ”The Setting Sun,” here called ”Descending Night”
Alish portrait painters, the Ains with Rooms 60 and 59
The former is mainly filled with the work, much of it admirable, of the early American portrait painters Here are Gilbert Stuart's lovable ”President Monroe,” Benjadalen,” and portraits by Peale, Copley, West, Sully and others In Room 59, the antiquarian interest predo, and S
F B Morse, who, besides inventor, was an artist But nothing here surpasses No 1719 by Charles Loring Elliott, a canvas that is irresistible in its vivid setting forth of personality Roo well past the middle of the Nineteenth century, with typical exa names Room 57 contains a nus, the most popular of which is his ”Penance of Eleanor,” and a collection of his splendid drawings; also ie Rooara Falls” down to Stephen Parrish, Eakins, Martin, the Morans, Hovenden, and Re” (2649) is capital Room 54, the last of the American historical roo Inness, Wyant, Winslow Homer, Hunt, and other A--We coreat and splendid representation of present-day painters In noting these, the artists achieving grand prizes, old medals will often be mentioned; but a full list of such honors will be found at the end of this chapter It should be remembered that no member of a jury, and no ible for award
In general, it may be said, the Exposition puts forward the work of artists who have ”arrived” since the opening of the century In accordance with this helpful policy, older painters who had won many honors at previous exhibitions were passed over for the encourageer men It should also be noted that awards were not made for particular pictures, but upon each artist's exhibit as a whole
Rooms 55, 56, 65 and 85 show contereat credit No 65 is a large room of canvases by American women painters One who has not kept abreast of wo hih quality shown here
Two pictures by Ellen Rand (2919, 2918), Mary Curtis Richardson's captivating ”Young Mother” and her ”Professor Paget” (3000, 3002), and Alice Stoddard's iniroup, ”The Sisters” (3329), will reward very careful study of their sincerity and strength of treatment
Especially brilliant are the works of Cecilia Beaux and M Jean McLane,-- the first winning the Exposition's ayety of color Here also is a canvas (2743) by Violet Oakley, another honor medallist
Room 85 is enriched by the canvases of Charles Walter Stetson, Horatio Walker, Charles W Hawthorne, Douglas Volk (goldpictures deserve to be better hung
The Stetson group illustrates the I in the Palace Take his ”Slers” or his ”Summer Joy”
(3311, 3317), and note how a few heavy and apparently less dabs of color may be laid side by side on canvas in such a way that, when seen from a distance, they blend, until the picture not only outlines figures and foliage, but also gloith atmosphere, life and movement
These rooms complete the south half of the A, though not fully adequate, Whistler Roo the all, and fivethe east wall These five, in their order from the main entrance are: No 87, devoted to the old-masterlike works of Frank Duveneck, who, reat manner of Velasquez, Rembrandt and Franz Hals, and to whoiven for his influence on American art; No 88 filled with the admirable Iiven up to the widely contrasted work of Edmund C Tarbell and John H Twacht a well-earned popularity, Twachth prices as those of the men in Roo a small loan collection which very incompletely represents William Keith Five other individual rooms are north of the main entrance: No 79, portraits and still life by William M Chase; 78, Childe Hassam's radically Impressionist work; 77, Gari Melchers'
pictures of Dutch types and scenes; 76, the char western pictures of Arthur F Mathews and Francis McCoent roo other works his famous early portrait of Mme Gautrin, his ”John Hay,” and the sympathetic portrait of Henry Jaettes All these one-uished, though the younger men are the more coent rooms, which may be classed with the historical block, sho of the best-known masterpieces of these artists