DOI article:
Joseph T. [Turner] Keiley, The Buffalo Exhibition
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31226#0047
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characteristic of the best work of that gifted artist with which I am familiar,
did not embrace his later work which he seems to prefer not to exhibit.
The exhibition was wonderfully well hung—a task the difficulty of which
long experience has taught me. And the manner of the hanging as well as
the excellent wall arrangement of the gallery added greatly to the advantageous
display of this very remarkable and admirable exhibition which the Albright
Gallery was fortunate in being able to show.
IV
My last visit to the Albright Art Gallery was on a dark, stormy day when
snow and rain kept most people indoors. There were not many people there
at the time and the overcast weather left the gallery interior in a semi-twilight.
After I had wandered round in final review, I sat down for a while to rest.
In the quiet and semi-dusk of the nearly deserted gallery I fell open-eyed
into a dream that metamorphosed all about me into vitally palpitating life.
Out of each frame there seemed to flow a vital current of life, which comming-
ling created a complex living, swirling, revolving miniature world. Visible
to me were the creative forces behind all of these pictures—the lives that had
gone into their making. Many of these forces were warring with themselves,
warring with each other, seeking violently to rend the whole asunder. Many
of them, apparently, if left to themselves, would have destroyed their own
work. Clouds of jealousies from time to time obscured the whole. But all
the while some central force held the mass together, drawing out and some-
times shaping the best work, helping those who stumbled and uniting all the
complex, imaginative energy into one purposeful whole towards a definite
end. This central observing, guiding mind appeared to see and understand
the evolving minds about him, and to be endeavoring to evoke from each
that which was finest and best, to be endeavoring to make each bigger and
finer and immortal. And as he worked and planned a great structure seemed
to be growing under his building—and all the while his eyes were fixed on a
distant horizon from behind which shone a soft beautiful light, which was
the glow of Beauty. And as this complex structure on which he worked
expanded, grew, was raised up above the earth, slowly it became enveloped
in the golden glow of this soft light. And somehow that for which this exhi-
bition about me stood, that which it represented, seemed to be the structure
that had been raised by the tireless watcher out of the combined energy of
these evolving, complex, divergent forces, which, left to themselves, would
have wrought only destruction; and, votaries of beauty though they were,
learned but slowly and imperfectly the great lesson of beauty.
Joseph T. Keiley.
29
did not embrace his later work which he seems to prefer not to exhibit.
The exhibition was wonderfully well hung—a task the difficulty of which
long experience has taught me. And the manner of the hanging as well as
the excellent wall arrangement of the gallery added greatly to the advantageous
display of this very remarkable and admirable exhibition which the Albright
Gallery was fortunate in being able to show.
IV
My last visit to the Albright Art Gallery was on a dark, stormy day when
snow and rain kept most people indoors. There were not many people there
at the time and the overcast weather left the gallery interior in a semi-twilight.
After I had wandered round in final review, I sat down for a while to rest.
In the quiet and semi-dusk of the nearly deserted gallery I fell open-eyed
into a dream that metamorphosed all about me into vitally palpitating life.
Out of each frame there seemed to flow a vital current of life, which comming-
ling created a complex living, swirling, revolving miniature world. Visible
to me were the creative forces behind all of these pictures—the lives that had
gone into their making. Many of these forces were warring with themselves,
warring with each other, seeking violently to rend the whole asunder. Many
of them, apparently, if left to themselves, would have destroyed their own
work. Clouds of jealousies from time to time obscured the whole. But all
the while some central force held the mass together, drawing out and some-
times shaping the best work, helping those who stumbled and uniting all the
complex, imaginative energy into one purposeful whole towards a definite
end. This central observing, guiding mind appeared to see and understand
the evolving minds about him, and to be endeavoring to evoke from each
that which was finest and best, to be endeavoring to make each bigger and
finer and immortal. And as he worked and planned a great structure seemed
to be growing under his building—and all the while his eyes were fixed on a
distant horizon from behind which shone a soft beautiful light, which was
the glow of Beauty. And as this complex structure on which he worked
expanded, grew, was raised up above the earth, slowly it became enveloped
in the golden glow of this soft light. And somehow that for which this exhi-
bition about me stood, that which it represented, seemed to be the structure
that had been raised by the tireless watcher out of the combined energy of
these evolving, complex, divergent forces, which, left to themselves, would
have wrought only destruction; and, votaries of beauty though they were,
learned but slowly and imperfectly the great lesson of beauty.
Joseph T. Keiley.
29
