International studio (17.1902)

American Studio Talk

tactfulness of decorative composition that dis-
tinguishes them appears also in his oil pictures.
And when we examine the decorations of the
Doge’s palace, including those of Tintoretto, we
find our modern theories of the distinction be-
tween pictorial and mural painting conspicuously
contradicted.

In any case what distinguishes the work is less
the method of technique than the quality of the
man behind it. So that if in the Boston Public
Library we give our preference to the panels by
Puvis, it is rather a tribute to the lifelong efforts of
a master mind to reach such mode of expression as
should be most expressive of itself, of its own way
of seeing and feeling. And this is precisely the
way in which Abbey has attacked his particular
problem, working in his own particular spirit, that
conjures up from the past an episode and tries to
reclothe it in appropriate form and environment.
He has had the courage to stick by his own individ-
ual promptings, and in fairness should be judged
by the results achieved along such lines. And in
the growth of this series of decorations we may
certainly perceive an evolution of strength and free-
dom, an increase of plasticity in the composition,
and more abundance of decorative resourcefulness
as the work proceeds; qualities which augur a still
greater success for his next important decoration,
when experience shall have produced a fuller
assurance.

As to the character of thought which is embodied
in these episodes from the old legend there may
be legitimate criticism. None will dispute Abbey’s
ability to call up the past and make it reasonable
and lively. But has he in this case evoked the
spirit of the past? This to a very great extent
Burne-Jones did in his renderings of the Holy
Grail story. In his pictures we feel the force of
the spiritual ecstasy that led men on to the pursuit
of the ideal; but I fancy we feel it as something
afar off from ourselves, a breath from the mystery
of the past. We miss its relation to living flesh
and blood, to men of like physical nature with
ourselves. Abbey, on the other hand, has given us
the life and its material accompaniments; these
episodes in a very real way live before us and are
made materially intelligible, but without the ecstasy
and spiritual exaltation that would make them also
spiritually comprehensible. He has reincarnated
the legend, but has failed to capture its soul.
Some day, perhaps, will arise a painter who in
himself can combine the qualities of Abbey and
of Burne-Jones and will revivify the story of the

Holy Grail in its perennial relation to the soul
and matter alike of humanity.

In the mean while if we find these decorations
tumultuous notwithstanding their intrinsic grandeur,
it is, perhaps, because of this lack of spirituality,
which, whether it take a religious form or, as in
the case of Puvis, an aesthetic one, tends to regulate
and simplify. The French artist through most of
his life was an isolated man, — a John the Baptist
crying in the wilderness, proclaiming a faith for
which the world of his day had no use, and, in
the end, but a sentimental interest. Abbey, for all
his affinity with the past, is a modern, and his work
partakes of the present confusion of issues. Like
many others, he finds refreshment in the past, but
draws from it chiefly its pageantry and pride of
life. The still small voice of its struggling soul
escapes him; which is less blame to him than to
the age in which he works.

Mural decorations in the

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON

. Three out of the five decorations com-
missioned for the State House at Boston have been
put in place, executed, respectively, by Edward Sim-
mons, H. O. Walker, and Robert Reid. The panel
by the last-named confronts one high up in the
second hall, its subject being James Otis arguing
against the Writs of Resistance before the Court
of Appeals. The central figure with hand above
his head is in black, and he stands a little in ad-
vance of a group of black-garbed men, while the
judges to the right form a mass of scarlet robes and
white full wigs. A flood of sunshine illumines the
picture, making the scarlet fairly glow, and the
white wigs almost incandescent, enlivening also
the black costumes with a labyrinth of reflections.
Technically this is very fine, giving an aesthetic
quality to the picture that mingles audacity with
subtlety: an admirably ingenious way of securing
a decorative effect. And this is about the measure
of its excellence ; for the device of lighting lends a
prominence to the judges at the expense of the
importance of the central figure, and it can scarcely
be said that the significance of the episode has been
adequately expressed. So it is an agreeable rather
than an impressive painting, but by reason of its
technical skilfulness very superior to the work of
the other two painters in the next hall.

Mr. Walker has represented the Arrival of the
Mayflower, treating the subject partly in a literal
and partly in an allegorical way, for above the group

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