International studio (26.1905)

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part of the rough-hewn wall. The other sets forth
the change wrought by a hunter's mis-step: a twig
has broken beneath his foot and the creature is
awake and on the defensive. Alive in every fibre
she sits up in an attitude of suspicious attention.
Each, according to the law of sculptural achieve-
ment, is a work complete in itself—well conceived
and artistically rendered—but studied relatively
their interest is enhanced.
Or again, turn to his Toverx, a large
bronze showing two great brutes resting on a rock,
side by side, the lines of their lithe bodies almost
parallel, their heads drooping affectionately to-
gether. Note the unity of the composition, the
solidity of the massing and the rhythmical turning
of the clear cut outline. Study for a moment one
of his buffalo charging forward like an infuriated
engine of war or pausing with half-injured expres-
sion to locate the danger which has been scented,
and it will be observed that each of the groups finds
its appeal as much in its artistic merit as in its
sentimental suggestion.
If genius be the power to create without con-
sciousness of method, then Mr. Kemeys indeed has
genius; for, as he himself admits, his sculptures
take form instinctively beneath his hands. There
is, of course, back of them a tremendous fund of
accurate knowledge, but the work itself is never
the result of deep thought nor great labour. It
grows spontaneously—readily—and herein, per-
haps, lies its greatness and the explanation of its
charm.
What Mr. Kemeys' work has done for the art of
America and what place it will be given by future
generations, we of to-day can merely conjecture
but that it is pertinent and has a mission, all who
have seeing eyes must already feel assured.

, HE WINDO W OPENING IN DECO-
RATION.

T
The development of plate glass has
widened the breach in the walls we live
behind and contributed to the impulse of the day that
invites us out of doors. The opening that once served
mainly the crossbow has come to frame the cross
country panorama. An intenser appreciation of
landscape availed itself of triumphs in glass manu-
facture to impress the view into the decorative
scheme of the interiour. If we took delight in the
full sweep of the horizon or the full height of the
mountain why relinquish these beauties on enter-
ing the house? Yet, though Nature presented
no bills for such decoration, it had its price.

That the unimpeded window opening as an
architectural device is more amenable interiourallv
than exteriouraily is attested by the resultant loss in
the handling of the important effect of mass in later
day elevations frequently complained of; and the
struggle with awkwardly inviolate gaps has added
professionally to the popularity of the return to f a vour
of the building styles of earlier periods, with their
unnecessary panes in the sash. The whole prob-
lem is involved with the almost discomfiting readi-
ness of our modern ingenuity, with the apparent,
if unconfessed, temper of mind which would per-
suade us, that if a thing is worth doing at all it is
worth doing, at least as an experiment, to the
uttermost extreme. It is as though we saw we
needed light and said, Let there be nothing but
windows. Being no longer committed to the
sling we can afford to live in glass houses. Within
a few weeks, indeed, a Western architect, with the
full courage of our tentative convictions, has been
trying to persuade a National Bank in Des Moines,
Iowa, to let him erect a new building for them of the
so-called wire-glass, heavy translucent glass with an
imbedded wire mesh, contrived to resist the effects
of fire. His plans called for double walls of wire-


LANDSCAPE IN STAINED GLASS
TIFFANY STUDIOS, NEW YORK

XIV