International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

The International Exhibition at Pittsburgh


Another distinctly American theme is pre-
sented by E. Irving Couse, in bis The Mountain
Hunter, showing an Indian trailing through the
woods. The artist has forsaken the hot tones that
have hitherto characterized his work, and, confin-
ing himself to gray, cool colour, secures a rnore
agreeable result, the model being full of character,
set in proper environment. Some children engaged
in Flying Kites, by Charles C. Curran, have the
note of sincerity, being drawn and painted with nice
feeling for adolescence, in a naive way. Charles W.
Hawthorne continues along with his Cape Cod
fishermen, of the Portuguese colony at Province-
town, and these he has obviously studied with great
seriousness, painting them in a broad manner,
catching the character cleverly and brushing in his
work with unction. A still life by him is no less
effective.
Of the landscape men, Eimer Schoheld is promi-
nent with his Autumn, a symphony in violet and
gray, of some trees against the sky, broadly treated
and of decorative quality, and in a simple little
Stretch of road in winter Walter Nettleton has man-
aged to convev an unusual amount of Sentiment

that is highly agreeable.
Edouard Steichen sends two
attractive little landscapes, a
moonlight and a twilight,
both showing serious Obser-
vation of the different peri-
ods of day and night, seen
through a distinctly poetic
temperament and techni-
cally highly satisfactory.
Much poetry, too, has Gus-
tave Weigand, in his Mother
Earth, with its storm and
rainbow effect, all ably man-
aged after evident close study.
Willard Metcalf is at his best
in Kalmia, with its flowering
bushesbythesideof a stream,
the delicacy of the pink and
white blossoms being caught
with tenderness and feeling,
the result being a picture
having much of the poetry
of nature. Leonard Ocht-
man, Granville Smith and
Charles Morris Young send
representative landscapes,
and from Clark G. Voorhees
there is a modest study of
Lyme Church that is just in
values, of charming colour and unusually syrnpa-
thetic in the painting. Emil Carlsen, in his rather
empty Gallows Mountain, is forceful, but not over-
interesting, the colour scheme having a monotony,
and Bruce Crane’s canvas, Sunrise, of much merit,
is unfortunate in having tones that cause it to
merge in with the background of the walls, which
are hung with a somewhat trying gray fabric.
There is a prevalence of dark pictures in this
exhibition, with an effort to a simplicity of treat-
ment that not infrequently ends by making the pic-
tures somewhat empty. And there are many things
here along lines of other previous work that has
attracted attention; in short, a not inconsiderable
number of men are painting according to certain
receipt and as their source of inspiration is obvious,
it ends by being tiresome. Nevertheless, as a whole,
the show is encouraging, disclosing a healthy free-
dom from Convention, a searching for novelty, and
now and then an originality that is promising for the
future, as well as interesting for the moment, and
there is much to attract the visitor, of whom there
will be many. It is to be regretted that such an
exhibition is not feasible in a larger and more cos-

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