International studio (35.1908)

Albert Sterner s “ Sanguines"

Albert sterner’s “sanguines”
BY ARTHUR HOEBER
L There is something very charming
about the red chalk drawings which the
French call “sanguines.” It is a method but little
used in these days as a means of expression. There
is demanded of the artist who employs this medium
a directness of attack that makes for authority,
since one may erase only to a limited extent that
which is set down on the paper, and so the draughts-
man must, perforce, be sure of himself. He must,
first of all, know what he means to say, and knowing
it, must indicate it with precision and intelligence.
The exhibition held by Albert Sterner recently, at
the Bauer-Folsom galleries on Fifth Avenue, New
York, introduced the general public to a well-
known man in a new role. His name is, of course,
a household word as an illustrator, and he has not
been without honor for his efforts with brush and
pigment. Yet a room full of “sanguines” came
more or less in the nature of a novelty. It is, per-
haps, this long apprenticeship to illustration that
has served Mr. Sterner so well in the making of
these portraits in red chalk; this, and the fact that
he is a most sympathetic craftsman, temperamen-
tally alive to the faintest impression and sensitive to
a degree, and the score and more of likenesses, rang-
ing from youth—even babyhood—to old age, were
not surprising to such as have followed the man; a
goodly company, too, for Mr. Sterner is not without
a host of admirers.
To me drawing is a mode of expression that sin-
gularly fits portraiture, for I have always main-
tained the great oil portrait is rarely satisfactory, no
matter what the talent of the painter. It is so apt
to be perfunctory, so apt to exploit some technical
accomplishment of the artist, so rarely a work actu-
ated primarily by the desire for the human docu-
ment. It would, perhaps, be ungracious to say the
art died with the last of the Georgian men, but it is
certain that the great modern portraitists can be
counted on two hands and still leave a finger or two.
With these drawings, of modest proportions, of
quiet refinement, of so intimate a nature, one feels
attracted to the personality of the sitter, in touch
with what the artist has wrought, realizing a satis-
faction from the result rarely possible with the enor-
mous oil canvas. How certain is Mr. Sterner of his
metier one may readily observe in these delightful
renderings of men, women and children, where he
seems to have arrived at the very essence of his sit-
ters and limned so many of them with loving en-
thusiasm. It is difficult to make a choice here, so

high is the average, so even the interpretation, each
problem seeming to have profoundly interested Mr.
Sterner at the time of working. The fact is, he dis-
closes here a love of humanity, an analysis of traits
that is unusual, and he seems to have been deter-
mined to discover for himself those qualities the
average human guards very jealously, the qualities
he discloses only to a select few, but which he has
confided to this interesting artist almost uncon-
sciously.
Best of all, through the show Mr. Sterner rises
well above methods. The why or the wherefore
concerns him not at all; the sitter is the main
thing. To get the personality, the psychological
quality, the human note, these are the ambitions,
and one feels they have been, to a large extent,
realized. If one may make any selection, however,
there is an appealing quality in his rendering of old
age, which he invests with rare dignity, with senti-
ment, with tender charm and respectful homage
that he unconsciously pays it. And he suggests so
much by such an economy of line and mass,
every stroke being pregnant with meaning, every
touch telling in a craftsmanlike manner. If it be
only the fall of a curl on a girl’s shoulder, or the
wave of some dear gray hair, it is suggested so
daintily, so lovingly, as to demand your respect,
and is no less full of character than is the face. So
just is the draughtsmanship that at times it is
almost photographic in its exactitude, not the nig-
gling detail of the camera be it understood as that
word is generally intended, but fidelity to forms,
knowledge of anatomical construction that only are
possible with a man thoroughly grounded in the
technique of his profession. This, Mr. Sterner is,
for he has served a long apprenticeship, as I have
already indicated. It is, too, little short of astonish-
ing how the man goes with equal enthusiasm and
capacity to the representation of widely differing
types, youth and old age, virile masculinity and the
esthete, never missing it. You find a well-bred,
fashionable woman, modishly arrayed, alongside
of a thoughtful student; a man obviously the suc-
cessful merchant near the artistic features of a
dreaming creator of artistic fancies, and to each
Mr. Sterner has given not alone the characteristics,
but he has managed to get obvious enjoyment out
of his labors, putting himself well en rapport with
his sitter in every case.
In short, it is difficult to write of these efforts
without letting enthusiasm run away with one, so do
they appeal by their honesty of purpose and their
dainty workmanship, so genuinely artistic are they,
and in such good taste. That they have style, it

LIV