International studio (52.1914)

Martha Walter, Painter oj Joyous Children

doors. To bring all these rich and agreeable
colour notes into one mellow unity the light is
screened, and all the lamps have orange shades.
Perhaps there is nothing of greater interest to
the future of art in America than just this appar-
ently unimportant item, namely, that Albert
Herter has established certain parts of each paint-
ing to provide a keynote for the entire hall. It is

Martha Walter, painter of
JOYOUS CHILDREN
BY HELEN L. SLACK
There are some things which even
a suffragist has to concede that men do better
than women; but there are a few spheres in art
that even a man may concede belong by right of

to proclaim aloud what every artist knows yet

nature to a woman. One of these is the intimate

rarely can follow, the rule that each interior
should have harmony in all its parts, not alone
architectural, but, even more, colour harmony.
It is easy to imagine that wall paintings contain-
ing such a wealth of figures introduce problems
of mass and composition very difficult to solve.
Europe, you may observe, is divided between two
main groups, in one of which the two horsemen

portrayal of little children. Martha Walter has
thoroughly studied the lives of children from baby-
hood up through youth; she has taken them to her
heart, and then depicted their joys with irresist-
ible charm.
It is this human appeal which has made Miss
Walter’s work successful. Down all the years
since time began, tired men and busy women have

form the nucleus, the two marching ladies and

three serving boys are adjuncts, while the singers,
the churchmen and a nobleman on horseback

compose the second group. Woodlands to right
and left, hills with wedges of trees, help to dis-
tribute agreeably the static masses among which
the procession moves. In Ajrica the distribution
of background and processional figures is very
different. Movement is slower, as if conditioned
by the tardier pace of the camel. In
South America the train seems to have com^.ton
a full stop. Native porters have taken theirdoads
from their heads and kneeling down have opened
their packs to display the gifts. One does not tire
of examining pictures where there is so much va-

THE PICNIC BY MARTHA WALTER


riety of movement, where so many points of beauty
exist upon which the eye delights to linger.

This extraordinary series of paintings on a
grand scale has been accomplished in six or eight
months—which is tantamount to saying that no
single hand could have carried them out during
that term with so much success in grouping, colour
and efficient brushwork. Mr. Herter has had two

never been too weary, or too full of work, to stop
at the call of a little child. When one opens the
door of the gallery where her exhibition is held,
one is compelled to forget whatever of toil, what-
ever of sorrow, he has brought within; for there,
like lights in the darkness, shine out dozens of

ateliers engaged on these murals, in which young
artists of both sexes have laboured early and late,
forgetful of holidays and vacations, to carry them
to a successful conclusion. Designs and colour
scheme, of course, are his, and much of the direct
painting is by his brush, especially the final work
over all. These canvases are in some cases so large
that they had to be painted by sections hanging
from a roller, on which the upper part was wound
as it was painted. Of course all the great can-
vases were gone over again by Mr. Herter after
they were placed in the St. Francis Hotel, so as
to bring every portion into harmony with its sur-
roundings.

bright-eyed, rosy children, who laugh out from the
pictured walls. Miss Walter paints the children
when they are engaged in the simple pleasures a
child most dearly loves. Some are gathering
flowers out in the woods, others are having a picnic
on a sunny stretch of grass, others, rolling their
hoops, are running along down a hill. In one
corner is a portrait of a baby who, left alone in her
carriage, gurgles over her rattle and looks up at
the onlooker with her great blue eyes filled with
the wonder of the universe. In another picture,
called A Brittany Family, a round-faced baby
leaps up in his mother’s arms, while just behind
him in the shadow we can make out dimly the

XLII