DOI issue:
Nr. 217 (March, 1915)
DOI article:B. Nelson, W. H. de: Philadelphia's hundred and tenth annual
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43458#0008
Philadelphia s Hundred and Tenth Annual
UNIVERSITATS-
BIBLIOTHEK
HEIDELBERG
---/
ENGLISH NURSE BY MARTHA WALTER
culvert. Carton Moorepark is a great animal
painter—greater, probably, than any American
painter of to-day—but one looks in vain for a
Moorepark to gladden a palate somewhat jaded by
a surfeit of landscape and portrait. Toujours per-
drix should be an absent note at an exhibition, but
as long as names are regarded apart from paint-
ings there will of necessity be a long list of recipe
painters—painters of rechauffes, for wjiorn a tender
spot lingers in the hearts of the jury, and a ten-
der place “on the line.” We see the same subject
painted with the same palette continually; some-
times a tree may be lopped or a crow added; it may
be that a path may be rendered more tortuous or
even a solid rock shifted a foot or two from its
previous site in the canvas. One well-known art-
ist varies his subject only by the size of his sky or
by the length of his purple shadows. And yet
these ubiquitous pictures gaze at us serenely, with
aj’y suis j'y reste complacency that is positively
baffling. No wonder an observant young lady
from California, in looking round an exhibition—
in New York, not in Philadelphia—remarked, as
she shrugged a pair of graceful shoulders, “sac-
charine futility!”
The remarkable contribution of W. M. Chase,
entitled Portrait: Mrs. Eldridge R. Johnson, has
painter-like quality in a most marked degree. It
has all the dash and spirit of work by a young man
with the experience and restraint of a veteran.
Textures are handled in a skilful manner. Tones
and harmonies are an incessant joy, while the
masses are grouped and held as only a great master
could conceive. That splurge of light upon the
screen haunts the memory! Some fault of con-
struction shows the sitter to be not properly seated
in the chair; in all other respects this portrait is
a masterpiece and shows W. M. Chase at his very
best. Irving R. Wiles has a sketchy but excellent
canvas, called Laughing Girl, while Alice Stoddard
is represented by a blue-eyed, blue-shirted young-
ster with a nice shock of hair of the type best
known as “ carrots ”—to hold the mirror to nature
or to offset the shirt. Quien sabe?—it is some-
what Henriesque, full of merit, simply and solidly
painted, and the hands well studied. Josephine
IV
UNIVERSITATS-
BIBLIOTHEK
HEIDELBERG
---/
ENGLISH NURSE BY MARTHA WALTER
culvert. Carton Moorepark is a great animal
painter—greater, probably, than any American
painter of to-day—but one looks in vain for a
Moorepark to gladden a palate somewhat jaded by
a surfeit of landscape and portrait. Toujours per-
drix should be an absent note at an exhibition, but
as long as names are regarded apart from paint-
ings there will of necessity be a long list of recipe
painters—painters of rechauffes, for wjiorn a tender
spot lingers in the hearts of the jury, and a ten-
der place “on the line.” We see the same subject
painted with the same palette continually; some-
times a tree may be lopped or a crow added; it may
be that a path may be rendered more tortuous or
even a solid rock shifted a foot or two from its
previous site in the canvas. One well-known art-
ist varies his subject only by the size of his sky or
by the length of his purple shadows. And yet
these ubiquitous pictures gaze at us serenely, with
aj’y suis j'y reste complacency that is positively
baffling. No wonder an observant young lady
from California, in looking round an exhibition—
in New York, not in Philadelphia—remarked, as
she shrugged a pair of graceful shoulders, “sac-
charine futility!”
The remarkable contribution of W. M. Chase,
entitled Portrait: Mrs. Eldridge R. Johnson, has
painter-like quality in a most marked degree. It
has all the dash and spirit of work by a young man
with the experience and restraint of a veteran.
Textures are handled in a skilful manner. Tones
and harmonies are an incessant joy, while the
masses are grouped and held as only a great master
could conceive. That splurge of light upon the
screen haunts the memory! Some fault of con-
struction shows the sitter to be not properly seated
in the chair; in all other respects this portrait is
a masterpiece and shows W. M. Chase at his very
best. Irving R. Wiles has a sketchy but excellent
canvas, called Laughing Girl, while Alice Stoddard
is represented by a blue-eyed, blue-shirted young-
ster with a nice shock of hair of the type best
known as “ carrots ”—to hold the mirror to nature
or to offset the shirt. Quien sabe?—it is some-
what Henriesque, full of merit, simply and solidly
painted, and the hands well studied. Josephine
IV