DOI Heft:
No. 95 (February, 1901)
DOI Artikel:Knaufft, Ernest: An American decorator: Edwin H. Blashfield
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19787#0046
An American Decorator
sophy ; Jeanne d'Arc for Patriotism ; Shakespeare's set pose. In the whole, animation of repose greets
Portia for the Law. Its types are, perhaps, no us, and if we may be allowed in this age of mate-
truer than those in the Congressional Library, but rialism to ascribe to an artist's production the
they are, we think, still more distinct creations, genesis of inspiration, we think that this St. Cecilia
The figure of St. Francis is perhaps a more unique, is as near inspiration as an American artist has
a more monumental, creation; the artist's pencil come. The figure is typically American ; not
works with rare precision as it portrays the ascetic vivacious like the French, not robust like the
saint, with his hands crossed upon his breast, his German, not slender like the English. The work
lips parted as if breathing a prayer. But the was begun in 1895, and finished in 1896.
climax was reached when he conceived his St. In 1897 came the order for the Astoria Hotel
Cecilia. We reproduce the study for this figure, ball-room ceiling. This is the largest ceiling com-
which shows admirably the extreme beauty of the position the artist has ever painted. It was begun
face and the grace of the pose. See with what early in 1897, and completed in the same year,
ease it is drawn, as though each line were as firmly The wall space was seventy feet by forty-six feet,
fixed in the artist's mind as the line with which he to be seen from so close a range as forty feet; an
draws his incomparable synthesis is fixed in the area that might unnerve an artist who had been
mind of the Japanese artist ! It has none of the painting ceilings for a lifetime,
stiff, slavish adherence to the drapery of the lay In view of its great size, and of the fact that all
figure that we find in the studies of drapery made could not be seen from any one point, the artist
by most painters under similar circumstances j made two panels of it, representing tributes to the
nor does the pose suggest in the slightest the life Dance and Music. The heads in each group are
study, wherein an artist is so often embarrassed by directed toward one another. The artist's design
the implacable modernity of his model; far less was less severe than in his other decoration, and a
does the face in the least recall the rigidity of a pleasing degree of abandon was the result. Some
OVERMANTEL DECORATION FOR'jTHE RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT, ESQ. BY E. II. BLASHFIELD
(Copyrighted ill America by E. H. Blashfield)
3°
sophy ; Jeanne d'Arc for Patriotism ; Shakespeare's set pose. In the whole, animation of repose greets
Portia for the Law. Its types are, perhaps, no us, and if we may be allowed in this age of mate-
truer than those in the Congressional Library, but rialism to ascribe to an artist's production the
they are, we think, still more distinct creations, genesis of inspiration, we think that this St. Cecilia
The figure of St. Francis is perhaps a more unique, is as near inspiration as an American artist has
a more monumental, creation; the artist's pencil come. The figure is typically American ; not
works with rare precision as it portrays the ascetic vivacious like the French, not robust like the
saint, with his hands crossed upon his breast, his German, not slender like the English. The work
lips parted as if breathing a prayer. But the was begun in 1895, and finished in 1896.
climax was reached when he conceived his St. In 1897 came the order for the Astoria Hotel
Cecilia. We reproduce the study for this figure, ball-room ceiling. This is the largest ceiling com-
which shows admirably the extreme beauty of the position the artist has ever painted. It was begun
face and the grace of the pose. See with what early in 1897, and completed in the same year,
ease it is drawn, as though each line were as firmly The wall space was seventy feet by forty-six feet,
fixed in the artist's mind as the line with which he to be seen from so close a range as forty feet; an
draws his incomparable synthesis is fixed in the area that might unnerve an artist who had been
mind of the Japanese artist ! It has none of the painting ceilings for a lifetime,
stiff, slavish adherence to the drapery of the lay In view of its great size, and of the fact that all
figure that we find in the studies of drapery made could not be seen from any one point, the artist
by most painters under similar circumstances j made two panels of it, representing tributes to the
nor does the pose suggest in the slightest the life Dance and Music. The heads in each group are
study, wherein an artist is so often embarrassed by directed toward one another. The artist's design
the implacable modernity of his model; far less was less severe than in his other decoration, and a
does the face in the least recall the rigidity of a pleasing degree of abandon was the result. Some
OVERMANTEL DECORATION FOR'jTHE RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT, ESQ. BY E. II. BLASHFIELD
(Copyrighted ill America by E. H. Blashfield)
3°