ART NOTES OF REAL INTEREST.

THE retrospective exhibition of the Society of American Artists was opened to the public in the new building of the Fine Arts Society in December. The exhibition consisted of works by the members, and some etchings and prints belonging to Mr. George W. Vanderbilt. The paintings and statuary filled the two larger galleries, the principal one of which is in all respects the finest gallery in the city. The society was formed in 1877, and the work shown represented the best efforts of the members since that date. The society includes a large proportion of the strongest and most progressive of our younger painters and sculptors. It was a happy thought, this retrospective exhibition, for it gave those pessimistic persons who find pleasure in decrying the work done in these days an effective quietus. True, we have many painters here in America, but there are artists among them, and of these we are justly proud.

The landscape men whose work was on view carried things well, in the impressionistic manner. They are enthusiastic over the getting of values in certain new ways, and they have almost succeeded in inducing one to believe in their way of “seeing" nature—almost, but not quite.

There were Mr. Twachtman's large, interesting, and badly hung landscape; Mr. Bunker's "Neglected Corner "; some good flower pieces by the women members. Mr. Wier's portrait of the "Young Man with a Gun," and his "Early Moonrise in Summer," in the new manner which he has adopted; Mr. Theodore Robinson's pretty girls, and his "Winter Landscape"; Mr. Homer Martin's "Old Manor "; Mr. Cox's "Flying Shadows"; Mr. Hassam's "Snowstorm," one of his cleverly handled street scenes; Mr. La Farge's "Fog Blowing in from the Sea," and his pre-Raphaelite "Study at Newport," with sheep and lambs disporting themselves; and Mr. Eakin's “Mending the Net," are all interesting, very diverse in method, and both thoughtful and artful.

Then there are the figure painters: Mr. Whistler's "Anglo-Japanese Ladies," pleasant persons well painted; Mr. Walker's "Pandora," Mr. La Farge's "Venus Anadyomene," and the late William Hunt's "Boy and Butterfly," Mr. Blashfield's more or less happy and huge "Christmas Bells," Mr. Dewing's "Prelude,” and Mr. Wier's mystical “Open Book.”

Of the work of the sculptors there are good examples of Mr. French, whose "Angel of Death and the Sculptor" is reminiscent; Mr. Warner's portrait bust of the painter J. Alden Wier, Mr. St. Gaudens' bust of the late General Sherman, and Mr. MacMonnies' "Diana," and the altogether charming "Faun" of Mr. Louis St. Gaudens. The desire has been expressed that it might be perpetuated in some more lasting material than plaster, and set up in one of the parks of the city. In retrospection the gain is entirely in the matter of technique; of great thought there is none, nor are the present tendencies at all in that direction. But the exhibition satisfies one that our painters, as far as handicraft goes, are very near the realization of the highest standard of European excellence, which position, attained as it has been in fifteen years, is surely incomparable.

The Water Color Club, the youngest and by no means the weakest of the art organizations, opened an artistically successful exhibition of water colors, at the

Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, in December. The little sketches of Mr. George H. Clements call for specific mention, and one wishes for the necessary space. There were pictures by Ben Foster, George Wharton Edwards, Clara McChesney, Mrs. Van Houten Mesday, J. H. Sharp, Sarah C. Sears, Childe Hassam, and others, to mention which would be to enumerate almost all the successful best known painters in the city.

Mr. F. Edwin Elwell, the sculptor, has been awarded the contract for an equestrian statue of Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, which is to be erected at Gettysburg. It is said that the sculptor will receive twenty-two thousand dollars for his work.

Mrs. Whitman, a Boston artist, whose work is favorably received here and highly appreciated in Boston, gave a small exhibition of her talents at the Avery Gallery in December. There were book covers, pastels, portraits, and water-color drawings, all very well worth study. Her decorative work is pleasing, but her portraits are somewhat heavy in handling and dark from the use of bitumen. Some of the Bahama studies were agreeable, in well-conceived tones of gray and violet.

Several of the late A. H. Wyant's poetic landscapes were shown at Richards' Gallery in November. They are refined in tone, of good composition, and unforced sentiment. Mr. Wyant's talent and accomplishment were very even, and his death is a loss to American art.

Mr. George W. Vanderbilt's gift to the American Fine Arts Society, of the magnificent gallery costing one hundred thousand dollars, will, it is hoped, stimulate others of our wealthy men to like generosity. The gallery is modelled after that of Georges Petit in the Rue Sièze in Paris. There is still a heavy debt of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the property of the society.

Mr. Frederic Remington, well known as an illustrator, gave an exhibition of his work in color, at the American Art Gallery, which was followed by an auction sale in which good prices were obtained. Mr. Remington is a clever man and deserves his many successes.

Mr. Bryson Burroughs, the young man who won last year the first prize founded by Mr. J. Armstrong Chanler, sent back some of his drawings and paintings which were shown at the Art Students' League on January 7th. The exhibit was highly praised by MM. J. J. Gerome, Puvis de Chavannes, Benjamin Constant, and Carolus Duran, the Paris Committee, and was highly enjoyed by the pupils of the League, and others.

There was an exhibition of pre-Raphaelite pictures by Rossetti, Burne Jones, Ford Madox Browne, Blake, and others at the Century Club, most of the paintings belonging to Mr. Samuel Bancroft, Jr.; the "Beata Beatrix," to Mr. Charles L. Hutchinson, of Chicago; the water colors by Rossetti, to Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, and Blake's curious "Elijah," to Mr. John S. Ingalls. This exhibition. afforded New Yorkers the happy opportunity of seeing the works of the preRaphaelite painters hung together.

Mr. Brush's charming "Mother and Child," recently shown at the Union League Club, has been purchased by Mr. Montgomery Sears, of Boston, who also

owns Mr. Thayer's large " Madonna Enthroned," which achieved a success at the Society of American Artists' exhibition last year.

Mr. William H. Low's fine decorative canvas for the ceiling of the new Waldorf Hotel has, owing to a mistake in the measurement, suffered much in being cut down to its proper size. There was, it is said, an error of some twelve inches

around its whole length.

Mr. William A. Coffin, a fluent writer upon art matters and a painter of individuality, gave a small exhibition of his pictures at the Avery Galleries. His "The Rain" is a fine rendering of a drenched, gloomy gray landscape, with a charm of color all his own. In the other pictures, nature was rendered in a variety of aspects with considerable skill.

At an auction sale of paintings by European and American artists, collected by the late Samuel Schwartz, a picture by Jennie Brownscombe brought two hundred and twenty-five dollars; for the others, bidding was slow and poor prices prevailed.

It is said that one may find on the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee the same sort of subjects that Millet painted at Barbizon: blue clothing, sabots, and the rudest of farming implements. Here is an opportunity for some of our young

men.

The Grolier Club gave an exhibition of engraved portraits by Faithorne, and there was on view a copy of the bronze medallion portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Ringel d'Illzach, which is to be the next publication by the club.

At the exhibition of the Union League Club, "The Mandolin Player," by H. W. Watrous, and Louis Moeller's "Explanation" attracted much attention, and were very favorably received.

The American Art Association hung their galleries with the three collections of the late Charles J. Osborn, the late Edwin Thorne, and Mr. E. S. Chapin. The collection was a mixed one, decidedly so, and some of the pictures in it were trash; but there are others, and the number is by no means small, which are excellent specimens of an art which was in vogue ere the beauties of the Barbizon school were appreciated by our collectors.

Of this art, we saw such exponents as MM. Lefebvre, De Neuville, Detaille, Munkacsy, Bouguereau, and Gerome. These men still have their followers, who are not to be persuaded away by other beauties they know not of. As for M. Munkacsy, his star does not seem to be in the ascendant just now.

One is surprised to see again the large portrait of the painter and wife in his studio, which was one of Mr. Osborn's star pictures, and to note the change in its color—indeed, the loss of color-from, one would say, the admixture of bitumen in which this artist believes; its brilliancy has vanished, and there remains but the effect of the brilliant technique, the bravura, which happily cannot be marred by any chemical deterioration.

The work, apart from this, commands one's admiration, and leads but to regret that the artist should have been so short-sighted and impatient for the tone that only time can give. The principal picture in the Thorne Collection was the "Oriental Carpet Merchant," by Gerome, which shows the artist at his best, and in it

he has worked out a successful scheme of composition and color, mosaic in its quality.

Of Detaille, and his friendly rival De Neuville, now dead, there were some representative pictures, and there were, besides, a head by Couture, a Venetian scene by Rico, an example of the Polish painter Kowalski, some amusing conceits by Casanova, Flamang, Leloir, and Delort, a water-color by G. H. Boughton, and a marine by W. T. Richards. There were some four hundred numbers in the catalogue of Bronzes, Porcelains, Ivories, and Bric-à-brac, which were interesting, but for the mention of which we lack space.

There was an interesting exhibition of a number of statues and groups in marble and bronze by Gaetano Russo, the designer and sculptor of the Columbus monument, at the Fifth Avenue Auction Rooms in the early part of February. At the auction sale which followed, the sales amounted to four thousand six hundred and five dollars; the largest price received was five hundred and sixty-five dollars, for the "Bathing Woman."

A miscellaneous exhibition of pictures was held at the Union League Club on February 9th. It was the first effort of the new Art Committee.

The Loan Exhibition of the Fine Arts Society opened in the middle of February. There were pictures by Rembrandt, De Hooghe, Rigaud, and Velasquez, and pictures of the English school were loaned by Mr. W. H. Fuller and Mrs. Blodgett.

Mr. Cyrus J. Lawrence loaned his magnificent Barye bronzes, over one hundred in number, and there were the beautiful Tanagra figures belonging to Mr. Altman and Mr. T. B. Clark. Mr. C. D. French sent his colossal model of the Statue of the Republic at Chicago. The rest of the exhibition included tapestries, arms, ceramics, fans, laces, miniatures, and enamels.

Mr. Arthur Parton and Mr. Seymour J. Guy, both National Academicians, hung the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries with some of their representative pictures. Mr. Parton is a good colorist, and his pictures leave a pleasant memory with one. Mr. Guy's fine draughtsmanship condones the sentimentality and prettiness of his subjects, which prettiness is the attraction to those who care most for the storytelling quality in which Mr. Guy excels.

The St. James Gazette applauds our huge new Columbian stamps in the highest terms, points to the excellence of the workmanship, and calls attention to the "degraded character" of the color and engraving of the new British issue.

The sales of the first week at the Water Color Society Exhibition amounted to twelve thousand and eighty-five dollars for one hundred and fourteen pictures.

W. L. Sonntag, N.A., and Henry A. Ferguson, A.F.A., exhibited a number of paintings, in the style in which each has become well known, at the Fifth Avenue Galleries in the early part of February. Of Mr. Sonntag it may be said that he paints with a certain originality of color, and strong, dramatic effect, qualities by no means to be despised and ones by which he has held a large clientele. Mr. Ferguson, if less dexterous in his art, is more thoughtful, and strives for the character and locale of his landscapes. His "Glenn Falls on the Hudson," and "A Street in Orizaba, Mexico," are sufficient proof of the truthfulness of his work.