The Galleries of the Exposition | Page 4

of certain notable works of art. It is my conviction that it is the
manifestations of an artists artistic conscience which make exhibitions
good, and not the question whether the public likes certain pictures or
not. Only by constant study, a serious attitude, and a willingness to
follow the artist into his realm can the public hope fully to enjoy the
meaning of the artist's endeavors.

The Galleries of the Exposition

Retrospective Art

It would seem only logical to begin our investigation with the pictures
chronologically oldest, at the same time recognizing that European art
has the right to first consideration. We are the hosts to the art of the
world. Our own art is the newest, and yet occupies a large number of
galleries most conspicuously, but it will not lose by waiting for
attention till the end.
Gallery 63.
Some of the very earliest paintings in the exhibition are found in one of
the large center rooms on the left, where a very stately Tiepolo controls
the artistic atmosphere of a large gallery. This picture has all the
qualities of an old Italian master of the best kind. Its composition is big
and dignified and in the interest and richness of its color scheme it has
here few equals. The chief characteristic of this splendid canvas is
bigness of style. In its treatment it is a typical old master, in the best
meaning of the term.
On the left of this Tiepolo, a rather sombre canvas by Ribera claims
attention by the peculiar lighting scheme, so typical of this Italian
master. While there is what we might call a quality of flood lighting in
the Tiepolo, giving an envelope of warm, mellow light to the whole
picture, Ribera concentrates his light somewhat theatrically upon his
subjects, as in the St. Jerome. The picture is freely painted, with the
very convincing anatomical skill that is manifest in most of Ribera's
work. His shadows are sometimes black and impenetrable, a quality
which his pictures may not have had at the time of their production, and
which may be partly the result of age. The Goya on the same wall is
uninteresting - one of those poor Goyas which have caused delay in the

just placing of this great Spaniard in the history of art.
The Turner below the Goya has all the imaginative qualities of that
great Englishman's best work. Venice may never look the way Turner
painted it, but his interpretation of a gorgeous sunset over a canal is
surely fascinating enough in its suggestion of wealth of form and color.
Sir William Beechey's large canvas of a group of children and a dog
probably presented no easy task to the painter. The attempt at a skillful
and agreeable arrangement of children in pictures is often artificial, and
so it is to my mind in this canvas. Nevertheless the colouring, together
with the spontaneous technique, put it high above many canvases of
similar type. The Spanish painting on the right of the Beechey could
well afford to have attached to it the name of one of the best artists of
any school. The unknown painter of this Spanish gentleman knew how
to disclose the psychology of his sitter in a straightforward way that
would have done honor to Velasquez, or to Frans Hals, of whom this
picture is even more suggestive.
Below this very fine portrait Sir Godfrey Kneller is represented by a
canvas very typical of the eighteenth century English portrait painters.
The canvas has a little of the character of everybody, without being
sufficiently individual. Reynolds' "Lady Ballington" has a wonderful
quality of repose and serenity, one of the chief merits of the work of all
those great English portrait painters of the eighteenth century. No
matter whose work it is, whether of Reynolds, Romney, Hoppner, or
any of that classic period of the painters of distinguished people, they
always impress by the dignity of their composition and colour. We do
not know in all cases how distinguished their sitters really were, but
like Reynolds' "Lady Ballington," they must often have been of a sort
superior physically as well as intellectually.
Above the Reynolds a small Gainsborough landscape blends well with
the predominant brown of these old canvases. From the point of view
of the modern landscape painter, who believes in the superiority of his
outlook and attitude toward nature, we can only be glad that
Gainsborough's fame does not depend upon his representation of
out-of-doors. This small canvas, like the very big one on the opposite
wall, is interesting in design. But neither gives one the feeling of
outdoors that our modern landscape painters so successfully impart.
Historically they are very interesting, and even though they carry the

name of such a master of portraits