The Galleries of the Exposition eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 103 pages of information about The Galleries of the Exposition.

The Galleries of the Exposition eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 103 pages of information about The Galleries of the Exposition.
Hullgren are the only contributions in that field, but quite sufficient to maintain the general standard of excellence.  The drunken man seated at a café table is psychologically interesting.  As an object lesson to discourage the consumption of liquor it is the most effective picture I have ever seen, and certain interests would do well to buy it for that reason alone, not to speak of the relief this would afford.  Ernst Küsel’s animal pictures, opposite John Bauer’s delightful group, seem quite out of place.  His ducks and the goats are satisfactory enough, but I wish he had to live with that calf picture and see it every day.  Küsel is undoubtedly humourously inclined, without knowing proper limitations.

The sculpture of the Swedes is of the same unusual excellence that commands so much respect in their other work.  Edstrom easily outranks his fellow-artists in his group of naturalistic and conventional architectural heads, in the Liljefors gallery, while in the long and narrow adjoining gallery a multitude of excellent etchings, drawings, and black and white work compel mention.  They hardly need any explanation, since in their very character they readily convey their meaning.  One could dwell at greater length upon this most representative of all national displays, but I fear that it would have to be done at the expense of the American section, which hospitality has already placed under a disadvantage.

Holland

The Netherlands representation is conspicuous for its conservative note, together with the absence of any single picture which might unduly excite one by its merit.  I do not wish to prejudice the art lover who strolls into this well appointed section, but coming from Sweden, as we do, so to speak, since it is Sweden’s next door neighbor, it gives one rather a shock.  Most of the Dutch pictures are good, almost too good, in their academic conventional repetition of the timeworn subjects we have been in the habit of seeing for the last twenty years.  The Swedish section is full of real thrills, but the complacency of the Netherlands section can hardly be explained by their national temperament alone.  While the Swedish people seem to be blessed just now with an unusual number of men of great gifts in the field of art, the Netherlands have entered into what I hope will be only an interregnum of not overly original painters.  The last quarter of the last century saw their glory in the careers of men like the elder Israels, the Mesdags, the Maris, Jacob and Willem, Bosbom, Mauve, Weissenbruch, Poggenbeck, and many others who have departed during the last ten years, or who, if still living, have scarcely maintained their high standards of earlier days.  The most illustrious name among the older men is Willem Mesdag, who can hardly be expected at his age to be doing his best.  Speaking of Mesdag, one of their best marine painters of the older days, one is forcibly

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The Galleries of the Exposition from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.