Nowhere else can the “Hudson River School”[4] be studied so well. To our eyes these beginnings seem a bit hard and crude, but such canvases as F. E. Church’s “Heart of the Andes” and “Parthenon” are really impressive. But most of these men interest us today chiefly as the forbears of a later group. Inness, Wyant, Homer Martin and Blakelock have only a point of view in common, and yet they form a transition group that leads out of the “Hudson River School” to the landscape men of the present day. In no other gallery is the work of these four artists so well represented. In some of the canvases the inspiration of the Barbizon men is very apparent. Inness succeeds best, perhaps, in his oft-reproduced “Autumn Oaks” or his “Delaware Valley.” Wyant’s work is very even—“An Old Clearing” is the best of his ten pictures. Blakelock’s “Pipe Dance” is fine in a very different way. Homer Martin, perhaps the most interesting figure of them all, reached his highest level in the “View on the Seine,” or as his wife named it, “The Harp of the Winds.” That picture may fairly claim to be the best-known and most loved landscape by any American artist. His sight was almost gone when the last touches were added. No less impressive, to some, is his “Sand Dunes, Lake Ontario.” All the desertedness and barrenness of the dunes seem to have been caught and expressed on his canvas.
[4] The Hudson River School of Art is considered at length in Monograph Six, Mentor No. 136, “The Story of the Hudson.”
Sargent, Whistler, La Farge, Chase—all are here, and in many phases. Sargent’s portraits are fine, but do not miss his water-colors, or his “Marble Quarry at Carrara.” Winslow Homer was one of the first Americans to realize the possibilities of the sea as a subject, and there are eight paintings by him, as well as a dozen forceful water-colors. Carlsen, Dougherty (dock´-er-tee) and Waugh (wah) are sea-lovers too. And as for the figure-painters, Dannat’s (dan´-nah) “Quartette,” Abbey’s “Lear” and Mary Cassatt’s “Mother and Child” should not be omitted. Among the landscapists come Twachtman and Tryon, Groll with his Arizona mesa, Lie with “Culebra Cut” for his subject, and Ben Foster with a fine “Late Summer Moonrise.” Here is a rich assemblage of American art.
SAND DUNES, LAKE ONTARIO. By Homer Martin
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
| THE ART OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF NEW YORK | By David C. Preyer |
| WHAT PICTURES TO SEE IN AMERICA | By Lorinda M. Bryant |
| A HISTORY OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART | By Winifred E. Howe |
| Issued by the Museum. | |
| CATALOGUE. | |
| Issued by the Museum. |
⁂ Information concerning the above books may be had on application to the Editor of The Mentor.