There is little dreaminess in the work of Mr. Tarbell and the growing
number of his followers. Theirs is almost a pure naturalism, a "making
it like." Yet, notably in the work of Mr. Tarbell himself, and to some
extent in that of the others, there is an elegance of arrangement, a
thoroughness in the notation of gradations of light, a beauty and a
charm that were learned of no modern. Their art is an effort to bring
back the artistic quality of the most artistic naturalism ever
practised, that of Vermeer of Delft.
Others of our artists are going still further back in the history of art
for a part of their inspiration. Mr. Brush has always been a linealist
and a student of form, but his earlier canvases, admirable as they were,
were those of a docile pupil of Gerome applying the thoroughness of
Gerome's method to a new range of subjects and painting the American
Indian as Gerome had painted the modern Egyptian. In recent years each
new picture of his has shown more clearly the influence of the early
Italians--each has been more nearly a symphony of pure line.
Even in purely technical matters our painters have been experimenting
backward, trying to recover lost technical beauties. The last pictures
of Louis Loeb were underpainted throughout in monochrome, the final
colors being applied in glazes and rubbings, and to-day a number of
others, landscape and figure painters, are attempting to restore and
master this, the pure Venetian method, while still others, among them
Emil Carlsen, are reviving the use of tempera.
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