Identifier: americanartamer01mont (find matches)
Title: American art and American art collections; essays on artistic subjects
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Montgomery, Walter
Subjects: Art Artists Art
Publisher: Boston, E.W. Walker & co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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n itself a sufficient cause of astonishment. To turn from astudy of those exquisite little French peasant subjects, like the Girl Reading and Girl Spinning,in which the color is felt with great delicacy and the tone is like the most beautiful ofMillets studies of kindred subjects, to the roughly painted study heads, like the Spanish Girl,and the pictures executed in later years, is sufficient to illustrate the wide distinction betweenthe different styles employed by the artist. The influence of the great masters can be distinctlytraced in such studies as The Daughter of the Concierge, the portrait head numbered 35 in thecatalogue, and in the Head with a Turban, which calls up reminiscences of Beatrice Cenci (insubject, though not in color). These last-named are complete, finished works, and help verymaterially to raise the standard of the exhibition. The art in them is concealed, the color istrue, and the relations are perfectly preserved. Among the later works, on the contrary, there
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Portrait of William M. Hunt. Drawn and Engraved by W. J. Linton. From Photographs by A. Marshall. AMERICAN ART 95 are some which, though possessing certain fine qualities, lack this completeness, and are nottherefore as satisfactory, either in color or in design. It may be said, perhaps, that such diversities of treatment are noticeable also in the worksof other artists, but the remark is only superficially true. Undoubtedly all artists modify theirscheme of color according to the subject in hand, and sometimes change it entirely as theydevelop. The diversities, however, which are observable in Mr. Hunts work are not modificationsof one scheme or system, but each of them represents a system of its own, which might beadhered to in the interpretation of the most widely differing subjects and effects. An artist whois committed to the system adopted in No. 34 would never think of managing his color accordingto that shown in No. 84. Nor would an artist who, from conviction, had adopted the

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