Manship

For three years, Paul Manship, famed U. S. sculptor, has been in Rome, Paris, Egypt. Returned, he exhibited, last week, in the Scott and Fowles Gallery, Manhattan.

Many gazed upon his works, whispered discreetly of "stylized line,"

"tonal mass," "plastic power," went away well content that if they had not passed the final dicta on Manship, they had, at least, put marble into words. The attendants at the Scott and Fowles Gallery, hearing these phrases, as indeed they were often expressly intended to, were not guilty of visible leers. They had been trained by long service to realize that loose verbiage, when applied to beauty in bronze and stone, is not necessarily an evidence of slovenly culture. They had tried, these attendants, to expound, from time to time, on various objects to the spatted or braceleted clients of Scott and Fowles. They were well aware that to put marble into words is to break rocks.

Three years ago, it would have been less difficult for those who visited an exhibition of Mr. Manship's to express what they saw. Five years ago, it would have been still less difficult. In those periods, Mr. Manship, the craftsman, the maker of glittering tours-de-force, was concerned with ideas (which language is very well suited to express) and with silhouettes (also adaptable to language). Now his art, complete in itself, asks no favors of literature. His faculty to interest, however, is still well evidenced in his choice of subject.

Armillary Sphere is a great sundial cast in the design of that ancient astrological instrument, the armillary. Man and woman repose at its base; the goat, the lion, the bear, the ram, pursue each other in its wheels, while the armillary seems to spin, with slow laughter, through interstellar space.

Acteon, the huntsman, breaks from a coppice with two wolfish dogs, one leaping from his thigh, one flying from under his lifted knee.

Diana (an enlargement of an early work, cast in colored terra-cotta) is swifter far than Acteon, for all his speed-outstripping dogs. The wind bends her scarf; her bow is drawn; she looks back.

Venus Anadyomene bends down Her head, clutching with both hands her heavy, falling hair. To make her silver body, marble takes on the smoothness of sliding water, the whiteness of the foam out of which she, long ago, once arose.

The Marchioness of Cholmondeley looks out of stone with bland, blind eyes. Behind the eyes, under the suave casque of carven hair are, beyond doubt, the thoughts of the Marchioness of Cholmondeley.

Honorable Myron T. Herrick, a fine patrician head; John D. Rockefeller, another; also many severe and solemn babies in red French stone line the walls of the gallery of Messrs. Scott and Fowles.

Artist Inness

In the U. S., 100 years ago, Artist George Inness was born. In Scotland, 31 years ago, he died. Between those two dates he produced works which won for him the somewhat equivocal title of "America's most salient old master." Now, in celebration of his centennial, some 30 of his paintings fill two galleries at Macbeth's, Manhattan. Artist Inness was self-taught. In his lifetime, he beheld a certain quality of beauty in the scenes, faces, of this country--a quality which he expressed through his Art. Because that quality was true as he saw it, because he presented it with sincerity and competence, it has passed into tradition. Since Inness painted, Art has undergone many changes. He was peculiarly a man of his time and suffered, as every artist must, the limitations of his time. He is still an influence; he is no longer an example.