the face and the nice adjustment to this of the figure and its action, are expressed. And there is something very frank and cordial, and, at the same time, quiet and chaste, about everything she has exhibited here; and it is greatly in her favor that it is in her most characteristic work, apparently, such as a tender and poetic, yet gravely treated, Gloucester landscape which we recall, that she seems at her best. Mrs. Whitman's contribution to the exhibition of the Society of American Artists a year ago was the first picture she has shown here, if we remember rightly. It and the one we use as an illustration are not unlike, and in either the merits and, in some degree, the limitations of the painter may be seen. In the former, Mrs. Whitman's fondness for color, which stands her

in such good stead in her purely decorative work, is conspicuous. To say, then, that her fondness for it appeared more clearly than any natural felicity in employment of it, would be saying no more than the truth, perhaps. But it would have a depreciating sound, and the success is more evident than the short-comings of the portrait. But its very merits are so obvious and of such a kind that they seem to carry with them a witness that the painter has nothing more to learn, and will probably remain content with an accomplishment of which she has every reason to be proud. How to progress further along this line it would be difficult to suggest. Possibly the quality which we notice in Mrs. Whitman is analogous to that referred to by Mr. Hunt as blemishing the work of the young women

HEAD OF ITALIAN BOY. (HELEN M. KNOWLTON.)

whom he thought altogether too clever. The portrait does not betray by any means the self-satisfaction which it might perhaps justify, but it seems to indicate that the painter had her mind fixed too intently on richness of tone, firmness of drawing, and other elements of her picture, and that this is her natural inclination. After all, these are but elements, means of expression, and not what she had to paint-or should have had in order to endue the work with something more vital than cleverness. In just this respect it is interesting to contrast the accompanying portrait of the spruce and intelligent young gentleman, holding a striped staff, with Miss Bartol's portrait. The difference is apparent enough, and it is perfectly plain that the latter has a spiritual interest which the former is entirely without. This, however, might be set down with the caution of discretion to the difference in the models, and it would very likely be fanciful to say that the sitter suited the artist in either case; but an unmistakable, though less obvious, contrast consists in the imaginativeness which characterizes the one and is quite lacking in the other. A happy portraiture is to be seen in Mrs. Whitman's picture, but a photograph might show as

much. Nor does the arrangement of detail transcend the ability of many of the "artists" who use the camera; but what distinguishes the art we think of in connection with the palette is, after all, at bottom the unphotographic quality of imagination. This may be poetic, or feeble, or whimsical, or what not. Miss Bartol's is extremely poetic, it strikes us; but even if it were less so, or not poetic at all, its imaginative character would at once classify it as art possessing intrinsic interest of some sort, apart from the various external excellences which might or might not accompany this. The distinction is as old as art itself, of course-old enough, therefore, to be constantly lost sight of. Miss Knowlton's work, so far as we have enjoyed an opportunity of seeing it, is so unpretending, that to place it in the same category with Miss Bartol's would, perhaps, be to overweight it. And her reputation as a teacher of painting may have tended to obscure her recognition as a painter, if, indeed, her teaching has not absorbed her time and effort too exclusively to allow the forwarding of her own art as swiftly as otherwise would have been possible. She was Mr. Hunt's "lieutenant" for some years, and it was from her notes of his "Talks" that the latter were printed. This circumstance of itself testifies to an unusual capacity of apprehension, and doubtless to the supplement of her systematic training the general and rather fragmentary instruction of Mr. Hunt owes a large measure of the success it obtained. But, aside from the credit which her efforts of this kind deserve, and which it would be an omission to fail to record here, there is discoverable in her own painting not only the excellent equipment as to ways and means, and the intelligent appreciation of aim and end which are to be logically inferred, but a motive of much pensive grace, which the head here engraved may serve to illustrate. To carry this a little further would hardly be to risk obscuring the agreeable intention of it, one may say, and it has a look as if it might have been designed to witness some precept of the painter's master about "knowing when to stop "; nevertheless, the intention is clear and agreeable as it is, which is, of course, the main thing. Certain others of Miss Knowlton's most attractive works are in very much the same vein, which seems to us her best; but though the most evident trait of such of her landscapes as we have seen is a study-like reality, they are also not without a charm that cannot be

ascribed solely to felicitous choice of subject.

The portrait which Miss Mary S. Cassatt sent from Paris to the Second Exhibition of the Society of American Artists stimulates a lively regret that she should keep her countrymen in comparative ignorance of the work she is doing. If it be said that, judging from that canvas, and from the accompanying " At the Opera," this seems to lack charm, it is easy to see, on the other hand, that in force few, if any, among American women-artists are her rivals. There is an intelligent directness in her touch, and her entire attitude, beside which a good deal of the painting now abundantly admired seems amateur experimentation. Her work is a good example of the better sort of "impressionism," and the sureness with which, contrary to the fre

quent notion of it, this proceeds; and perhaps it is especially successful in this respect because Miss Cassatt served an Academic apprenticeship, and "went over" to Dégas and the rest of the school only after she had acquired her powers of expression. One cannot be all things at once, and especially if one determines to be definitely some particular thing; and so many people will temper their acknowledgment and appreciation of Miss Cassatt's success with the recognition of her neglect of, or incapacity for, the poetic and sentimental, not to say spiritual, side of painting. One even feels that to her adoption of a theory may be conveniently ascribed certain prosaic details of her "At the Opera," for example, which only avoid seeming like gaucheries because it is so evident that

they are deliberate, intelligent, and well executed.

The chance conjunction which concluding this paper with mention of Miss Maria R. Oakey brings about, suggests the fancy that these two painters would, if their qualities could be combined, so supplement each other as considerably to excel the work of either; and it is a notion that carries with it sufficient criticism of both artists. It ought not to be forgotten that for a long time Miss Oakey was, in spirit and intention, one of the very few who can be termed the pioneers of the movement in painting which only yesterday every one was calling "the new movement," but of which it has now become an effort of memory to recall the origins. Long before the return of the Argonauts in 1877, the prevailing character of Academy Exhibitions used to be accentuated by, among a few others, a canvas or two by Miss Oakey, in which, whatever its short-comings, the love of beauty agreeably predominated. The influence of, to come no nearer home, the more delicate of the Italian colorists was marked enough; certain "unworkmanlike" deficiencies were also apparent; and the latter are not yet wholly overcome, as may be seen from the

reproduction, herewith given, of perhaps the most dignified performance of an artist. whose work is always serious. A still graver defect, since it infallibly conflicts with perfect simplicity of aim and endeavor, was a rather recondite and overanxious effort to avoid conventional forms and aspects of beauty. But this never wholly obscured the positive and direct love of tone and color and sentiment co-existent with it, and if Miss Oakey should continue to paint and avoid a perfunctory contentment with her accomplishment hitherto, varied by excursions into the lighter and less important departments of art, one must expect to see it disappear altogether. And, in any case, the circumstance that her choice of the unconventional at a time when American art was, for the most part, drenched in the commonplace, and before there seemed any danger from the vogue of affectation, must be interesting and worth chronicling in a review of such general scope as this.

[IN the first paper of this series, published in May, 1880, the author had something to say about Mr. J. S. Sargent. An engraving of a study by this accomplished young painter which appeared in the last exhibition of "The Society of American Artists given herewith. The finished picture had been shown at a previous "Society" exhibition.-ED. S. M.]

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