N consideration of a painter's art two phases are involved-its influential or historical interest and its intrinsic value. The first is concerned with the impress a man has left upon his time, the direction his personality may have given to the trend of art; and the other with the pleasure-giving quality of the canvas itself.

William M. Chase influenced American art profoundly as an original painter expressing himself in a new way at the time when contemporaneous painting was in that period of candy-box art which produced Bouguereaus and Lord Frederick. Leightons; as a teacher of an enormous number of pupils from all over the country; and as a juror serving upon the committees of most of the important exhibitions for the last thirty-five years, forfeiting by that unselfish allegiance to the cause

of art his own eligibility to medals and prizes.

On the other hand, the influences that worked upon him and went to form his individual style are interesting not only because of the part they played in his own artistic destiny, but because they are concerned with the great transition period of modern art. When the talented young American boy was a student in Piloty's studio in Munich he painted brilliant old masters. His particular gods then as afterward were Hals and Velasquez. From that stage he passed to that significant period when, in the language of criticism, he "found himself." That he was deeply influenced by the Spanish masters and by the introduction of Eastern art in the form of the Japanese print all painters and students of pictures know. The influ

ence of Dutch art is noticeable in his treatment of interior subjects; that of the French painters Vollon and Chardin in his still life, a form of art that he made peculiarly his own. From Manet and Whistler he also imbibed points of view; but the thing that developed out of these influences and associations, this opening. out of new vistas, was so essentially his own that one always identifies as such not only a real Chase, but anything in the manner or imitation of one. More than one pupil has never got beyond the stage of making little Chases.

The direct influence of Japanese art upon Chase is obvious in the decorative use of the kimono-clad figure, the Japanese arrangement, the manner of introducing Japanese color notes. The indirect influence, in eliminations, in color composition, and in pattern, is infused into the very fiber of his art. The Spanish suggestion is less definite. In the painting of face, hair, or figure, in the treatment of the actual Spanish subject, in the masterly handling of blacks and whites, one glimpses the Velasquez lesson; but the trail that contact with the art of Spain left upon the painter's imagination is something less specific than the influence. of any one painter, however great. It is an essence as light and elusive as the rhythm of a Spanish dance.

The artist's material may be found anywhere; the subject exists in the eyes of the painter. It becomes art when he shows us how he has seen it. The lay mind does not imagine the ancient fish-basket to be a paintable object; yet there is one in a Chase canvas, allied to a pink fish and others, proclaimed with subtle brushes of rose and brown, that is as unforgetable to the artist or student as a Botticelli Madonna is to the sentimentalist. But fish are of the wonders of the sea, miracles of light and color. Few painters could discover the possibilities of the too neighborly seaside cottage as a subject; yet Chase has so treated a group of these drearily trim little houses that they have the light charm of a Japanese print.

In his portraits the type of the subject

or the costume often influenced the point of view, as in the picture of his daughter Dorothy. The old costume of rose-colored satin seemed to suggest the eighteenth-century pose and atmosphere. The texture of satin is ever fascinating to the painter. In the good modern canvas it is often beautifully handled, crisp, clean, sharp, and fine, with all its play of light felt and recorded; yet often, despite that fact, it remains the material of the shopwindow, whereas the satin gown in a Chase portrait has the dignity and dis tinction of an immemorial fabric.

Although remarks concerning the socalled "soul" of the subject, that mysterious thing which is supposed by picture-lovers with the emotional and literary point of view to be impaled upon the canvas, somewhat disturbed the serenity of Chase, he was willing to discuss it in his suggestive fashion with the pupil not yet free from sentimental yearnings.

"Do not imagine that I would disregard that thing that lies beneath the mask," he said; "but be sure that when the outside is rightly seen, the thing that lies under the surface will be found upon your canvas."

The proof lies in his portraits. Less startlingly than Sargent, but not less convincingly, he was able to catch the personality of his sitter. In the portrait of Clyde Fitch, painted from memory after his death, in those of Emil Pauer, of the late Dean Grosvenor, of Mr. Gwathmey, and of Louis Windmüller, to cite a few examples, he has presented not only quietly brilliant bits of virtuosity, but portraits in the truest sense of the word.

In formulating Chase's most obvious contribution to the development of art, one would naturally state first his introduction of and emphasis upon the value of still life as material for the painter, and his masterly demonstration of the painting of interior light; more directly, with his pupils, his reiteration of the fact that a painter's first consideration must always be the purely technical side of painting: and his insistence upon what is in truth the very spirit of Greek art-the joy of

the creative impulse, the reflection of which should inform the slightest sketch as well as the finished picture. "You must enjoy what you are doing if others are to enjoy it with you," he often used to say to his pupils.

In a final consideration of Chase's art itself one must decide that this painter's most distinguishing qualities are his style, rarest of gifts, and his use of color, including his painting of blacks and whites.

But essential artist that he was, he was ever humble before the great spirit of art. In his mind there remained always the distance between his ideal and his achievement, a deep feeling beautifully expressed once when, after showing a number of his pictures to a guest, he pointed to a blank canvas. "But that is my masterpiece," he said-"my unpainted picture."

In a special sense Chase belongs to America. Born in Indiana, with real Americans for his ancestors, except for his student years in Europe and his frequent visits to the Old World to gain contact with its art and atmosphere and to pass on the appreciation of it to his pupils, he spent all of his life in America. He studied first

in Indianapolis with Benjamin Hayes, and after that two years in New York with J. O. Eaton. In St. Louis, to which he went next, he was specially struck by the work of an artist who had studied in Munich, and when some interested patrons furnished the opportunity for the young painter to go to Europe, he chose the Bavarian city.

"The best place to study is anywhere," he remarked characteristically, adding, "I went to Munich instead of to Paris because I could saw wood in Munich instead of frittering in the Latin merrygo-round."

In Munich he immediately attracted the attention of his master, Piloty, then reckoned one of the greatest of living painters, but aroused his ire when, in a prize competition in which the subject to be treated was Columbus, he placed the figure of the great navigator with his back to the spectator, which was young Chase's manner of showing his contempt for the popular historical subject of the time. The picture took the prize, but Piloty forced his pupil to make a second sketch. In this he consented to reveal a glimpse

gather for a smoke and a talk in the room of Che Mah, the Chinese Midget, who spoke good English, and who, perched high on the edge of his trunk, led the conversation, as became a man of wide experience and a philosophic cast of mind. Che Mah was a pocket edition of a mandarin, perfect in every detail, and with his scanty black beard and diminutive stature he looked as if he had just stepped off a tea-caddy. From a wide experience with chairs-he would have been entirely lost in a rocker and could hardly have sat on the edge without having it tip over on him-he had forsworn all such contrivances and made a habit of sitting on his trunk, which was of the extra large variety and had a flat top. Once he had climbed up here and hung his feet over the edge, he was somewhat on a level with the rest of humanity and had the sort of seat that fits all sizes of men. In public exhibition he sat on a high dais and wore silken robes with the demeanor of a Chinese aristocrat; but in his room he took comfort in common clothes, an evening smoke, and the top of his trunk.

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As the lecturer had disappeared that week, and I, as a man of words, was called upon to meet the emergency,responsibility I would have declined were it not that Che Mah was the only one in the hall who really needed to be lectured upon,-it was I who ascended his throne, introduced him to the public, and pronounced the hourly eulogy upon his unparalleled littleness. From being his lecturer, I became uncommonly well acquainted with him, and as he was much older than I was and widely traveled, I was greatly edified by his words of wisdom. As to his size, the little girl of the household could have picked him up and carried him away, which would have been a most undignified proceeding in view of his grave and reverend countenance.

As my final Saturday night in Cincinnati drew near, and the falling curtain of that ten-o'clock performance which would forever shut me from the public gaze, I must admit that I felt a certain regret to leave it all behind. The excitement of

travel, the exhilaration of the crowd, and the electric thrill of meeting the instant situation at every performance were things well fitted to suit the spirit of youth. But in view of the fact that once I had gone back to the regular treadmill of life it was a thing to be carefully forgotten, I was already looking at it in retrospect. I have never left anything so utterly behind; for while it was yet to be dropped from the record, it was already erased from the future-a nudum pactum with oblivion.

I believe I could have been induced to keep on provided there had been a way of pursuing such a calling without attracting any attention. One thing and another, however, conspired from the first to push me forward. Particularly memorable is an incident which early in my experience selected me from among the veterans to make test of my "drawing power."

It was during a Saturday night jam at the West Side Museum in Chicago. Whenever the time approached for the hourly performance on the variety-stage, the people would, as usual, crowd and push toward the head of the stairs leading down to the auditorium in a general endeavor to get the best seats. Across the opening at the top of the stairs there was. a strong wooden bar so arranged that it could be lifted the moment the auditorium was ready for the new crowd, and there was a man stationed here to wait for the word. On this Saturday night the pack of people was unusual. There were so many that they could not move about freely, and when the lecturer went his hourly round, instead of being followed by the usual crowd, there would simply. be a jam in a different part of the mass as he called attention to the next curiosity. And, as usual, a large number had taken time by the forelock by getting places at the head of the stairs before the lecture was over.

When the people saw that the lecturer was nearing the end there was a general turning of attention toward the head of that coveted stairway, and all the pressure was brought to bear on the ones who were jammed up against the wooden bar.