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FINE ARTS 1884. (PARIS: SALON.) 



The total sales of all stocks for the year 

 1885 were 93,184,478 shares, against 95,416,368 

 in 1884, 96,037,905 in 1883, 113,720,665 in 

 1882, 113,392,685 in 1881, 97,200,000 in 1880, 

 and 74,166,652 in 1879. The transactions in 

 Government bonds during 1885 amounted to 

 $15,579,200, and in State and railroad bonds 

 to $662,773,000. 



FINE ARTS. Under this title are treated the 

 principal art events of the past two years, end- 

 ing with December, 1885, including especially 

 the great exhibitions in Europe and the United 

 States, the sales and acquisitions of pictures, 

 and the erection of public statues and monu- 

 ments. 



Paris : Salon. The exhibition (May 1 to June 

 30, 1884) comprised 4, 658 numbers, classified as 

 follows: Paintings, 2,488; cartoons, water-col- 

 ors, pastels, porcelain pictures, etc., 749; sculpt- 

 ure, 746; engraving in medals and precious 

 stones, 36 ; architecture, 165 ; engraving, 474. 

 The medal of honor in the section of engrav- 

 ing was awarded to Felix Bracquemond. No 

 first-class medal in painting was given, but first- 

 class medals in sculpture were awarded to Fer- 

 dinand Levillain, Clement Leopold Steiner, and 

 Francois Laurent Rolard ; in architecture to 

 Albert Ballu and Andre Gaspard ; and in en- 

 graving to Achille Jacquet and Aristide Lionel 

 Lecouteux. The receipts were 290,000 francs. 

 Among the more important pictures exhibited 

 was Bouguereau's " Youth of Bacchus," an im- 

 mense canvas, an academically correct picture, 

 though not especially interesting save as an il- 

 lustration of the author's graceful style. The 

 youthful god, borne aloft on the shoulders of 

 fauns and surrounded by nude dancing nymphs, 

 is the center of a procession passing through a 

 glade. At the right it is led by a pair of cen- 

 taurs,^)layiug on musical instruments, and at 

 the left Silenus on an ass brings up the rear. 



Another immense canvas, by Fernand Cor- 

 mon, is entitled " Return from the Bear- Hunt 

 Age of Stone." In the center, at the en- 

 trance of a rude cabin, built of rough tree- 

 trunks, sits an aged man, the head of the clan, 

 with knife and flint-axe in hand. Before him 

 lies the carcass of a bear, which a party of 

 skin-clad hunters, attended by several wolfish- 

 looking dogs, have just brought in. At the 

 right are the women and children of the tribe. 

 It has been purchased by the state for the Mu- 

 seum of Saint-Germain. 



A still larger canvas and perhaps more im- 

 portant picture, although the subject is nn 

 atrocious one, is the " Massacre of Mach Seoul," 

 by Francois Flameng, representing an incident 

 in the Vendean war. Under the walls of a dis- 

 mantled chateau, with a burning village in the 

 background, lie many corpses, some of them 

 women, mercilessly shot and left to die in 

 heaps where they fell. At the left, in the fore- 

 ground, is a large tree, to the trunk of which 

 is fastened by cords the body of an old man, 

 perhaps the seigneur, his head fallen forward, 

 and the blood still dripping from a ghastly 



wound in his body. In the center foreground 

 a group of richly dressed aristocrats, gentlemen 

 and ladies, accompanied by a band of Chouans, 

 are walking among the corpses, the women 

 daintily lifting their garments to save them from 

 contact with the blood-stained ground. 



Another striking canvas, the "Quartette," by 

 "W. T. Dannat, the American artist, represents 

 four amateur musicians singing in a little shop, 

 into which the light streams down a steep stair- 

 case in the background. It was sent to New 

 York at the close of the Salon. 



Raphael Collin's " L ? te " exhibits a com- 

 pany of young women assembled in a flowery 

 meadow before and after bathing, the scene 

 suggesting the heats of summer. It is the work 

 of one of Cabanel's most successful pupils, and 

 shows rare flesh-painting. 



The "Aurora" of Jules Lefebvre is a finely 

 drawn and delicately modeled nude figure waft- 

 ed by a gentle morning breeze above the sur- 

 face of a pool, accompanied by a mass of va- 

 pors tinted with the rose of dawn. Purchased 

 by S. P. Avery. 



Evariste Luminais's " Flight of Gradlon " is 

 a melodramatic picture illustrative of the story 

 of King Gradlon, who, while riding with St. 

 Gwenole, was overtaken by the tide. Taking 

 his daughter on the crupper, the riders gal- 

 loped for their lives until nearly overtaken by 

 the waves, when the king, by the advice of 

 the holy man, cast off the "demon," his daugh- 

 ter, and thus escaped just as they were about 

 to be overwhelmed. 



Gerome's " Sale of Slaves at Rome," a fine 

 example of his skill in painting the nude, ex- 

 hibits a young female slave standing erect on 

 a high platform, exposed to the gaze of a shout- 

 ing crowd of eager bidders, whose extended 

 hands indicate their admiration of her beauty. 



In the " Salle Graffard " Jean Beraud lias 

 presented a vigorous satire on the times, which 

 set all Paris laughing. On a lofty rostrum in 

 the Salle Graffard, a socialist orator, with his 

 dirty hand stretched on high, is bawling his 

 doctrines to an audience of sottish ragamuffins, 

 who, amid clouds of tobacco-smoke, shout and 

 clap their hands at his denunciations of society. 



An enormous picture called " The Mercena- 

 ries of Carthage," by Gustave Surand, illus- 

 trates an incident in the " Salammbo " of Gus- 

 tave Flaubert. In the shadow of a sunlit, rocky 

 pass, a band of strangely armed barbarians, 

 with their women and children, march with 

 amazement before a line of huge lions, cruci- 

 fied by the roadside by Carthaginian peasants, 

 whose sheep had been devoured, as a reminder 

 to other lions of what they may expect if they 

 display a similar taste for mutton. 



Another immense canvas, entitled the "Sa- 

 cred Wood," by Puvis de Chavannes, exhibi 

 a lake with wooded banks, and a temple in a 

 flowery meadow where are grouped figures, in 

 semi-classic draperies, supposed to represent 

 the Muses and the Arts. 



"An Affair of Honor" is the title given ty 



