THE STOKES PAlX'irXCS REPKESEN'ITNC CItKFA'EANI ) 



ESKIMO. 



THE mural decorations at tlic iiortlicni end of llit- E>kiiiio Hall have 

 been painted bv 'Sir. Frank Wilbert Stokes, an artist, who, as mem- 

 ber of the Pearv ReHef ExpeiHtion of 1S!)2 and of the Pearv Xortii 

 Greenland Expedition of 1S93 and 1894, has made ( ai-ct'ul >indy of the 

 Eskimo people and their frozen country, 'i'hc Miisciim is indebted for 

 these painting's to Mr. Arthur Curtiss James, one of the Tni^tccs. 



Ranged about the hall below are the weapons, the artick's of dress, the 

 boats, the sleds, while above them in this j)ainted frieze these same 

 objects are seen put to use in the daily activities of the Eskimo, revealing 

 his adaptation to an environment of months' long days and nights among 

 glaciers and icebergs. The combination of the scientific exhibits below 

 and the artist's work above, brings home to the observer not only the 

 ethnological facts involved, but also other facts, such as the austerity of 

 Eskimo life, its enforced simplicity and the limitations set upon civiliza- 

 tion for the people of the Arctics. Aluch of the interest of these pictiuvs 

 rests in the fact that numy of the scenes rei)resent localities actually visited 

 by the artist. Mr. Stokes estal)lished his studio at Bowdoin Bay, 77° 44' 

 X. latitude, and worked there during fourt(>en months, with the primitive 

 life of the Eskimo and the glowing colors of the northern land tmder con- 

 stant observation. As William ^Valton has said in an article in Scribner's 

 ^lagazine for February, 1909, ^Ir. Stokes has here succeeded, desi)ite the 

 inadequacy of pigments, in well suggesting "the utmost sj)lendor of light 

 that blazes in the Polar skies and glows in the Polar, translucent ice." 



The North ^VAl.I.. 



The largest picture of the series — in full view from the main foyer 

 of the Aluseum — is a continuous panoranui sixty feet long. It is 

 intense and realistic in its coloring. In the center the glow of a mid- 

 night sun illuminates promontories and .sea, toward the right this bril- 

 liant color gradually fades to the gray and pin-|)le of the twilight that 

 precedes the long Arctic night, while toward the left il changes to the 

 white lights and deej) bltie shadows of thai other twilight that foretells 

 the approach of the long Arctic day. 



