72 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XV 
in the West. We arranged at once for forty black-and-whites, and later were 
able to stage the color-plates, which have given Brooks a favorable introduction 
to the world of bird-lovers. From [906 on, Mr. Brooks has been kept as busy as 
the irreducible claims of field work would allow. He has thus taken his art se- 
riously for seven years past, and has long since found himself, in confidence as 
well as in style and finish of workmanship. 
Before we pass to an analysis of Brooks’ art or to a consideration of the 
man himself, it may be as well to note his recent activities. Besides fugitive pieces 
owned by sportsman friends and admirers in British Columbia, Washington, and 
England, there are to date six principal collections of Brookses ; Dr. William 
Brewster, of Cambridge, always a consistent friend of the young artist, has a 
small collection of his very early work, perhaps a dozen pieces of varying merit ; 
Francis Paget, Esq., of London, has by far the largest and best general collec- 
tion, comprising a series of ambitious paintings of big game and some of the 
larger birds, some twenty pieces in all ; Colonel John E. Thayer, of Lancaster, 
Massachusetts, has a representative collection of earlier and smaller pieces, be- 
sides a series of sixteen bird-plates contained in his extra-illustrated copy of “The 
Birds of Washington” ; Hon. John Lewis Childs has the finest individual collec- 
tion of bird-plates extant, some forty pieces, illustrating the summer resident 
birds of his spacious grounds at Floral Park, New York ; Miss Ellen B. Scripps, 
of La Jolla, has sixteen pieces of more recent work, most of them intended for 
future publication in “The Birds of California"; then, besides the accumulating 
store (something- over one hundred) prepared for that work and now in the 
writer's custody, there are here at Los Colibris many originals of “The Birds of 
Washington" and a .small collection of game pieces. Two other collections, since 
scattered, deserve passing mention — the Inghram Hughes Collection, of about 
forty earlier pieces, some of them of matchless technique and inspiration, which 
were scattered when that unfortunate plunger went to pieces in New York City 
some three years ago ; and the Vienna exhibit. By request of the Provincial 
Government of British Columbia Mr. Brooks contributed nine pieces to the In- 
ternational Sportsman’s Exposition at Vienna in 1911. By the conditions of the 
loan the sale of these paintings was not j^ermitted ; but one of the best of them, 
a magnificent Golden Eagle, was .stolen — stolen, too, gossip has it, by one high in 
official position. ( Poor fellow ! One scarcely blames him. What else could he do 
if they wouldn’t let him buy it?) 
Of the critical judgment of Brooks's bird painting the writer is perhaps least 
capable, for he loves every line and shade as it falls away from the facile brush. 
But these characteristics at least are distinctive in Brooks’s work: 
The authority of intimate knowledge. The artist is first and always the 
scientist. He is by far the keenest observer of nature I have met. He is not only 
(|uick at field recognition, but he has an apparently inexhaustible store of exact 
information as to plumage changes, evanescent colors, scutellation of tarsi, and 
all else that pertains to the external appearance of birds. Add to this a memory 
photographic in its accuracy, and you have a sure foundation for authoritative 
painting. 
This accuracy of knowledge is sustained by accuracy of method. Bills and 
feet (where human judgment is most fallible) are drawn to scale, and all the 
problems of light and shade, balance, texture, contour, and perspective, arc 
thought through to a finish. When to this is added the artist’s sympathetic 
ijnaginativeness. it is little wonder that we have living images instead of pale 
cojiies of birds. 
