ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 
O-v-^/U 
atmosphere which dehes description. A 
picture in the writer’s family represents 
a lady seated in a chair before a large 
oval mirror. On the wall hangs a 
Japanese kakemono. The lady holds a 
hand mirror into which she gazes. Her 
dress is of an unusual blue, a note which 
is repeated throughout the picture. 
The rhythmic flow of lines, the perfect 
balance of spaces, the scale of values 
which neither ascends to forced lights, 
nor descends to heavy darks, the air and 
light which pervade the room are a 
source of continual delight. The pic¬ 
ture is a poem of form and color as well 
as the crystallized essence of the grace 
and elegance of beautiful women. 
In another medium, this painter has 
contributed an extremely personal note. 
His pastels of single figures are elusive 
and subtle. They are like the wings of 
some exquisite butterfly, or the petals 
of some softly colored flower. They are 
never fragmentary; they are wonder¬ 
fully complete, but also mysterious and 
suggestive. The color-notes are fre¬ 
quently produced by pastel partly 
covering a warm or neutral colored 
paper. One should see a pastel nude 
figure by Dewing to appreciate fully 
his powers. You will find here com¬ 
plete ability to express the actual in 
nature joined to an improvisation in 
the realm of the ideal which results in 
perfection. 
Occasionally Dewing has made silver 
point drawings. They are usually 
heads of women. These drawings, 
along with one very fine lithograph, of 
which there are but a few impressions, 
comprise most of the artist’s finished 
work in black-and-white. 
The chief characteristic which im¬ 
presses one in Dewing’s personality is 
his sincerity. He does not pose. To 
meet him upon the street, you would be 
conscious only of the presence of a tall, 
Lady with a Fan. By Thomas W. Dewing. 
quiet and simply arrayed gentleman. 
In his wit and in the way he looks at 
you lie the suggestion of his great 
ability. In his manner of contracting 
his brow, as if in deepest concentration, 
one might guess the severity of his 
study of form. In the sudden expan¬ 
sive relaxation of his face, one might 
imagine him in his moments of poetic 
thought. His comments upon life and 
art are shrewd and simple. Wit is ever 
present and humor lurks behind an im¬ 
pression of severity. Above all, in 
Dewing’s personality, one feels the 
strength of manliness. 
His painting, which is of its time and 
without affectation, is destined to out¬ 
live many ill-considered works which 
pass as art. His place in the Freer 
Museum, closely associated withTryon, 
Thayer, Whistler, and the great Fast- 
ern artists, is significant. It will give 
the world an opportunity to see that, 
in the renaissance of art in America, 
which Rodin mentioned, Thomas W. 
Dewing is one of the foremost masters. 
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