garded as a serious blow at artistic liberty, as an attempt to make the professional playwriting a mere vulgar commercialism. Had it arisen in America it would have been cited as an extension of the trust system.

A new drama by the Spanish dramatist, Echegaray; a noteworthy play by the Flemish poet Victor de Meyere; a socialistic play by the Belgian novelist M. Buysse; a tragedy by the Hungarian dramatist Victor Tardos; a new play by the Russian Maxim Gorki, complete the work of noteworthy examples of dramatic literature produced in Europe in 1903.

American Productions

In our own country the dramatic year was noted for its lack of really artistic productions, and for the multiplication of those inane entertainments called musical comedies. There were new pieces by Clyde Fitch, and Augustus Thomas, but nothing of unusual merit. There was really no dramatic literature produced by American playwrights, though the season scored a number of successful performances. The previous year's successes in England and France were reproduced on American boards.

The year 1903 will long be remembered as a year of theatre building. Thirteen new theatres were erected in New York, and thirty-three in the rest of the country. More than $8,500,000 were spent on New York theaters, and nearly $9,000,000 on the others, which means that $17,000,000 were invested in one year in building for the entertainment of the American people. Four of the new theaters were under the control of the independents, and the remaining forty-two were under the control of the syndicate. The New Amsterdam theatre was pronounced one of the finest in the world. Prominent artists contributed to working out the new art design in its decoration and the result was something unique and beautiful. The large group of statues over the main entrance was by George Gray Barnard, one of the greatest of American sculptors, and a pioneer of the new art idea. The color scheme of the auditorium is in pastel shades. The lobbies, promenades, staircases and reception rooms have an individual scheme of decoration in harmony with that of the theatre as a whole. Friezes and panels

everywhere record historical fact or demonstrate poetical suggestion. The long frieze in the lobby illustrates the Shakespearian and Wagnerian drama. Panels illustrate the Greek and Roman period. The interest in the superb auditorium is not confined to the value and beauty of its coloring. An engineering principle is embodied which seems to aid and abet the artistic principle. The galleries are held up by great cantilevers which extend under the flooring, and there is not an interrupted sight line in the house.

In spite of the unprecedented activity in theatre building it was a year of hard times in the playhouses. Art and rubbish suffered together. The blank verse play, the problem play, the musical comedy, the comic opera, the costume play, the rural drama, the melodrama, the farce, each and all were involved in failure almost without parallel in stage annals.

Project for a National Theatre

A definite step was taken in the direction of establishing a national theatre in this country. At a dinner of the American Dramatist Club in New York the organization of a permanent society pledged to work for the establishment of a national art theatre in New York was resolved upon. Heinrich Conreid presented figures to show that a national theatre could be maintained at a cost much less than it is usual to suppose. What the establishment of a national theatre means for art accounts for the high place accorded to the drama in the German cities where there is a subsidy allowed the theatre by the Government.

CHAPTER XVI

ART AND MUSIC

Lack of appreciation of contemporary American art had been a subject of discussion for so many years that by the beginning of the new century some of the results of the discussion began to appear. The American public seemed to be taking notice. Encouraging symptoms tending toward betterment were not wanting in the year 1903; as the official recognition by the administration of Greater New York of a commission to take charge of the official art of the municipality; the maintenance of important international exhibitions of paintings and sculpture outside of New York City, notably at Philadelphia and St. Louis; and the absence of visible symptoms in that decline of standards and execution noticeable in European art, more particularly in that of France. The characteristics of contemporary American art were a generally high order of technical ability and artistic sanity, a general temperance and discretion which hinders the artist from essaying foolish tasks, from endeavoring to interpret with affected and imperfect workmanship incongruous or impossible themes, as is constantly done in England or on the continent.

New York showed signs of becoming the center of an ever increasing quantity of intellectual work. The city seemed proving quite as attractive to writers and painters as to millionaires and their families. The more eminent artists, so far as they live in American cities at all, tend strongly to live in or near New York. The good exhibitions in other cities are supplied largely by pictures of New York painters, and their art schools offer opportunities to the entire country.

American Exhibits

The oldest of the American exhibiting bodies, the Academy of Design, opened its seventy-eighth annual exhibition at the Fine Arts

Gallery in New York City, January 3. The jury of selection awarded the Thomas B. Clark prize of $300.00 for the best American figure composition to Mrs. Amanda Brewster Sewell, for her large decorative panel, "The Sacred Hecatomb," the Inness gold medal for the best landscape in the exhibition to Mr. Leonard Ochtman for his tonal canvas, "A Gray Morning"; and the Julius Hallgarten prizes for the best three oils by artists under thirty-five years of age were awarded, the first to Mr. H. M. Walcott's original and attractive figure work composition, "At the Party," the second to Mr. William F. Kline's beautiful figure and color work, "Leda and the Swan," and the third to Miss Belle Haven's charming landscape and figure work, "The Last Load." Next to the prize pictures, the interest centered in four unusual portraits: Mr. Irving R. Wiles's portrait of Mr. O. Rowland; Mr. Carroll Beckwith's Captain MacDougall; Mr. Frank Fowler's "President Hadley," and Mr. William Chase's "Emil Paur."

The opinion of the critics was very much divided as to the merits of the twenty-fifth exhibition of the Society of American Artists. held in New York in April. Some of the tendencies noted were a gradual growth in the average of achievement; that the number of canvases painted by Americans in Paris was increasing year by year; and that, despite the great names in the catalogue, the list of painters who were not exhibiting with the Society, or with the Academy, was growing so long as to suggest the condition that resulted in the formation of the Society itself by seceders from the Academy. All critics united, however, in commending the award of the prizes which was as follows: The Carnegie prize of $500 for the most meritorious oil painting by an American artist, portraits excepted, to Douglas Volk's "The Boy With the Arrow," the Webb prize of $300 for the best landscape or marine to Louis Loeb's "The Dawn," and the Shaw memorial prize of $300 for the best picture by a woman to Mrs. Kenyon Cox's "Olive." Among pictures that were quite generally praised were Mr. Abbott Thayer's "Winged Figure," a memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson occupying the place of honor in the gallery; a powerful marine by Winslow Homer, and Emil Carlsen's "Summer Night."

According to the majority of art critics the best exhibition which

appeared in any American city during the year was the seventysecond exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts opened in Philadelphia on January 19. Mr. Arthur Hoeber, the well-known art critic pronounced it far and away the most important art event of the year. Nearly 1,200 numbers appeared in the catalogue. The place of honor was assigned to Mr. John S. Sargent's portrait of James Ridley Carter, though Cecilia Beaux attracted more attention with her portrait of Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, to which she brought all the refinement and charm of her art, vesting her canvas with quiet, womanly dignity and a delightful color sense. The number and the high quality of the portraits exhibited made this branch of art first in importance. A panel of six Whistlers was something of an event, though they were little more than the painter's studies. Edwin Abbey's "Sylvia" was conspicuously placed in the most important gallery, and proved exceedingly effective.

That the eastern cities had no monopoly of the artistic interests and activity of the country was demonstrated by the excellence of two November exhibitions, one in Pittsburg and one in Chicago. The eighth annual exhibition at the Carnegie Institute was coincident with the celebration of the founding of that Institution. The three medals carrying with them prizes of $1,500, $1,000, and $500 respectively, were awarded to "A Woman Reading," by Frank W. Benson, of Boston; "Ariadne Abandoned," by Bryson Burroughs, of New York City; and "The Abandoned Quarry," by W. L. Lathrop, of New Hope, Pa. The Carnegie exhibitions are thoroughly international, for not only is the art of the foremost American painters fostered, but the leading artists of Europe have come to look upon the Pittsburg exhibition as second only to the Salon in Paris, the Academy in London and the Society in New York. The jury system which is one of the most efficient of any known exhibiting body, extends its jurisdiction to London, Paris and Munich, where advisory committees pass upon the merits of the paintings contributed from the English and continental artists. Every effort is made to avoid dictatorship, conventionalism, red-tapeism, or sectional prejudice. In 1903 one entire gallery was given up to a collection of works contributed by members of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Engravers of London.