and his ruddy consciousness of his
prestige, he is our great tour-de-force as a figure in the artistic
scene. He is here, naturally, now the target of popular interest.

The practice of having artists shown at their own exhibitions is one too
little cultivated. The Napoleonic brow and the Napoleonic forelock
(famous in their circle) of George Luks, the torrential Luksean mirth,
how would not their actual presence open the spiritual eyes of visiting
school-children to the humane qualities of the works of the Luksean
genius! And why should we who procure for our better perception of their
works illuminating biographies of the Old Masters not be permitted the
intellectual stimulation of beholding the Ten American Painters seated
along on a bench at their annual show? The subject of the artists
themselves, however, brings us around to the line between the two kinds
of people having to do with art exhibitions: fine-looking people and
funny-looking people.

Come; let us trot along. Artists themselves are, in a most pronounced
degree, of both kinds. And a very singular thing is this: the funnier an
artist's pictures are, the funnier-looking is the artist that made them.
We'll stop in here, at The Advanced Gallery.

"Ah! How are you?"

That, just going out, is one of the newest groups of painters, known as
the Homeopathics. I used to know him before he went abroad. And the
curious thing is, that at that time he was very good-looking. He was
clean shaven. This strange assortment of whiskers of different fashions
on various parts of his face, imperial, goatee, burnsides, he brought
back with him.

Notice as we step from the car at the gallery floor the numerous others
here who also were at the show we just left. And those who are thus
making the rounds, you perceive, are not of what is called society, but
of the kind known in these circles, doubtless, as interesting. Nearly
everybody in this gallery, in fact, is of the interesting sort. At once
it is apparent that there is nothing of the perfunctory here. Art is
vital. Art is earnest. The atmosphere is tense. The young women are
clad in a manner giving much freedom to the movement of their bodies.
They walk with a stride. Their clothes are not of the mode of the
Avenue, but they have--how shall I say? To twist what Whistler said of
his model: Character, character is what these clothes have. They
suggest, many of these young women, the type that has neve