Sargents Flayed

The Late John Singer Sargent's talents are often flayed by modern estbetes who believe much of his painting is mere pomp and polish. Last week the undergraduate editors of the Harvard Crimson assailed Artist Sargent from another angle. Discussing his martial murals (one of which shows a U. S. soldier standing on a prostrate German) in the Widener Library they said: "Critics have shown them to be indefensible on grounds esthetic: War posters raised to the rank of mural decoration. But it is not their ugliness which would trouble the sensitive visitor. . . . [They] are out of place as the symbols of a bygone hatred. . . . They are of the stuff that is offensive to humanity and dangerous to peace . . . should be removed from the stronghold of academic freedom. They may well find a resting place, if resting place it is necessary that they have, in the memorial chapel about to be. The new chapel, it is averred, will not honor in its halls the Harvard War dead who were so unfortunate as to perish on the Teuton side. The Sargent murals are in keeping with this spirit ... not with that of the finer, older and far more useful library."