World Look

Last week Homer Schiff Saint-Gaudens, director of Fine Arts for Pittsburgh's Carnegie Institute, returned to Manhattan from a four-month art-storming tour of Europe with 250 canvases for the Institute's 32nd International Show (Oct. 18). Not only had the 53-year-old son of the late great sculptor been garnering pictures but he had also taken an authoritative, front-line look at the current condition of world art. Director Saint-Gaudens briefly summarized what he had seen:

"Italy is the most promising art centre in Europe. ... I have never seen a land in which the government lends such a hand to artists. . . . The art was not a wildly advanced one and not an academic one. It was rather serious, seeking a firm foundation in what the Frenchman, Ingres, called the truth of art -- drawing. "In Spain, I found art reflecting a cheerful young middle class. Artists are selling their pictures to a fairly wealthy bourgeoisie. . . . [Spain's art] is between two regimes and shows it. ... Spanish artists are feeling their oats. '-'The French, from our point of view, have lacked horse sense. Just now the horsy thing is in the ascendancy. "Artistically, the English are sitting pretty. Two or three years ago the Royal Academy tried to cater to the new idea in art. Today, it sits down on its breeches and likes it. ''The Nazi government has conducted its anti-Semitic crusade into painting very forcibly. ... In its efforts to make art accord with its idea of the 1890 heroic the Nazi outfit is not succeeding at all. German art is rather dramatic and a little neurasthenic, but it has grown a. bit more gracious and a bit more brilliant. "Dutch painting is rather tight. "In Sweden, I found real vitality."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.