Identifier: artartistsofourt04cook (find matches)
Title: Art and artists of our time
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Cook, Clarence, 1828-1900
Subjects: Painting Painters
Publisher: New York, S. Hess
Contributing Library: Brandeis University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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Text Appearing Before Image:
"THE PENITENT MAGDALEN."
FROM THE PICTURE BY GABRIEL MAX.
von Chamisso's poem; " then Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, Looking at a Dead Child;" the
" Child-murderess," and " Christ Bringing-back to Life the Daugher of Jairus," where, that

ART AND ARTISTS OF OUR TIME. -217

no doubting Thomas may question her death, the artist has, with exquisite taste, placed a
corrupting fly already fastened upon her arm !
Text Appearing After Image:

" CONSULTING THE FORTUNE-TELLER."
FROM THE PICTURE BY GABRIEL MAX.

What it is that pleases in Gabriel Max, it would be hard to say. Beyond a certain arti-
ficial clearness of coloring, as if he used wax for a medium, and a choice of morbid colors, that

218 ART AND ARTISTS OF OUR TIME.

degenerates into mannerism, there is little in his execution that would seem suited to please
artists, and it might be thought that even the public would tire of the sensational subject
she delights in. His drawing is clumsy and careless; his forms heavy, his power of facial ex-
pression almost nothing—yet, for a time, he seemed likely to become a power in the art-world.
The subjects we have selected show him in as favorable a light as could be contrived; "The
Penitent Magdalen," is a sweet-faced model, as capable of moral emotion as a canary-bird, and
the drawing of her arm, huge beyond reason, and of the hand with its impossible finger, shows
the carelessness of the artist, when seen undisguised by the luxurious morbidness of his palette.

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