Melchers' style is much more sympathetic than Hassam's without being
less personal. Of modern painters I confess to a particularly great
fondness for Melchers' art. While standing firmly on classic tradition,
it is modern in every sense. One can say everything of good and find
little fault with any of these most conscientiously painted canvases
which make up his contribution to the exhibition. Beginning with his
"Fencing Master", one of his older works, he shows in a great number of
similar subjects his loyalty to Egmond aan den Hoef, a little Dutch
village where he has worked for years. The quality of pattern and colour
in his work is very pronounced, and this, combined with a fine
psychology, makes his work always interesting. He is no radical; the
best as he sees it in any school he has made subservient to his purpose
without any loss of individuality. His pictures yield much pleasure to
public as well as to artist, even in sentimental stories like the
"Sailor and His Sweetheart", or the "Skaters". His finest note he
strikes undoubtedly in the many sympathetic glorifications of motherhood
in his fine modern Madonnas. These works will be the sure foundation of
his fame. No matter whether he calls them "Madonna of the Fields",
"Maternity", or simply "Mother and Child", he presents this greatest of
all subjects as few have ever done. His art is wholesome and sane, but
endowed with a subtle quality of insight into his subjects that will
always assure him a very high place in the history of art. For years he
has been one of the reliable painters of the world, and to meet with his
work at intervals is always a source of great satisfaction.

Gallery 75.

Sargent.

A small adjoining gallery is given entirely over to a few Sargents which