ART.
MR. KEMEYS'S ANIMAL GROUPS.
THESE works are exhibited at No. 29 Argyle Street, W. America has long been twitted on her lack of a national and original school of art, but these little groups of statuary go far towards removing the stigma. Mr. Kemeys is an American ; from his boyhood he has lived among the wild animals of the Great West, observing their habits and studying their structure with the eyes of a naturalist and an artist combined. Having thus gained complete and intimate knowledge of his material, he has employed his sculptor's instinct for form and grouping to create a series of animal portraits unequalled, so far as we know, for truth of detail and picturesque breadth of treatment. In fact, such work as Mr. Kemeys's is very rare in any branch of art, and it is not too much to say that in the particular line which he has chosen he need fear no rival. Imagination and memory, faculties indispensable to a sculptor, are in him highly developed ; his manual dexterity and technical skill are exceptional, while his evident sympathy with his wild and shy " sitters " gives him an otherwise unattainable insight into their nature and ways.
Had not Mr. Kemeys already achieved distinction, not only among his brother artists, but also in public estimation, we might have been inclined to predict that those very qualities which constitute his peculiar excellence would have stood in the way of his success. His extraordinary anatomical fidelity, for example, would seem thrown away on the ordinary observer, who, pro- vided certain hackneyed rules of composition and smart techni- calities be observed, will seldom find fault with dislocated joints and impossible poses. In reviewing the mass of the animal sculpture and painting of the day, we find the ruling faults to be, first, insufficient acquaintance with the structure of the skeleton and the arrangements of the muscles and hide ; and secondly, misrepresentation (either deliberate or the result of ignorance) of animal nature. Animal nature is not human nature, and yet some of our first artists—Sir Edwin Landseer among the rest— have made the capital mistake of attempting to give their portraits of animals a human expression and significance. The result, though occasionally not devoid of a grotesque and extravagant kind of humour, is invariably as fatal to the modesty of nature as it is subversive of the dignity of art. This fact, however, has by no means interfered with the popularity of such productions. A certain namby-pamby senti- ment, connected with the modern heresy that animals have souls, combined with a vulgar readiness to be amused at whatever esthetic sacrifice, has, on the contrary, stimulated their manu- facture. Every one is familiar with the little terra-cotta groups of cats, foxes, monkeys, and such small deer, sitting on their haunches and aping the actions and expressions of men and women. These groups, visible in many shop-windows, and suggested pro- bably by Kaulbach's illustrations of Goethe's " Reinecke Fuchs," though they are a distinct artistic immorality, and abhorrent to any wholesome and vigorous feeling for esthetic propriety, have never- theless obtained a vogue as surprising as it is discreditable ; and we repeat that we find, in the fact of Mr. Kemeys's recognition in the face of such odds, a much-needed subject for self-gratulation.
For Mr. Kemeys descends to no untruthful or histrionic expedi- ents to steal success. His animals are animals, and nothing but animals ; their poses are as characteristic and as true to animal nature as are their forms. Abundance of humour is disclosed in the treatment, but it is always legitimate humour,—the humour, that is to say, of animals, not of man. There is nothing atagey in the grouping ; there is no straining after effect at the expense of truth. We see in his work a representation of wild beasts as God created them ; their completeness in themselves is recog- nised, and there is no attempt to eke out their supposed defi- ciencies of expression or significance by endowing them with human traits. The result is something like a revelation to those who have allowed their taste to become vitiated by the impure and fictitious ideals hitherto so widely followed. The first im- pression is one of surprise, perhaps of something not unlike disappointment, for severe veracity will often appear insipid to the palate injured by quack condiments. But presently the beauty and worth of genuine art assert themselves, and we are made conscious of a novel and original sensation of pleasure, a plea- sure which waxes, instead of wanes, in proportion to our familiarity with it. The more careful and intelligent our examination, the higher becomes our satisfaction. A new vista of life is revealed to us ; looking through the artist-naturalist's eyes, we discern a beauty and meaning in animals unsuspected before. This fasci- nation, once felt, can never grow tame ; having once become accustomed to the new wild flavour, we never afterwards revert to the old sensational diet. Most other animal sculptors, design- ing their groups and figures from an outside point of view, get only outsides in their results ; but Mr. Kemeys enters into his subjects, and contrives to apprehend not only their internal struc- ture, but apparently their thoughts and feelings likewise ; he
becomes them, in short,—apparels himself in their faculties, and, regards the situation through their organs of sensation, and through them alone. With such a method, and with the technique requisite to its objective realisation, the excellence of his produc- tions is easily accounted for.
In any reference to animal sculptors, one famous name inevitably suggests itself,—that of Barye, the eminent French. artist, whose genius has hitherto remained unrivalled. This is not the place in which to draw a comparison between his work and that of Mr. Kemeys, although they exhibit many striking points of similitude. It would probably satisfy the ambition of most rising artists to be thought worthy of mention in the same sentence with the great master ; nevertheless, we think it only due to Mr. Kemeys to say that he may fairly lay claim to a better compliment than this. In anatomical knowledge he appears to us little, if at all behind his predecessor, and if he be, the latter's inferior in audacity and splendour of concep- tion, he partly compensates for this by a subtle percep- tion of delicate shades of character, and a fine discrimina- tion of animal individualities, in which Barye's works are comparatively deficient. Mr. Kemeys's animals, in other words, are not merely types, they are also individuals ; his wolf and his panther have not only what belongs to the best specimens of their kind, but likewise certain indescribable personal pecu-• liarities of countenance and bearing, which force us to look upon, them as recognisable portraits. Those who have made the repre- sentation of animals, whether with pencil or chisel, a subject of study, will understand what an artistic triumph Mr. Kemeys has✓ herein achieved.
We have left ourselves no space for a description of such of Mr. Kemeys's works as are still on exhibition here ; several of them, unfortunately for the public, have been already purchased, notably the groups of the " Panther and Deer," which have be- come the property of Mr. Winans, for £500. Of those that remain we would call attention to " Playing 'Possum,"—a wild- cat or American lynx worrying an opossum, which has clewed- itself up in a ball ; " Fast as Fate," a death-struggle between a boa constrictor and a panther ; and as an example of masterly- composition especially, to the " Coyote and Raven " quarrelling over the carcase of a buffalo. But in fact, there is nothing here which will not repay attentive study. Mr. Kemeys is a constant worker, and is at present, we understand, engaged upon an illus- tration of the song, "Did You ever Catch a Weasel Asleep?"' which bids fair to render classic that unassuming piece of doggerel. J.
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