(3 of 4)
It is frequently complained that the Metropolitan owns only one Cezanne and has recently kept it out of sight; naturally this can bring no great woe to Critic Cortissoz. Nor must he feel sad because the Metropolitan owns no paintings at all by Derain, Matisse, Picasso or Marie Laurencin. On the other hand, idling along its corridors, he may visit many collections greatly to his liking. There is an extensive U. S. group. The Italian collection is noteworthy, including a Tiepolo ceiling and a roomful of Primitives among which is an Aretino and a Segna di Bonaventura. There may also be seen a Fra Angelico. paintings by Carpaccio, Crivelli, Botticelli, Bellini, Tintoretto, Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Titian, Correggio, and 22 ceiling panels by Pinturicchio.
The Spanish room contains Goyas, El Grecos and Zurbarans. Not startling are two Flemish rooms. The Dutch collection has numerous works by Hals and Vermeer and several Rembrandts. In the Altman collection are other Dutch, Italian and Spanish pictures.
The British exhibit is unsatisfactory. The modern French collection (Puvis de Chavannes, Corot, Manet, Monet) is also sparse. But six Metropolitan galleries will be opened on March 11 containing the famed Havemeyer collection (TIME, Feb. 4, 1929) which will greatly swell the museum's resources with fine specimens of Courbet, Corot, Manet, Monet, Renoir. Degas, El Greco, Millet, Puvis de Chavannes, Poussin, Ingres, Cezanne, Veronese, Filippo Lippi, Rembrandt, De Hoogh, Hals, Rubens, Goya. All in all. those who can content themselves with great artistry before Cezanne will find the Metropolitan a fascinating repository of paintings, not as great as the major European museums, but undeniably important.* Those who completely subscribe to Critic Cortissoz's beliefs will find little if any ground for complaint.
Royal Cortissoz, 61, was born in Manhattan. Early in life he went to work in the architectural offices of the late great McKim, Mead & White, where he stayed six years. For 20 years he was literary as well as art editor of the New York Tribune (now the Herald Tribune). He likes music (Wagner and Beethoven preferred), collects books, and is addicted to golf, about which he has humorously philosophized in a volume called Nine Holes of Golf. His wife Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz has written on musical subjects, is co-editor of the Library of American Literature. Critic Cortissoz has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Princeton. Columbia, Wesleyan, Union, Amherst, innumerable clubs. He has no official connection with the Metropolitan Museum, but is an honorary fellow of that institution, as well as of the American Institute of Architects. Other Cortissoz books: Augustus Saint Gaudens; John La Farge; Art and Common Sense; The Life of Whitelaw Reid; American Artists; Personalities in Art.