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THE PICTURESQUENESS OF NEW                              YORK
STREETS: ILLUSTRATED IN THE                           PAINT-
INGS OF BIRGE HARRISON
  0IT CAN no longer be denied that New York streets have
              obtained a vo ue for picturesqueness; from being dis-
              dained even uy the most devoted Americans, and
              being accused by the foreigner of every possible met-
              ropolitan inelegance, they have slowly and definitely
              achieved a popularity with artist and critic. The in-
              sensitive to New York's fascinatingly ugly ways feel a
 sense of bewilderment at this vogue, while those who early received
 the magnetism of the city, whose charm was the piquancy of much
 ugliness and occasional unexpected beauty, realize that their own
 point of view, held stubbornly for years against jeers and smiles,
 is finally vindicated. And now that the vogue is established and
 New York has become a belle in her way among cities, there are
 many who lay claim to the honor of having first discovered the pic-
 turesque phases of her devious outlines. Pennell in his masterly
 etchings of skyline and harbor, of city squares and canyons, with his
 sensuous presentation of cloud and snowdrift, of mist and rain, has
 surely worked as a lover might to testify to her beauty in each of her
 many whimsical moods, the charm solely of the ugly woman of
 magnetic temperament. W. H. Ranger, too, came under her spell
 more than a half dozen years ago and painted with eerie brush glowing
 lights quivering through pouring rain, the metallic gleam of wet
 pavements, of shining trees throwing grotesque shadows, of serpentine
 trains on high wrought-iron structures creeping by through dim
 backgrounds-a beauty of high lights and black spaces, and born
 of the elements usually shunned by artist and pedestrian.
   And Jules Guerin might easily feel that his claim as a prospector
was guaranteed in the mystical New York which he has discovered
and presented with such delicacy and fine reserve, in gray church-
yards and gentle universities with their remote alluring beauty. He
has seemed to see our city of crude contrasts and evasive charm in
a sort of spiritual vision.
   The fantastic side of the New York temperament has perhaps
been best realized by the painter always of fantastic phases of life,
Everett Sbinn; to this artist she is a turbulent spirit, active, difficult,
with an intangible charm to be felt in spite of waywardness of char-
acter. A city of gaily blown about draperies, of vivid spots of color,
of elfin moods and sprite-like graces, Hallowe'en lurks in his brush.
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