only invincible banners in the battle of national life.

Moreover, until very recently art has been subordinated to other things, and such art work as we have produced has necessarily enough been largely a reflection of the art of Europe, owing to the fact that our young men and women had to go there for instruction. The dream of a great original art for the New World that was long entertained by a few chosen spirits and that found fine expression in Professor John Ward Stimson's distinctly great work, The Gate Beautiful, has been vaguely shaping in the minds of many of our foremost artists, sculptors, architects and artisans; and especially among our younger men of genius and imagination is this noble dream of a new Greece that shall far outshine ancient Hellas, and of a new Italy that shall eclipse the sunburst of glory that marked the Renaissance, slowly taking shape. On every hand we find our artists and artisans honestly, earnestly and faithfully doing work that

points to the coming of the dawnworks that at least are hints and prophecies of the new day.

In the May ARENA Mr. George Wharton James gave a graphic pen-picture of one of these earnest and gifted American artists who is doing strong, fine work. Mr. Grant has chosen the ocean as his mistress, and her varied moods he is painting with rare fidelity. Others of our younger artists are doing equally good work in different specific spheres. Some have taken human life as their subject; others have chosen the mountains, the valleys, the streams and picturesque nooks of the highways and byways. Among this number is Edward W. Redfield, who has probably won wider and more merited fame for his paintings of winter-locked landscapes any other American artist.

than

II.

Mr. Redfield is a fine type of sturdy American manhood. His life is sincere and simple as are his pictures enthralling

in their witchery and compelling power. His love of nature has led him from the crowded, nerve-racking, brain-distracting metropolitan centers to a quiet nook on the picturesque banks of the beautiful Delaware. Should the reader, some balmy day when spring calls the children of the city into the country, chance to find himself at Trenton, New Jersey, and being of an exploring, country-loving nature should he determine to follow the windings of that wonderfully picturesque stream, the Delaware, up toward the lofty hill-land region, he would in time come to a great covered bridge that spans the river, beyond which lies the little hamlet of Center Bridge, and he would note an island in the stream and beyond the island, between the riverbank and the tow-path of an old-time canal, he would note a modest framehouse with a wide window looking to ward the river. Most probably, if the

day was fair, he would see a man hard at work in the midst of a promising garden, with a child at his heels asking the thousand and one questions that crowd the youthful mind and which often relate to problems about which the wisest sage knows no more than the dullest brain. How does that little seed change into the wonderful plant with its beautiful flowers? And why does this seed blossom into a red flower and that one, that looks exactly like it, unfold into golden or bronze? Why is this flower so fragrant and that one innocent of odor?

While you note the gardener busily engaged with his plants, pausing now and then to reply to the child's questions which baffle the imagination of maturity, a country lad approaches you and you ask him who lives in the house by the river-bank, with the broad window outlook.

"Oh, that is Ed. Redfield's home,"

Sure," comes the confident reply, "and a good one, too. Why, he raises all the vegetables and chickens his family can eat, and he has made lots of improvements in his house since he bought it. That large window he made so he could get lots of light in his paint-shop. And say! if you go over there, ask Ed. to show you into the paint-shop. Then look at the table, the bench and the stool. He made those things himself out of driftwood he caught that was floating down the river to the sea."

The boy, you find, has spoken the truth. The studio and its furnishings are largely the work of the inventive artist, and as a gardener he deserves much praise, for his heart is in the work, and "the heart," as the poet says, "giveth grace to every art." Mr. Redfield loves nature with such whole-souled love that the wonders of seed and plant, of blossom and fruit, the eternal miracle of birth, growth and fruition, appeal to him with that fascination that only the creative mind is capable of fully experiencing.

It is also in the winter, as the boy said, that our artist is busy with palette and brush. Then, no matter how cold the day, if the spirit moves him, he bundles up with arctic apparel and sallies forth. Suddenly he sees a scene that appeals to his artistic nature, and he is riveted to the earth. Quickly the brush moves over the canvas. If all goes well in three hours the study is completed that is to become a master-painting, and the artist

Mr. Redfield makes from forty to sixty studies during the winter. If twelve of these satisfy his artistic judgment the year's work has been a success. Sometimes, however, not more than seven or eight pictures are sufficiently excellent to pass his severely critical judgment, for he is a critic no less than an artist, and he possesses the rather rare power of being an impartial judge of his own handiwork.

Mr. Redfield is making the beautiful valley of the Delaware famous throughout the New World, though one regrets that he limits his wonderful portrayal to the somber, austere and sublime aspects of the land in the winter time; for we know few regions in our land so rich in beauty or that present so many

valley of the Delaware in summer and autumn.

Our artist was born in Bridgeville, Delaware. His art education was chiefly gained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and under Bougereau and Tony Robert Fleury in Paris.

III.

As before observed, Mr. Redfield loves nature with the strong and unaffected affection of the true artist. All her moods are dear to him, but unlike most of his brother painters, it is not in the joyous, budding spring, the rich luxuriance which comes with the glories of the summer time, nor yet the flaming splendor of nature when, stricken to death, she arrays herself in matchless robings

for her triumphant exit, that he finds his chief inspiration. Few are his canvases that reflect nature in her gladsome growing and thrillingly exultant hours. His noblest work pictures the great Mother mantled in her shroud of snow or somber and silent in the recuperative sleep that so resembles death.

A typical picture by Mr. Redfield is entitled "The Three Boats." It is one of the best of the artist's pictures that was sent to the Portland Exhibition. No one can look upon this canvas without feeling the spell of winter's icy hand. The shroud of snow, the skeleton trees, the somber river and the idle boats speak more eloquently than words of the sleeping time of nature.

Another picture that has won high praise, but which, owing largely to the nature of the treatment, it is impossible properly to reproduce by photography, is entitled "The Crest." It won the

second medal and the award of one thousand dollars at the Pittsburgh Art Exhibition given at the Carnegie Institute in the autumn of 1905. The first medal at this exhibition went to a French artist, and the third award was to Mr. Childe Hassam for the striking painting called "June," which we reproduced in THE ARENA a few months ago.

Another canvas by Mr. Redfield and one that by many is considered his best painting is entitled "Center Bridge." It is a panoramic view of a wide expanse representing his home village, the long covered-bridge and the mountainous hills in the background. This painting was highly praised at the Society of American Artists. It was later put on exhibition at the Albright Galleries in Buffalo. While there, President Charles L. Hutchinson of the Chicago Institute saw it and was so impressed with its power and merit that he promptly purchased it to