ferent; there is something frail about it; something timid and faltering, which makes me think of a young girl, delicate and sweet, who, knowing that she has not reached maturity, looks forward to her womanhood and remains unconscious of her present virgin loveli- ness. No, I am sure that I should never love that Mis- souri landscape as I loved it in the early spring, and I am sure that such a painter as W. Elmer Schofield would have loved it best as I saw it, and that Edward Redfield or Ernest Lawson would prefer to paint it in that aspect than in any other which it could assume. I should like to see them paint it, and I should also like to see their paintings shown to Kansas and Missouri. What would Kansas and Missouri make of them? Very little, I fear. For (with the exception of St. Louis) those two States seem to be devoid of all feel- ing for art. I doubt that there is a public art gallery in the whole State of Kansas, or a private collection of paintings worth speaking of. As for western Missouri, I could learn of no paintings there, save some full-sized copies, in oil, of works of old masters, which were pre- sented to Kansas City by Colonel Nelson. These copies are exceptionally fine. They might form the nucleus for a municipal gallery of art--a much better nucleus than would be formed by one or two actual works of old masters--but Kansas City has n't "gotten around to art," as yet, apparently. The paintings are housed in the second story of a library building, and several peo- ple to whom I spoke had never heard of them. -322- |