"A Creature of God Till Now Unknown." This work was cut directly in marble by Robert I. Aitken, A. N. A. Exhibited at the National Academy, New York. vital and all-sufficing reason for the artistic faith that was in them. Not so in the West. Here (particularly on the Pacific Coast) a certain innate self-sufficiency might be called one of the most salient characteristics. The fact that there was no precedent -or, for that matter, no art-constituted no irremediable barrier. Serene and secure, it proceeded to visualize its own conceptions of sculpture and painting, as, already, it had created its own literature. As one writer has said, speaking of this very formative period in the western part of our country, "Where there are no restrictions, the products must necessarily be in a large measure formless and uncouth; but be they amusing or pathetic, they disclose a quality of freedom and spontaneity that delight in doing, which is the very soul of art. In time this soul will find itself a body; perhaps not an amorphus hulk of giant size, but a symmetrical organism. which may convey nobly the dignity and grandeur of the creator's conception. In the East, the 'body' was Bret Harte. Detail of monument to Harte to be erected by the Bohemian Club, San Francisco. builded first with many a measurement and reference to authority-and its soul has begun to make itself felt. The ardent, exuberant West must, perforce, do its work in its own way, and its individual expression promises to be vastly interesting." Thoughts like these have a more than passing significance when considering Mr. Aitken's work-not mere ly the work he is now doing, but that which he has already done. Such examples of his earlier monumental labor as are most familiar to the people of San Francisco then take on an added and purely characteristic interest. We are told the great William Pitt once said of a speech by Fox: "Don't disparage: nobody could have made it but himself." Thus, many of the "Two Souls." Group carved directly in marble by Robert Aitken. Shown at the National Academy, New York. sculptural monuments in and about the City by the Golden Gate furnish tacit examples of the "full swing," the untrammeled freedom which was permitted their creators, in the imagination that pervaded, not merely their design, but their execution. The strongly developed qualities of his artistic imagination stand out with marked vividness in several of the il lustrations shown here; but in none more forcibly than in the group to which Mr. Aitken has given the simple yet graphic title, "Outer Darkness." This was shown at the exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy at Philadelphia last year (1912), evoking warm admiration from critics whose praise is the greater honor because they are, as a rule, so chary of |