Abstract

Art

France has done many astonishing things since the beginning of the war, but none more astonishing than her organization in the harrowing autumn of 1914 of a French and Belgian Section of Art for the San Francisco Exposition. The collection is partly retrospective, partly contemporary. That neither series is complete is not to be wondered at, the wonder being that both should be as representative as they are. The contemporary series is less important; a long list of the absent might be given. But no doubt, for this series, the French Government could not select, but had to take what it could get. To complete its enterprise, the French Government sent with the pictures and sculpture old tapestries, Savonnerie rugs, Sèvres porcelain, trusting treasures from the Mobilier National to the untrustworthy sea.