A SUCCESSOR TO DORE.

Since the death of Dore, there has been no one to occupy his peculiar and distinctive position in the world of art. German critics now announce that a succesor to the weirdly imaginative French painter has been discovered in the person of Sascha Schneider.

Schneider is a young German artist who was quite unknown until about a year ago, when he exhibited a remarkable series of drawings on Biblical subjects.

His work was so original, so fantastic in conception, and so strong and definite in drawing, that it attracted attention at once. An idea of its character may be gained from a description of one of the painter's latest creations, entitled "Fighting for a Soul." This is the picture of an angel and a demon, with a dead body lying between them on the ground. So beautiful is the attitude of the angel, so truly angelic the expression of the face, that the hideousness of the demon is forever forgotten, and one sees only the marvelous and poetic conception which the artist sought to convey.

All of Schneider's work is said to show great power and originality of thought. His lights and shades are strongly contrasted. Like Dore's, his figures stand out in a weird, supernatural light; there is no questioning their meaning. His success in Europe makes it only a matter of time when his drawings will be familiar here.

A WHEEL IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

The most ardent admirers of the bicycle have never dared to claim that it was a "thing of beauty." But now it has been admitted to the Royal Academy, and the stamp and seal of art are upon it. One of the Academicians has put a wheel on convas - a "drop frame" machine with a feminine rider. The picture passed before the eyes of conservative English judges, and was neither skyed nor floored, but hung on the line. Those opponents of the wheel who claim that it is impossible for a woman to look well on a bicyle may, in future, be referred to the committee on admission of the Royal Academy.

GIBSON AND DU MAURIER.

Since England lost her most famous illustrator, many of Mr. Charles Dana Gibson's friends and admirers have been prophesying that he would step into Mr. Du Maurier's place, as the artistic chronicler of contemporary social types. The London Spectator gives this interesting opinion of the American artist.

"In looking at Mr. Gibson's drawings, one is more struck by the recurrence of the models, and by the fashion plate brilliancy of their clothing, than by close or humorous observation. Du Maurier was a great social satirist, Keene a humorous physingnomist and a great draftsman. Mr. Gilbert is neither, but rather a technically accomplished person, like our own Mr. Bernard Partridge."

The criticism recalls an oft quoted American opinion, expressed early in the artist's career, which was to the effect that Mr. Gibson's success was due largely to the good clothes of his friends.

THE FIELD OF THE OLD MASTERS.

It is strange that with all the elaborate public buildings which have been erected in this country during the last few years, it has been left to the modern hotel to return the American artist to the favorite field of the old masters - mural decoration. While the great new libraries in Boston and Washington have perhaps carried this work of mural decoration farther into the realm of art than any other buildings, the new hotels recently erected, and those in course of construction, in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere, have given our artists the largest fields of labor. The ample expanses of wall and ceiling offered by the public rooms of these palatial hostelries, as well as the great sums of money lavishly expended in their furnishing, have attracted our very best artists, and the names of such well known men as Will Low, George W. Maynard, Frank Fowler, and J. Wells Champney appear conspicuously among the decorators of the newest metropolitan hotels.

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It has been very hard for Germans to recognize the progress of women, especially in art, but now they are beginning to acknowledge her rights, and are proving in solid and substantial ways that they recognize her genius. For the first time a woman has been commmissioned by the government to furnish an art contribution to the public buildings. Mrs. Cadwallader Guild, an American who has a studio in Berlin, has received an order from Postmaster General von Stephan for two statues, representing the post and the telegraph. They are to be placed on the new post office in the German capital.

Mrs Guild has recently executed a bust of the Duchess of Saxe Altenburg. It is now on exhibition in Berlin, where it has attraction attention by its beauty and by the originality of its treatment. This royal portrait in marble undoubtedly led the way for the government order.

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What is perhaps the smallest painting in the world is the work of a Flemish artist. The canvas is the smooth side of a kernel of common white corn. So skilfully has the artist worked that even in thsi small space there is painted a picture of considerable latitude. There is a mill on a terrace, a miller with a sack of grain on his back. By the building stands a horse and cart, and in the roadway is a group of peasants.

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Raphael's birthplace, Urbino, in Central Italy, has honored the great painter with a monument. At the dedication of the memorial, which took place this summer, there was opened an international exhibition of copies of the master's works. All kinds of reproductions were shown, oil, water color, pastel, line, and photographs.

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A bit of art history, interesting especially to those who swear by the Royal Academy, is found in the statement, made by an English publication, that of the twenty eight pictures sold in London during 1896, at a price of $7,000 or more, every one was by a British painter.