get,” he says, which leads him to behevernothers can be convinced to change. Thernbest argument he has is his own success.rnKatherine Dalton writes from Louisville,rnKentucky.rnSacred Encountersrnby Rachel Heise andrnDaniel James SundahlrnR.H. Ives Gammell andrnFrancis ThompsonrnTime,” R.H. Ives Gammell wroternin ‘I’he Twilight of Painting, “is arnruthless appraiser of art and, by andrnlarge, a very just one.” Gammell addressedrnhis book “to readers disposed tornconsider the complete deterioration ofrnthe older forms of painting a disaster torncivilization.” When he published ThernTwilight in 1946, Gammell’s purpose wasrnnot to attack any method or school ofrnpainting then in vogue; he believed,rnhowever, that a large number of artrnlovers felt uneasy about the kind ofrnpainting “encouraged by our art museumsrnand fostered in our art schools.”rn”As a matter of record,” Gammellrnwrote in the conclusion to The Twilight,rn”I will state here that all the trainedrnpainters I have known, several of whomrnwere considered leaders in their professionrna short quarter of a centurv ago,rnhave been unanimous in their estimaternof critical opinions emanating from theorists,rnamateurs, and incompetentrnartists.” Theory, Gammell believed, wasrnoutstripping performance, and the traditionalrnart of painting with long establishedrnstandards had fallen to a level thatrnhas had no parallel in the civilized worldrnfor several centuries. No one “ever envisagedrna criticism at once as ignorantrnand as self-assured as that dispensed byrnthe art writers attached to our newspapersrnand periodicals.” For great art isrnnot acquired intuitively nor do fine picturesrnjust paint themselves. “There willrnnot be good painting until we once morernhave among us talented men who alsornknow how to paint.”rnThe 1993/1994 Fine Arts Season atrnIhllsdale Gollege’s Sage Center beganrnwith an impressive exhibition celebratingrnGammell’s achievement, especially thernwork that most embodied his personalrncriterion. I’he Daughtrey Gallery premieredrnthe International Tour of R.I I.rnIves Gammell’s pictorial sequence ofrnFrancis Thompson’s “The Hound ofrnHeaven,” whose imagery focused Gammell’srnown visionary experiences andrnprovoked him into the largest undertakingrnof his career. The exhibition is heldrnin conjunction with an academic residencyrnby Professor Brigid M. Boardman,rnauthor of Between Heaven and CharingrnCross: The Life of Francis I’hompson.rnThe exhibition also features auxiliaryrnmaterial from both Gammell andrnThompson. The poem and the cycle ofrnpaintings (numbering 23 in all, oil onrncanvas) embody the theme of man’srnpursuit of the infinite, or in Thompson’srnterms, the pursuit bv God of the soul inrnflight.rnA retired M.D. we know, a devout RomanrnCatholic, can still recite by heartrnThompson’s “The Hound of Heaven.”rnA Calvinist minister we know, living inrnArkansas, ministering to a small OzarkrnMountains church, can also recite thernpoem by heart. These are two personsrnliving apart from colleges and universities,rnalso a generation apart from onernanother if not religiouslv apart, whornshare in the hidden lives of their heartsrnthe power of a great poem:rnI fled Him, down the nights andrndown the days;rn1 fled Him, down the arches of thernyears;rnI fled Him, down the labyrinthinernwavsrnOf my own mind; and in the mistrnof tearsrnI hid from Him, and underrnrunning laughter.rnUp vistaed hopes I sped;rnAnd shot, precipitated,rnAdown Titanic glooms ofrnchasmed fears.rnFrom those strong Feet thatrnfollowed, followed after.rnLast year was the centenary of thernpublication of Francis Thompson’srnPoems. I’he centerpiece to that collectionrnis “The Hound of Heaven,” an allegorical,rnliturgical poem that portrays thernstripped soul of Everyman who seeks andrnfinds a home in eternity, as Brigid M.rnBoardman writes in her biography ofrnFrancis Thompson. The years from 1888rnto 1894 were Thompson’s period of poeticrnproductivity. In the four chaptersrncovering those years. Professor Boardmanrnshows that the “liturgy was evenrnnow being woven into the pattern of hisrnpoetic ideas.” She sees “his main fault tornbe the tendency to excess which he neverrnsucceeded in bringing under full controlrn. . . a potentially fine passage canrndeteriorate into needless obscurity orrnempty rhetoric.”rnStill, the writing is anything but stockrnreligious poetry. “The Hound of Heaven”rnunites the personal with the universal,rnThompson drawing from childhoodrnmemories of his service as an altar boy,rnhis nomadic life on the London streets,rnhis illness, and his pain. The self-revelationrnand self-acceptance in the poem,rnhowever, build on a “mythological undercurrent”rncontaining “echoes of thernScriptures and Fathers of the Churchrn. . . to the no less distinct voice of Augustine.”rnLast year was also the centenary ofrnthe birth of R.H. Ives Gammell, whosernThe Boston Painters, Nineteen Hundred tornNineteen Thirty and The Twilight ofrnPainting defended an older standard ofrnexecution, one that demanded thoroughrnand comprehensive professional training.rnGammell first read Thompson’srnpoem in 1911, and it provoked and focusedrnhis imagination. During thern1930’s, Gammell planned a cycle ofrnpaintings freely based on Thompson’srnpoem, but the project never materializedrndue to Gammell’s nervous breakdownrnand depicted creative energies.rnGammell suggests, in the foreword tornthe 1956 catalog of “The Hound ofrnHeaven” cycle, that for years he had beenrnunable to find the proper imagery tornconvey the ideas he found in Thomp-rnJANUARY 1994/47rnrnrn