Viewing page 134 of 154

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Bob Jones (University)

November 11 1954

Dear Mr. Jones:

Having been away from New York when your most impressive catalogue of the permanent collection of your university reached my office, it is only within the last few days that I had an opportunity of studying it.

Mrs. T. D. Parker, I know, has already expressed to you our thanks and her praise of this achievement.  May I in turn convey my congratulations.  These do not apply just to the splendid typographical work of the catalogue but especially and essentially as regards the group of paintings you have gathered in so short a time.

If you will allow me, I would like, however, to express my disappointment at the limited number of French paintings represented and particularly at the absence of French 17th century artists, as I noticed that you have two paintings by Jean Cousin and one by Jean Restout: and this, of course, is particularly striking if one notices the remarkable and important group of the Italian schools.  France in the 17th century was a center of great religious battles not only on account of the reformed church but also due to the struggles between the Jansenists and the Jesuits, the latter so very powerful at the court; and thus the artists of that period represented some of these different currents, which one does not find, for instance, in Italy and Spain which were entirely under the control of the Pope and where one could say the Counter-Reformation movement fully triumphed.

You will have gathered--writing in this vein--that this particular esthetic movement and period interest me much; hence, the liberty I am taking of writing you as I do.  Hoping Mrs. T. D. Parker and I shall have the privilege of seeing you here in the not too distant future, and with renewed thanks for your kind though of us,

Yours very sincerely,
Germain Seligman

Mr. Bob Jones, Jr.
The Bob Jones University
Greenville, South Carolina

[[?]]