International studio (14.1901)

Enamelling

with the process of painting—the facture, brush-
work, or whatever you like to call it, of painting.

Newlyn was the next phase of Mr. Forbes’s life,
and will probably—though, as George Eliot says,
it is always not only foolish but gratuitous to
prophesy—be the scene of his most characteristic
work. This colony has been written about so
much by outside pens that I do not feel inclined
to touch it further than to say that friendship and
the camaraderie of the ateliers of Paris and Antwerp,
a sympathy with each other’s intentions, a mild
climate suitable for out-of-door work, a gray-roofed
village overhanging a lovely bay—these were the
determining causes that led to the young artists
setting up their easels hard by the Cornish sea, and
the same causes,, aided by that cumulative sedative
called habit, have held many of them there ever
since.

One circumstance connected with his coming to
Newlyn has certainly had the most vital influence
upon Mr. Forbes’s life. Here it was that he first
met Miss Elizabeth Armstrong. Alphonse Daudet
has written a book called “Les Femmes d’Artistes”
which goes to prove by exhaustive illustration that
artists ought not to marry ; but, on the other hand

—well, perhaps, after all I had better not pursue
this subject any farther. Mrs. Stanhope Forbes’s
work does not ask you for any of that chivalrous
gentleness which is in itself so derogatory to the
powers of women. As an artist she stands shoulder
to shoulder with the very best; she has taste and
fancy, without which she could not be an artist.
But what strikes one about her most is summed up
in the word “ability”—she is essentially able.
The work which that wonderful left hand of hers
finds to do, it does with a certainty that makes
most other work look tentative beside hers. The
gestures and poses that she chooses in her models
show how little she fears drawing, while the gistness
of her criticism has a most solvent effect in dissolv-
ing the doubts that hover round the making of
pictures. These things show, Daudet notwith-
standing, that it may be a valuable thing to have
such a critic on the hearth.

THE ART OF TRUE ENAMEL-
LING UPON METAL.—PART II.
BY ALEXANDER FISHER.

There are two ways of interpreting the words
“an enamel.” They may
signify the substance en-
amel, or may be applied to
the completed work. The
substance enamel is a
vitreous compound that
adheres to the surface of
the metal upon which it
is fused. Enamels are
divided into three kinds,
the transparent, the trans-
lucent, and the opaque.
The transparent are those
through which it is possible
to see quite clearly the
metal and its quality of
surface—as, for example, in
bassetaille, where the whole
effect of the process is due
to the transparency of the
enamel. The translucent
are those which are not
transparent, but which ad-
mit the light through them;
the opaque are those which
do not.

These enamels are com-
posed of a simple flux,
and also of a flux com-