International studio (25.1905)

rir^wo AUSTRIAN PAINTERS:
j KARL MEDIZ AND EMILIE
R MEDIZ-PELIKAN. BY A. S.
LEVETUS.
THESE two artists are man and wife; they have
wandered in many places together, over the highest
mountains and across glaciers, on the banks of
deep rivers, and on their pilgrimages have painted
scenery and portraits and everything else between.
They have endured the greatest hardships together
and have worked together; they have chosen the
same subjects for their canvases, yet their in-
dividualities remain, and in similar subjects also
there is great variety of treatment.
Of the two, Karl Mediz is more monumental;
he works with a great and massive concentration, and
yet with a poetry of expression, a real German
energy, an energy which he has inherited from his
forefathers, who settled on Austrian territory, in the
Duchy of Gottschee, in South Carinola, centuries ago,
but who yet keep to their old German traditions.
The artist himself was
born in Vienna, and his
wife is the daughter of
Styrian peasants. Frau
Mediz-Pelikan also has
immense energy, com-
bined with poetry of ex-
pression more delicate
than that of her husband;
she loves to paint lavenders
and silver greys, to bring
out the very depths of that
which she is depicting.
Yet sometimes, at first
glance, one can hardly
tell which of them has
created one or the other
particular picture. Again,
there are some which can
be recognised at once as
his or hers. In personal
appearance these two are
as different as their works ;
in nature they are one; he
considers her the greater
artist, and she him.
by Karl Mediz, is
the picture of an old Hun-
garian, seventy years and
upwards, in her widow
weeds, which are very "THE wmow" MY KARL'MEDiz
XXV. No. 98.—Arum, 1905. m

beautiful. Such cloaks are heirlooms, and are
of leather grown all shades with age, so that it
seems to be a mixture of yellows, browns and
greens, which lend a soft tone. The ornamental
bands, lengthwise and across, are also of leather
of varying green tinges, and the border and collar
of beaver heighten the beauty. Below, peeping
out, is a bit of her blue-and-white spotted peasant's
dress. But the face interests us more: it is
old and weather-worn, as is her cloak. The
deep wrinkles and close-shut mouth seem as if
she were trying to repress that grief which her
deep blue eyes betray. She is seated on an old
wooden seat of the kind peculiar to Hungary. No
detail has been forgotten, and the picture tells its
own tale. Notice the clasped hands and finger-
nails worn from hard work, the troubled face, the
grey hair and eyebrows, the colour repeated in the
grey background of the wall upon which her beads
and saint's picture are hanging. The blue of the
eyes has its counterpart in the blue silk handker-
chief knotted at her throat, all browns and greys,
only a very few other shades, for her life has