Studio: international art (3.1894)

From Gallery, Studio, and Mart

View from a Railway Bridge, in our April number,
were specially prepared. The work itself—An
Imaged World—a volume of essays by Edward
Garnett, will be published immediately by Messrs.
J. W. Dent & Co., and will contain photogravures
of these and three others by Mr. Hyde (besides
head and tail pieces from his designs). Any one of
the photogravures, A Study of the Sea, for instance,
is alone well worth the five shillings which is, we
believe, to be the price of the complete book.
We understand that Mr. Frederick H. Evans, of

STUDY OF A HEAD BY MORTIMER MENPES

7 7 Queen Street, by whose permission the present
drawing has been reproduced, has commissioned
some twenty others of a similar character for
reproduction in photogravure to illustrate a forth-
coming book also by Mr. Edward Garnett, which
will deal with many aspects of London in an
original imaginative style. Both author and artist
have aimed at catching the more poetical life-««-
masse spirit of the modern Babylon rather than
describing its material topographical features.
The mystery, the atmosphere, the passion, the
despair, as well as the gaiety of London are ele-
ments that call for a poetical and more imagi-
native treatment both in literature and art than
they have hitherto received, and it will be the
special endeavour of both author and artist to
achieve this.

FROM GALLERY, STUDIO, AND
MART. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
The lithographs and drawings by Mr.
Charles Hazlewood Shannon, now on
view at the Dutch Gallery, Brook Street, W., deserve
special attention. In the artist's hands lithography
has developed new effects. In many examples the
design, although drawn on the stone, has been so
much worked upon by the needle that, like mezzo-
tint, it is really the lights taken out which form the
finished drawing. Perhaps the most beautiful of the
lithographs is (56), a Ruffled Sea, a medley of young
children on the seashore; another with similar
motive (31), Wind and Breeze, is also peculiarly
charming. The large Ministrants, the delightful
Biondina,Erinngerung, Caresses, Bitten Apples, With
Viol and Flute, and the Shepherd in a Mist, which
appeared in The Dial, may also be singled out for
special praise. The thirty-two subjects exhibited,
from the delightful studies in sanguine to the very
powerful Modeller, show exceptional vitality and
peculiarly individual handling; indeed, for works
which only remotely appeal to the general public it
would be difficult to find any with so much delicate
perception of the subtle beauty of black and white,
which display at once equal inventive accom-
plishment and personal insight. After the dozen
or so of press views which immediately preceded
the opening of this Gallery, on entering, one was
conscious of an appeal to new interests. Mr.
Shannon evidently aims neither to satisfy the
curiosity or arouse the emotions, nor even to
excite the prejudices of the ordinary visitor, but to
produce beautiful things in the way the artist saw
them in his mind, not anyway modifying his
purpose to please or displease the public, but all
the same sure of unstinted appreciation from those
best qualified to judge.

Mr. Rothenstein's drawings and auto-lithographs
(a term, by the way, The Studio was the first to
employ by way of describing an original litho
drawn by the artist on the stone or paper, as
opposed to a copy of his work done in this medium
by another hand), in the same gallery with Mr.
Shannon's contributions, show the unique charm
of a particular convention he has employed with
much taste in several of the portraits. Drawn in
black pastel on brown paper, a suggestion of flesh
tints, with just a touch or two of stronger colour,
give a peculiarly artistic result. That this con-
vention has its limits may easily be seen, the really
wonderfully powerful head of Mr. Charles Ricketts,

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