Studio: international art (6.1896)

HE NEWENG-
LISH ART
CLUB. BY
FREDERICK
WEDMORE.

The interest of the New-
English Art Club resides less
in its positive achievements
than in its promise for the
Future. How far that pro-
mise for the Future is to be
realised, of course no one can
say ; but one may hope much
from those of its members
who are still young, and who
have given signs already of
vivacious and intelligent ex-
pression and unconventional
aim. The Club has got its
candid friends, who, for all
their outspokenness, like it,
appreciate it, and, in the way
of friendship, take it by the
elbow, and lead it in the way

winchester and glasgow medals by george framptox, a.r.a. that it should gO. And the

Club, to tell the truth, is not
invariably flexible—it knows

with the applied arts far beyond the supreme art of its own mind with horrible certainty, with the

sculpture in which he excels. Hence one feels that natural assurance of youth, and so resists or has

a singular responsibilty rests on the young artist, resisted up to the Present, the invitation to drop

and that the shaping of the art of England for years one of its exhibitions and to concentrate its now

to come is perhaps, so far as industrial art is con- too widely dispersed powers on an annual show,

cerned, more fully in his hands than in those of any And yet no unbiassed and judicial person,

other living artist. And as you leave, his quiet nobody whose view of the ideals of Art has been

power and restrained force impress you with the conceived and formulated in worlds of wider vista

fact that here is a born leader—one who by tact than the studios of to-day—no such person, I

and absence of fads will do much to make the assert, can imagine that the Club does its best

decorative renascence of England a memorable by exhibiting the second-rate work even of its

period in her art. For years the Arts and Crafts own strongest members and by admitting in abun-

Society and others have prepared the way, and now dance the somewhat insignificant outsider—does

with a new generation under new leaders as well he but bear witness to the true creed. An exhibi-

equipped and as enthusiastic as Mr. Frampton, the tion once a year might have real strength—might

place of our national decorative art should be be much more than a " success of curiosity," and

assured. Already France and Germany acknow- might attract to its serried ranks of well-considered

ledge fealty to our ideals. America—once France pictures, prints, and drawings (for the so-called

has led the way by setting her seal of approval on "humbler" and less popular mediums are, rightly,

the English movement—will no doubt soon follow ; not excluded*) a measure of attention which no

and in the new school of English birth, the new show within the walls of the Egyptian Hall at

style so long looked for on both sides of the present commands. What is the clientele of the

Atlantic may be found to have quietly grown up New English Art Club at this moment ? A few

in our midst. gens du monde who like vivacity and novelty, and

* See Mr. Way's most skilful lithograph of a scene
E. B. S. below Bridge.—F. W.

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