Studio: international art (6.1896)

" THE POTATO CROP

(By Permission of William 0. Cole, Esq.)

BY BERTRAM PRIESTMAN

and holds aloft. And what good drawing in the
hand too, and what character !

Mr. Arthur Tomson and Mr. Bertram Priestman
are both of them interesting landscape painters.
Mr. Arthur Tomson may give up painting cats, he
may leave that to Madame Henriette Ronner, who
does it, after all, much better, if he will but paint
landscape as serene and refreshing, as full of a
grey peace, as he has in his September Morning.
Mr. Priestman lays out the lines of his landscape
massive and large and fearless in the composition
The Potato Crop. And that is why I like it—for
its dignity and strength. I do not hold that he
has done with the theme quite where he now leaves
it. I don't profess to be persuaded that the possi-
bilities of the theme are exhausted by an ebauche
distinguished and manly.

The voice of the scoffer is raised very frequently
over the work of Mr. Walter Sickert, an artist who,
though a full measure of success may often be
lacking to his interesting efforts, declines to be
commonplace—does really see that whatever be
the subject, the individuality of the artist must
assert itself. It may be given to him sometimes
to paint things uglily—it is vouchsafed to him, at
any rate upon occasion, to see things finely. Why,
at the Goupil Gallery lately, there was a vision of
St. Mark's, of his—St. Mark's, no merely archi-
tectural monument, but a Venetian dream. Now
it is again a music-hall, and The Boy I Love is in
the Gallery. The boy that every music-hall singer
loves is obliged to be in the gallery; lack of pence
takes him there ; his admiration of the artiste
keeps him there; and from the gallery comes the

keen appreciation by which the artiste has to be
sustained. It is the enthusiasm of the gallery that
begets the renewed effort. Is it the old Standard
Music Hall in Pimlico, I wonder, that Mr. Sickert
has painted ? I wandered into it aimlessly, myself,
one idle night. The learned in these matters tell
me it has the reputation of being the oldest existing
music-hall in London. Anyhow, whatever may be
the precise scene of Mr. Walter Sickert's picture, the
painter has known how to make it pictorial—pic-
torial and dramatic to boot. " Composition " has
not been disregarded in the intricacy of the lines
and in their sweeping balance. Light and shade
has not been disregarded. Light and shade, indeed,
and the interesting problems of foreshortening
count for much in such a scene.

Frederick Wedmore.

MR. WHISTLER'S LITHO-
GRAPHS. BY T. R. WAY.
The publication from time to time
in The Studio of separate litho-
graphs by Mr. Whistler, and rumours of other
prints which have passed into the hands of collectors,
have stimulated the interest of all art-lovers to see a
really representative collection of these works, and
the recent Exhibition at the Fine Art Society's Gal-
lery showed, what every one who has studied his works
expected from Mr. Whistler, that he has made the
material his own, and proved it a worthy medium
to express the extraordinary versatility of his art.
The exhibition formed a worthy tribute to the
memory of Senefelder, the inventor of lithography,

219