Studio: international art (8.1896)

The Salon of the Champ de Mars

"LA RIVIERE D ARQUES BY FRITZ THAU LOW

objection to their subjects and their treatment ot splendid powers in his five decorative panels in-

them, one is forced to recognise a certain amount tended for the Boston Library. It is impossible

of merit in their work. But this is all the acknow- to conceive effects more calmly majestic, more full

ledgment they deserve. The true artist, the man of poetic dignity than these, which he has produced

of delicate perceptions, wants something more, by the simplest of methods. They seem like an

something deeper, something nearer to the truth, opening of light in the walls, a series of windows,

something showing a refined and well-controlled as it were, showing us an ideal world, with all the

individuality, something in fact which may be glories of human imagination, all its noblest rites

called Art. displayed in the most perfect harmony. Here we

I have endeavoured to act on this principle in have dramatic poetry, Aischylus and the Oceanides:

making a selection of works to be reproduced here white forms, born of the sea, circling around the

in illustration of my remarks; and this same prin- sheer rock on which Prometheus writhes; here,

ciple will inspire all I shall have to say about the The Iliad and the Odyssey: a very epic, the true

various artists whose work is under discussion. Homer; here again, History Co?ijuring tip the

This will explain my neglect of certain types of Past: the figure of History bending amid the

work which, despite the merit there is in them, do ruins to snatch the secrets of the days long dead

not come within the small and precious category and their past glories; and again the Chaldcean

to which I have referred. Shepherds watching the Movements of the Planets: a

very poem of the far-off ages, the meditative
anxiety of humanity in presence of the great

Puvis de Chavannes, incontestably the greatest mystery of the heavens. Next we come to Virgil,

of living French artists, displays once more his not the heroic and passionate Virgil of the /Eneid,
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Fine Art.