Studio: international art (19.1900)

Glasgow School of Art

"MEDUSA." BRONZE BUST BY EVELYN DF

the case with all of those which Mrs. I)e Morgan
has painted.

It must not be thought, however, that the fore-
going pictures, varied as they are in style, give the
full scope of Mrs. I)e Morgan's work as an artist.
She has produced in black and white many studies
so excellent that they could not well be bettered,
and she has recalled to our minds the fact that
gently imaginative painters often develop unex-
pected strength when they turn for recreation to
sculpture, and enjoy the realistic exercise of
modelling in clay. To this exercise we owe the
great contrast which exists between Leighton's
dream-like paintings and his masterful, virile
Athlete; and a similar contrast will be found
when you turn from Mrs. De Morgan's Ithuriel
to her Medusa, an impressive bust in bronze, as
largely handled as it is strong and noble in con-
232

ception. And the other piece of sculp-
ture, the Mater Dolorosa, though natu-
rally conceived in a milder spirit, is no
less remarkable for the uncommon beauty
of its type and the reticent character of
its fine pathos.

SOME WORK BY THE
STUDENTS OF THE
GLASGOW SCHOOL
OF ART.

The analogy between a
school of art, equipped as it should be
to deal with art as expressed in any
material, and the atelier (bottega) of a
thirteenth century Italian artist, is much
closer than at first sight would appear.
In the latter a master craftsman sur-
rounded himself with a crowd of workers
and apprentices, to whom he stood in
the relation not merely of supervisor, but
of a master mind whose directions gave
bent to the whole outcome of the studio,
and the stamp of whose workmanship
appeared upon every article issuing there-
from.

In a school of art, given a certain
character of work proceeding from it
and the cause will not be far to seek in
the work of the staff, or of their head
under whose direction the school is
organised and conducted. And, as in
the case of the artist's atelier, it was not
in the preliminary work that any dis-
tinctive characteristics were to be looked for, but
rather in those essays which called for personal
effort; so in a school, its disciplinary work cannot
differ in much from that given to any beginner,
and it is only when the student is able to express
his ideas clearly, and in artistic language, that
any " egoism" or assertion is possible. And the
analogy can be pursued farther ; for the output
of the artist's studio did not consist entirely of
pictures, as our modern twentieth-century idea of
an artist's studio would lead the " man in the
street" to imply, but work was executed and
material dealt with that lent itself in any way to
explain the thought of the designer and the handi-
craft of the worker. From a banner to a piece of
tapestry, from a signboard to an altar-piece, from a
ring to a chalice—any method in any material;
nothing came amiss, all were attempted. So in a