Studio: international art (35.1905)

Montmartre

INTERIOR OF THE CABARET DES ASSASSINS

waspish irritation and mockery of his Whistler;
whether we smile at the solemn earnestness of his
Hall Caine or the rude, bulldog strength of his
Rudyard Kipling; whether we recall the fine por-
trait in his Tho7nas Hardy or the poetic absorption
of his Swinburne, or the rugged simplicity of his
marvellous Tolstoi, which holds the hint of his
renunciation of the world that is the great Russian’s
highest fame,—we find in every caricature that has
been wrought by the eloquent artistry of this man a
powerful statement of the personality of the man
portrayed that amounts to a masterly character
sketch—that lifts it, in fact, into a true work of art.
Indeed, a caricature by Joseph Simpson is not a
piece of artistic journalism to be flung into the
waste-paper basket with the paper that gives it birth ;
but a work of art to be cut out of the page, and
preserved as a treasure in the cherished hoard of
the collector.

The range of an artist’s calling seems to be
becoming daily less—the outlet daily more limited,
except in the region of decoration. But even for
the delight that comes from his brilliant decorative
powers we should be sorry to see the end of
Joseph Simpson, the Caricaturist. The strong and
vigorous work of so rare a portrayer of men can,

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY CLIVE HOLLAND

of a certainty, not long escape the golden reward—
indeed, a man so gifted might surely become a
remarkable portrait-painter. And it is almost in-
evitable that the great furnishing houses, if not
here, then in Germany, will tempt him away to the
designing of the house’s interior, the making of its
furnishments, and the decorating of its walls.
Indeed, the abyss that is before the illustrator
to-day is imminent—yawns almost at his feet. It
may be that the photographer has conferred a
public benefit by destroying the mediocre and the
amateur ; but if he shall also destroy the illustrator
of brilliant parts, then he is himself become a
national calamity. Illustration is the most far-
reaching, the most democratic of all the arts.

Haldane Macfall.

Montmartre : past and

PRESENT. BY CLIVE HOL-
LAND.

Montmartre ! The word conjures up a vision
of steep and narrow streets, sunlit squares, of
poverty—that of genius and that of squalor—of
“types,” of bits of strange architecture which
looked down upon the more splendid part of the

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