Studio: international art (71.1917)

Studio- Talk

Owing chiefly to labour difficulties, the 1 ^OKYO.—The fifty-fifth exhibition of
January number of Apollon, the principal art the Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai (Fine Art

journal of Russia, did not make its appearance Association of Japan) was recently held

until after the great political upheaval of the in Uyeno Park. A section of it was

beginning of March, and the issue is accompanied devoted to a display of paintings by old masters,
by a separately printed note, in which the editor, and the rest to those by contemporary artists.
Mr. Makovski, refers briefly to certain questions The society has long been distinguished for
affecting art which have arisen out of these upholding the old spirit and style of our paint-
stirring events. He points with regret to the ing. While the leaders of the Nihon Bijutsu-in
fact that in the first days of the revolution, (Fine Art Institute of Japan) and those of the
instead of concerting measures for the protec- Nika-kai, a society of painters in oil, charge
tion of the artistic treasures of the nation, for the Mombusho Art Exhibition Committee with
the safety of which there were legitimate grounds being prejudiced against new movements in
of apprehension, art circles began to talk only art, the leaders of the Bijutsu Kyokai complain
of the creation of a Ministry of Fine Arts—and that it is reckless in discarding the old style of
he hints that there would have been no dearth our art. What is claimed to be old in our
of candidates for the new portfolio. This pro- pictorial art seems to rest largely with the
posal he emphatically
opposes as being not
merely uncalled for in
the particular circum-
stances of the times, but
as wrong in principle.
"If," he remarks,
" there is anything in
the world that is truly
free, it is art " ; and he
expresses his astonish-
ment that in such historic
days as these the leading
artists of Russia should
foster a proposal that is
not only inimical to the
true interests of art, but
is purely bureaucratic.
He goes on to observe
that what Russia needs,
if she is destined to enter
on a new era of free
democratic development,
is not a centralized de-
partmental surveillance
of art, but the encour-
agement of initiative on
the part both of indi-
viduals and of groups,
adding that there are
divers ways in which
existing departments of
the State can promote
an increasing interest in
art among the population portrait of baroness knop by n. ulianoff

at large. ("Mir Iskustva" Exhibition, Moscow)

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