Studio: international art (72.1918)

Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts

THE FIFTY-SIXTH ANNUAL EXHI-
BITION .OF THE ROYAL GLASGOW
INSTITUTE OF THE FINE ARTS.

A S all the world knows, art has at all
/\ times been the handmaid of war,
/ \ embellishing its weapons, portraying
its heroes, and commemorating its
triumphs ; but it has remained for this matter-
of-fact age to turn the services of artists to
practical account in the ver}7 midst of war.
Orpen goes to the front to paint the commanders
who stand between the Empire and ruin ; a
Royal Academy Committee turns its attention
to camouflage; Raemaekers, for all time,
pillories the Germans as fighting barbarians ;
Baimsfather typifies the marvellous spirit of
imperturbability manifested under every circum-
stance by the British “ Tommy ” ; Muirhead
Bone makes characteristically inimitable im-
pressions of the Western “ Front ” ; and Brang-
wyn, with a group of noted contemporaries,

emphasizes the Empire’s ideals, resources, and
achievements. This brief enumeration takes
no note of the services rendered by the multi-
tude of artists enrolled among the fighting
forces, nor of those at home who have given us
characterizations of our splendid British youth
who have so freely offered their lives for country,
home, and kin.

Art’s connexion with war to-day is close and
intimate, not remote and disconnected like
Turner’s, Orchardson’s, Gilbert’s, and Gibb’s ;
there is indeed no parallel for the relationship.
But even in war-time art has other manifesta-
tions, as the current exhibition at the Glasgow
Institute testifies. In the seven hundred and
forty-six examples of painting, drawing, and
sculpture there is much merit, albeit a propor-
tion, as in most exhibitions, calls to mind a
well-known couplet adroitly used against a
mediocre front bench by Cunninghame Graham
in his first speech in the House of Commons.

As usual, the loaned pictures are a centre of

“AFTERNOON ”

OIL PAINTING BY F. C. B. CADELL