International studio (14.1901)

Studio-Talk

While the galleries on
the Mound may be said
to represent the past of
Scottish painting, the
Society of Scottish Artists’
exhibition, now open in
the French Gallery, Princes
Street, shows what is being
done by a section of the
younger men. Despite its
name, the Society is almost

wonderfully good in quality. Absence of anything
by McCulloch, who, whatever his shortcomings, is
the most characteristic Scottish landscape painter
of his period, or Milne Donald, or Graham Gilbert,
is to be regretted; and it is a pity that the few
Scotsmen who have done anything in sculpture
are completely ignored; but, on the whole, the
exhibition is fairly representative of the past of
Scottish painting.

One room has been devoted to Raeburn, and as
nearly forty of his pictures, including a considerable
proportion of his finest achievements, have been
brought together, one has an admirable opportunity
of estimating the powers of this great painter. But
if Raeburn dominates the exhibition, he does not
exhaust its interest. Three or four characteristic
Wilkies, fine portraits by Geddes and Watson
Gordon, several first-class
Phillips, and many typical
landscapes, among them
Castle Baan, perhaps the
loveliest picture painted,
by Thomson of Dudding-
ston ; two David Scotts of
rare quality, an exhaustive
representation of Sir W.

Fettes Douglas’s remark-
able work in still life, genre,
and landscape, several
beautiful things by G. P.

Chalmers and some ex-
quisite landscapes by
Wintour and Alexander
Fraser; and a fair repre-
sentation of Duncan (the
two Prince Charlie pictures),

Harvey (Sheep-shearing and
others), Dyce, the Scott
Lauders, Sam Bough, and
Pettie sustain the interest
from first to last.

exclusively an East country combination. Mr.
McTaggart marks his honorary vice-presidentship by
sending a characteristic picture to the show of his
young confreres. Mr. W. Y. MacGregor’s little
landscape, one of his finest works, and Mr. Roche’s
Study of a Girds Head are also complete and
rounded performances ; and Mr. Edwin Alexander
has a large and masterly water-colour of a Pea-
hen and Chickens. Among other notable things
mention may be made of two landscapes by
Mr. Campbell Mitchell; of Mr. Robert Burns’s
The Lute—Xhe completest thing he has yet shown ;
of Mr. Charles H. Mackie’s The Japanese Picture
Book, and Mr. MacGeorge’s A Day on the Shore.
The smaller space available this year necessitated
the abandonment of the usual loan collection, and
without its aid the weak points of the Society
were rather apparent J. L. C.

EMBOSSED LEATHER ADDRESS COVER

( See Bath Studio- Talk)

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