International studio (21.1903/1904(1904))

and animation. It is inspired by the sweet reverie
of a poet, and executed with the winsome 7MM'w<%
of a painter of genius.
Of work in hand, his ^7*
is a splendid
piece of painting. The illumination of the old
battleships riding at anchor, and of the sea and
sky wherein they are reflected by the crimson
afterglow, is gorgeous. The whole picture is
on fire, with something ot Turner's spontaneity
and brilliance. The idea came to Holst years
and years ago at Plymouth, before some of those
noble wooden walls were broken up.
A visit to Holst's Studio is a charming ex-
perience. Not only has he much to show and to
interest his guest, but his own personality is so

attractive, that his courtly manners and polished
speech, with his frank and almost boyish expression,
and his merry blue eyes, win all hearts.
He is perfectly original in his art. He appeals
to the heart as well as to the eye. He shows the
of Nature in all her moods. He is ever
varied, never conventional. His character and his
art are alike—truthful, simple, and rehned.
E. STALEY.
OMEj; ; NOTES ON MODERN
RUSSIAN ART. BY ROSA NEW-
MARCH.
WHEN, at the close of the tenth Century, the
first or sacred pictures, were imported
into Russia, the few en-
lightened spirits of the
time were engaged in
the hard task of Chris-
tianising the masses, and
striving to create a social
life out of chaos. The
sparse population of
Russia, scattered over a
vast region of bogs and
forests, was slow to adopt
the most primitive elements
of political and religious
culture, and wholly indif-
ferent to aesthetic interests.
To this predominance
of religious inHuences we
must attribute the phe-
nomenon of an exclusively
sacred art, subordinated
to ecclesiastical authority
for a period of fully eight
centuries. And, except to
the specialist learned in
the rival peculiarities of
the " traditional Greek," or
the /Ha/kTM styles of ikono-
graphy, this long period
offers nothing of variety or
interest.
Even more dreary is the
imitative period of the
eighteenth Century, when
a host of second-rate
French and Italian painters
ministered to the un-
cultured taste of the
aristocracy. Nor was there


BY KHARLAMOV

['ORTRAIT OF THF. KOVELIST TOURGENIEV
Iß"