International studio (22.1904)

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are hung to half their height with white sheets,
having no sort of decorative relation to the rest of
the room, and giving to the whole a painful
coldness and lack of repose !
Why could not the decorations of the rooms
have been entrusted to some such responsible
decorative artists as Mr. George Walton, Professor
Hoffmann of Vienna, or Mr. C. R. Mackintosh of
Glasgow, or a single room given to each of the
three with no further instructions than that each
room was to be adapted to the pictures to be
shown in it? The result would have added greatly
to the renown of the Society, and at the same time
would have been a lesson to the many who have
no ideas upon such subjects. It would, indeed,
have been possible to ftnd a hundred trade decora-
tors in Paris alone, any one of whom, had the
matter been left solely in his hands, could have
achieved a better effect,
without greater expense,
than the combined efforts
of the committee of artist-
painters have succeeded
in obtaining. If there
is one thing outside the
immediate concern
of his own art that a
painter might be supposed
to know something about,
it is the question of how
pictures should be dis-
posed in order to obtain
the best effect. At
the establishment of any
large tradesman in Paris,
it is quite certain that,
when he shows his car-
pets, or his hangings, his
furniture or his jewels,
he will so display them
that each article appears to
the best advantage. It is
only necessary to ex-
amine carefully the manner
in which a shop-window in
the Rue de la Paix has
been dressed to realise
something of the art of
display. No man knew
better than the late Mr.
Whistler the importance
of its surroundings to a
picture, and it was rarely,
if ever, that he exhibited "LE GRAND i-ENSEUR" BY A. RODIN
60

one of his own, privately or publicly, unless the suit-
ability of the frame, the condition of the light and
background had been duly considered and approved
by him. When we see what the members of the
influential committee have done for the favourable
display of their own and their brethren's work, we
are reduced to a state of melancholy wonder.
That there were many difficulties to be con-
tended against cannot he denied. There always
are in such cases. The brilliant reds and yellows,
for instance, of the two works by Zuloaga required
special treatment with surroundings of their own to
do them simple justice.
But what can be said when we find Mr. Laszld's
admirable Az/wz? Gaz-zfz'zza/ Mr.
G. O. Desvalliere's Aizz -Sazzw, and Mr. Robert
Burns' A/. A/z-z'^ striving vainly to emerge
from the gloom occasioned by the overhanging