International studio (32.1907)

The Sodetd Nat ion ale des Beaux Arts

“la for£t et la mer”

M. Dinet still shines as an Orientalist, and he
has succeeded in rendering all the warm splendour
of Africa in the draperies that cover the body of
Zeinel the Enchantress. Beside this picture he
exhibited a little portrait—at once very amusing and
very life-like—of M. Cheramy, the well-known
Parisian collector. A fine and sober portrait was
that of M. Beurdeley, another celebrated collector,
by Zorn. M. Briand, the Minister of Public Instruc-
tion, was less felicitously handled by M. A.
Berthon ; but M. Maurice Donnay, the dramatist,
formed the subject of an excellent portrait by Abel
Faivre. MM. Raymond, Woog, Picard, Ablett
and Lavery also displayed portraits of men calcu-
lated to inspire the hope that by next year they
may have turned their attention to feminine grace.

M. Friant, with the exactitude and the restraint
which characterise his work, executed an almost
too striking likeness of M. Dubufe.

M. Carolus Duran, the Villa Medicis giving him
plenty of leisure, continues to send from Rome
portraits which add nothing new or personal to a
popular style of art in which he has few superiors.

L. Mr. Harold Speed proved to us by his portrait of

*34

BY J. F. AUBURTIN

King Edward VII. that “ official ” painting has the
same qualities and presents the same dangers all
the world over. M. Dagnan-Bouveret is losing
his rare gifts and becoming a painter of popular
subjects, which can never appeal to those who love
personality and study. It was sad to see his fine
talent evaporating in this way.

The posthumous exhibition of some of Fritz
Thaulow’s canvases intensified one’s sorrow at his
demise, for they showed the artist in the plenitude
of his powers. Happily there are some still living,
but deserving of remembrance when they shall be
gone, to console us for those we have already lost;
among them are M. Lhermitte, always worthy of
himself, and M. Rene Billotte, who, as the inter-
preter of the tender, melancholy hours he holds so
dear, continues to hold close communion with
nature.

M. Zakarian, whose genre work never fails to
remind one of the masters in that department of
art, exhibited five superlatively good examples of
still-life. Mme. Madeleine Lemaire renounced
her flower paintings in favour of a genre subject,
Le Bain de Chloris, in which all her deli-