International studio (33.1907/1908(1908))

Birmingham Painters and Craftsmen


books, topped by a red cushion in
which nestles a gold frame. In the
darker portion of the room are
some paintings of the Italian
school and an Italian bust, and
from the ceiling hangs a wooden
mermaid with tapering tail of horn.
The walls of the library, painted in
Pompeian red, like ihose of the
dining-room, afford the artist an
opportunity, which he uses to ad-
vantage here and .in the dining-
room series, of bringing out a whole
gamut of tones affected by this
ambience.
There are six pictures dealing
with the novelist’s bed-chamber,
which is the only room in the
house, besides the salon, whose
walls are not painted. Here they
are covered with a golden-yellow
embroidered silk, forming an ad-
mirable setting to the beautifully
carved wood chimney-piece, and
the mahogany inlaid writing-desk
with red and white marble top,
-which are visible in the last of our
illustrations. On the artist’s canvas,
the brighter yellow of the central
portion shades off towards the left
into greenish hues of chatoyant
aspect that are a foil to the
vivid colouring of the desk and
Louis XVI. chair, whilst the right “the schooner” by ,oseph e- southall
side descends through purples and
russets, which are met and gilded
or blazed by the fire below. The bureau, on
which Anatole France opens his correspond-
ence, was painted one afternoon just as it had
been left, with the famous red skull-cap and the
spectacles of the writer almost touching the edge of
the desk, and all the papers in disorder. The
carpet, of authentic old Smyrna manufacture, is sea-
green in the centre, and has a border with delicate
hues of red and green. Above, where the shadow
strikes athwart masterpieces of the school of
Greuze or Fragonard, its progressive deadening
of the natural tints is finely expressed.
Pierre Calmettes is to be congratulated. What
he has done here promises a great future for him
■—great by the quality of his work, and great, it is to
be hoped, by his renown. Indeed he has already
begun to bear his blushing honours. The presence
of the Minister for Fine Arts at the opening of the

Exhibition, the proposal to purchase one of his
pictures for the State, and the general enthusiasm
aroused, are something more than mere compli-
ment. They are recognitions of sterling merit.
Fredk. Lawton.
Birmingham painters and
CRAFTSMEN AT THE FINE
ART SOCIETY’S GALLERIES.
The leading characteristic of this collection as a
whole is its architectural basis, its sense of the
unity of all the arts in due subordination to the
master craft. Notwithstanding individual differ-
ences of outlook and the variety of methods and
of materials employed, this principle everywhere
underlies painting and craft-work alike, shown here
in the choice of subject, there by a certain decorative