DOI issue:
No. 137 (July, 1908)
DOI article:Frantz, Henri: The Salon of the Société Nationale, Paris, 1
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28255#0081
The Salon of the Sicietd Nationale
right. Above is a strange unnatural sky, com-
pleting the nightmare impression intended by
the painter. The picture beside it depicts a
group of cadaverous-featured witches, with lack-
lustre eyes and bony hands, their faces stamped
with all the misdeeds and crimes imaginable—
denizens evidently of the most abominable haunts
of Segovia. Then to these two strange productions
Zuloaga had added a third, full of seductive grace
—a portrait of Mdlle. Breval in the second Act of
“ Carmen,” draped with a shawl marvellously
treated, and standing in the strong glare of the
footlights, with the background of the picture
palely illuminated. It is a very fine work, worthy
to rank with the famous productions by this
painter which adorn the great galleries of Europe.
The end of one of the big salles is occupied by
Lucien Simon’s chief work. No one needs telling
that this artist stands to-day in the front rank
among French painters. Lucien Simon’s pictures
are always interesting, and that shown this year
is particularly so from the beauty of its colour, the
richness of its contrasts, and the faultless certainty
of its drawing. High-mass in the cathedral of
Assisi is represented with that sense of solemnity
which befits a ceremony of this sort, celebrated
beneath the lofty arches of the ancient basilica.
The fair white chasubles, so admirably painted, the
brass work, the marble, the mosaics, the choir boys’
surplices—all go to make up a magnificent sym-
phony of colour, wherein everything is rightly
disposed, and every note rings perfectly true. One
realises that the artist has experienced a real
emotion, and the sense of pensive grandeur aroused
in one’s mind marks an advance beyond that
tendency to a certain virtuosity which was to be
noticed in his La Messe of last year.
Close to that of M. Simon is the work of a very
interesting artist, Mr. J. Stewart. One retained
from last year the recollection of a charming female
portrait at the Retrospective Exhibition of Bagatelle,
signed M. J. Stewart, and it is matter for regret
that portraits by this artist are not more often to
be seen. This year he fulfils all our desires,
right. Above is a strange unnatural sky, com-
pleting the nightmare impression intended by
the painter. The picture beside it depicts a
group of cadaverous-featured witches, with lack-
lustre eyes and bony hands, their faces stamped
with all the misdeeds and crimes imaginable—
denizens evidently of the most abominable haunts
of Segovia. Then to these two strange productions
Zuloaga had added a third, full of seductive grace
—a portrait of Mdlle. Breval in the second Act of
“ Carmen,” draped with a shawl marvellously
treated, and standing in the strong glare of the
footlights, with the background of the picture
palely illuminated. It is a very fine work, worthy
to rank with the famous productions by this
painter which adorn the great galleries of Europe.
The end of one of the big salles is occupied by
Lucien Simon’s chief work. No one needs telling
that this artist stands to-day in the front rank
among French painters. Lucien Simon’s pictures
are always interesting, and that shown this year
is particularly so from the beauty of its colour, the
richness of its contrasts, and the faultless certainty
of its drawing. High-mass in the cathedral of
Assisi is represented with that sense of solemnity
which befits a ceremony of this sort, celebrated
beneath the lofty arches of the ancient basilica.
The fair white chasubles, so admirably painted, the
brass work, the marble, the mosaics, the choir boys’
surplices—all go to make up a magnificent sym-
phony of colour, wherein everything is rightly
disposed, and every note rings perfectly true. One
realises that the artist has experienced a real
emotion, and the sense of pensive grandeur aroused
in one’s mind marks an advance beyond that
tendency to a certain virtuosity which was to be
noticed in his La Messe of last year.
Close to that of M. Simon is the work of a very
interesting artist, Mr. J. Stewart. One retained
from last year the recollection of a charming female
portrait at the Retrospective Exhibition of Bagatelle,
signed M. J. Stewart, and it is matter for regret
that portraits by this artist are not more often to
be seen. This year he fulfils all our desires,