International studio (41.1910)

Studio- Talk

who was born in the Island of Mauritius in 1836,
comes of a Breton stock. Many notable achieve-
ments stand to his credit, including not a few
which are now in the possession of distinguished
patrons of art in England.

It was an exceedingly happy idea, that of
organising, at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, an
exhibition of Albert Besnard's decorative work,
and in particular his cartoons, sketches and
•drawings. The ensemble contained for artists a
powerful and noble lesson, and for the plain man
a very fine and profound impression of art. So
long ago as four years back, M. Besnard had
already shown in the Georges Petit Galleries a
number of important examples of his work, but
that exhibition consisted solely of easel pictures.
Now on the present occasion we had an oppor-
tunity of penetrating into the inmost soul of the
greatest decorative artist of the present-day French
School. A portion of the work has been already
seen by the public in its finished state. Who
•does not know the important mural paintings
which Besnard has executed for the Ecole de
Pharmacie, his ceiling in the Hotel de Ville, his
great work at the Sorbonne, his decorations in the
Petit Palais, in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs,
or in Baron Vita's Villa, and his ceiling in the
Theatre Francais? Certain of the sketches and
highly finished cartoons reminded one of these
works; here we found all Besnard's excellent
characteristics, his impeccable draughtsmanship,
his rich and warm colouring, and those imaginative
■qualities which he possesses in the highest degree.

M. Besnard is perhaps the only artist among

our contemporaries, in France at all events, who
has attempted with success the painting of religious
subjects. His Jesus et la Samaritaine, a cartoon
for a decorative painting executed in a little church
in Staffordshire, is from this point of view a
veritable masterpiece. Another work from M.
Besnard's brush of the same genre, so fine and
noble in conception that it seems to have been
inspired by the great Fra Angelico, is the decora-
tive painting in the Chapel of the Cazin-Perrochaud
Home, at Berck—a little seaside town to which
delicate children are sent, and where the painter
was obliged to reside for some time with one of
his children. It was at this time that he painted
these twelve panels which reveal such great nobility
of soul, such pure idealism. The large cartoons
for this work figured in the Exhibition in the

CHRVSOPRASE BOWL WITH SILVER MOUNT OVER GROUND
OF GREEN TRANSPARENT ENAMEL

BY PROF. ERNST RIEGEL
(See Berlin Studio- Talk)

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