International studio (48.1913)

Charles John Collings

that even the
must have ex-
their horrors
finality had
How quietly

Even to those for whom art is one of life’s
greatest interests there come, amid the multitude
of exhibitions, moments of satiety and depression.
One asks, Is it not played out, this “painting,”
has it anything fresh to offer? After all the centuries,
is any form of pictorial art possible, combining
beauty with originality—and sanity? The most
jaded of art-lovers, the most blase of critics, must
have found an answer to these questions in the
recent exhibition of drawings representing the
Canadian Rockies by Mr. Charles John Collings,
at the Carroll Gallery, George Street, Hanover
Square. One scarcely had dared to hope in these
latter days that there
could be such a revela-
tion in vision, colour,
and technique, for it
seemed
“ isms ”
hausted
—that
come.
and unostentatiously
the little “show” was
announced! No
trumpet blare or
heralding of distin-
guished patrons, but
just a brief “ foreword ”
in the catalogue, by Mr.
Luscombe Carroll —
whose faith in the artist
has never wavered for
twenty years.
At first sight of Mr.
Collings’s work one is
impressed with a sense
of something un-
familiar ; no recollec-
tion of kindred effort
springs to the mind—-
this is admitted by the
few to whom it does not
make a complete ap-
peal, as well as by
the many who whole-
heartedly succumb to
its spell. The vision is
new, the colour is new,
the technique, even,

Other exhibits which deserve more than a passing
mention include La Petite Fite des Fortifications
and La Seine a Courbevoie, excellent in design and
feeling of space, by M. Edgar Chahine, Les Deux
Scieurs, instinct with active vitality, by M. Paul-
Emile Colin, Le Polo, by M. Pierre-Georges
Jeanniot, Demolition Rue Jean de Beauvais and
Ferme en Correze, by M. Edmond Kayser, Le
Chenal a La Rochelle, by M. Gustave Leheutre,
M. Gaston de Latenay’s Le Grand Chene and La
Mer Sauvage, the dry-points by M. Louis Legrand,
and M. Eugene Viala’s La Ville Morte. Of the
etchings in colour, Le Fort Cardinal (Belle-Lie), by
M. Georges Mouchon, Le Qiiai de la Tournelle, by
M. Jean Francois Raffaelli, and Nocturne LAuray,
by M. T. Francois Simon, were the most noteworthy
examples. E. A. Taylor.

The art of Charles john
COLLINGS: AN APPRECIA-
TION. BY VAL DAVIS, R.B.A.

<£tx •• 5> BY HERMAN A. WEBSTER
LOWEN PL ATZCHEN A
(Socittt Nationale des Beazix-Arts)

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