International studio (57.1915/1916)

Studio- Talk

sculpture include the names of Arturo Dazzi,
Giuseppe Graziosi, and Maria Antonietta Pogliani.
The section contained 159 works exhibited by 122
artists, and was arranged in five saloons of ample
dimensions. The adverse conditions prevailing in
Europe have, happily, not extended to the Pacific
coast, and this display of Italian art in the Far
West has been a great success. A.
ST. GALL, SWITZERLAND.—It is grati-
fying to learn from The Studio that in
the dreadful times through which Europe
is passing, when every day brings its tale of
slaughter and destruction, art has not been wholly
submerged, but, as one is glad to infer, continues
to exercise a refining influence on human thought
and feeling. War is horrible enough in all con-
science, but how much more horrible would it be
if, as one of its consequences, all those agencies
which make for true civilisation were to cease
entirely ? Art and War are things apart; the one
is constructive, the other destructive in more
senses than one; and bitter as are the animosities
inevitably engendered by war, they ought not to
be allowed to obtrude in the domain of art. In
the ranks of the armies now arrayed against
one another in mortal combat there must be

thousands of artists of many nationalities, but it is
as citizens and not as artists that they are fighting,
and I cannot believe that there is any antagonism
between the artists of one country and those even
of an enemy country as such. And that is the
conviction which has impressed itself on me from
what has happened in Vienna, where I have spent
many months since the beginning of this terrible
conflict.

In Vienna the conditions in regard to art have
not been materially different from those prevailing
in London, though of course the legal obligation
on all the younger men to serve in the army has
been responsible for a large diminution in the
ranks of artists of various denominations. Many
of those who have been called up for active service
are still busy with brush and pencil whenever
opportunities arise ; others have been wounded,
and some have fallen, including Hofer, the most
important of the younger school of etchers in
Austria, and Hugo Kiihnelt, a sculptor of whose
work I have had occasion to speak. But in
Vienna, as elsewhere, there are many artists who
are not qualified to serve in the army, and
immediately after war broke out, it was recognised
by the authorities that assistance would be required


“THE HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS”

OIL PAINTING BY STEFAN FILIPKIEWICZ