Studio: international art (1.1893)

The Art Magazines of America

forth in print; but to read one of the lessons for entirely upon their colour studies it is hardly
conveying the colour studies given so fully with possible to doubt. Side by side, however, with
several of the American magazines, leaves one this feature in the most popular periodicals are
aghast when the possible result is also imagined, critical articles upon great artists, with specimens
That the subtlety and strength, the delicate refine- of their work reproduced and printed in the admir-
ment of drawing, and the appreciation of colours able manner which has deservedly gained for the
and values can be taught by correspondence with- American editor and printer no stinted praise from

European experts.

Among those to be noticed here,
the first in seniority is The Art
Interchange, a not very happy title
one would think, and yet the small
importance of a name, provided the
thing itself is pleasing, the thirty-
first volume of this magazine may
suffice to prove.

This illustrated journal, laden
with large supplements in colours
and monochrome, is typically Ame-
rican. It disarms criticism by its
frankness, with no stilted pro-
gramme, and absence of any claim
to a mission ; and posing not as a
public benefactor, but as a well-
directed commercial enterprise, one
is inclined to be very tolerant to its
shortcomings, and appreciative to
its really creditable effort. Taking
good taste rather than high art as
its aim, it is not necessarily less
artistic because it chooses the shift-
ing standard of taste rather than
the more permanent canons of art.
If in designs for china-painting, for
tapestry decoration, and the minor
trifles of the house, it appeals to
the untrained amateur, it does so
with not only good intention, but
j rll" !•$),, with recognition of those qualities

from a pen—drawing in "the art student" of modern design as it is practised

over sea, which we have learned to
out criticism of the pupil's actual work at various regard as typically American. This must not be
stages, seems an obvious impossibility. The fact taken as faint praise, for if one accepts anything in
that it is attempted a thousand times does not prove art below the highest, and is ready to tolerate the
the contrary, because it is clear that nothing short ephemeral fancies of to-day, then it is surely import-
of natural genius could succeed in such enterprise, ant to see that fresh and joyous invention should be
Whether, however, such initial help may inspire chosen before scholastically dull re-adaptations of
natural talent with sufficient devotion to start upon time-worn motives. America has learned several
the path of art in serious fashion cannot be decided axioms that it would seem England too often forgets,
offhand : we may hope, if we are very sanguine, that First, that decoration should be decorative ; next,
a few instances exist to redeem the whole system that historical statistics do not necessarily rearrange
from its apparent inutility. themselves as good ornaments ; and lastly, the

This aspect of the popular art magazines of the enormous importance of undecorated spaces.
United States must not be unduly dwelt upon, but The proportion of the whole is surely of infinitely
that their commercial success is based almost more consequence than any one detai'., and as

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