Studio: international art (6.1896)

The Building of a House

with. The artist has selected a very typical scene
after the melting of the snow in early spring. In
colour and in subject it is delightfully reminiscent
of "the strawberry land," as an enthusiastic traveller
has lately rechristened the Grand Duchy. Other
pictures of note are a landscape by Alb. Lindfors,
a fine sea-piece by W. Toppelius, and a strongly
characteristic study of a man by Anna Sahlsten,
and a group of women drinking tea, by the same
artist, and lastly (so far as our notice is concerned),
the very striking picture by Louis Sparre, a portrait
of Grefve P. A. Sparre, and a poetic twilight study
(Kvallsdimmor). Without singling out Count
Louis Sparre as entitled to the whole credit of
this notable movement, it would be unjust to one
who has done so much for it, were not praise of
his most admirable pictures coupled with apprecia-
tion of the interest he takes in the progress of Art
in Finland.

Sculpture is represented by a score of works,
one in high relief, a Melancolia, by Emil Vikstrom,
is of a girl playing a kantele, a Finnish musical
instrument. The exquisite movement of the hands
stroking the strings is most daintily expressed.
Their movement is no less worthy of praise than
their beautiful modelling.

Although with the few examples we are able
to reproduce, and the scanty space available for
the description of a work of this importance, it
has not been possible to advance proof positive
for every statement herein set down, it is quite
safe to insist upon the importance of this most
interesting movement, and to foretell its coming
rapidly to the front. It is one which cannot be
overlooked henceforth in any contemporary esti-
mate of the forces working for Art to-day. We
shall watch with much interest the development of
this movement.













- A - ■ *







from a painting

OME THOUGHTS
ON THE BUILDING
OF A HOUSE. BY
G. LL. MORRIS, AR-
CHITECT.

One of the problems which a
modern architect has to assist in
solving is that of retaining the spirit
of his work from its commencement
to its completion. The difficulty of
doing so may not be altogether due
to his lack of ability, but, in a large
measure, to the division of thought,
skill, and labour, arising from the par-
ticular way in which industries have
developed during the last century.

Since John Wyatt in 1735 invented
the machine "to spin without fingers,"
the increase of mechanical inventions
has been bringing about the trans-
formation of the craftsman, master
of some particular craft, into the
modern workman, skilled in the use
of machinery and the production of
parts of a whole, with comparatively
little feeling for the relation that
particular part he has made will bear
to the completed work—a result not
wholly favourable to the retention of
the designer's ideas, nor of that har-
mony between the different parts that
should be obtained without losing the
by p. halonen characteristic note of each portion.

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