Studio: international art (8.1896)

The Salon of the Champ de Mars

but the bucolic poet of the Eclogues and the
Georgics, the sweet singer of all the beauties of
Nature, the infinite tenderness of trees and forests,
and hills and flocks and bees. The fairest of
landscapes stretches out behind the Poet, with
here the cone-shaped hive, and there a little stream
flowing into the placid lake reflecting the sky, and
the clear-cut shadows of the noble trees. How full
of silence it is; how truly poetical; how dignified !

In the large salon the members of the National
Society of Fine Arts have assembled nearly 200 of
the master's drawings, which enable one to gain
a wonderful insight into the art of the great
painter to whom we owe so many delights, whose
work is the pride of French art of the nineteenth
century.

M. Aman-Jean will always be acceptable to
any one who appreciates art in its deeper and more

thoughtful aspects. There is power in his work,
combined with a singular sweetness ; the soul in
all its invisible mystery seems to shine from out
his faces, and he surrounds his subjects with an
atmosphere of extraordinary appropriateness. And
the decorative effect of his portraits is very striking.
This year he is showing some of the best portrait
work he has ever put his name to; they all show
a remarkable grasp of character and expression,
notably his Portrait of the artist, Besnard, his
Mile. M. F.J., and his Seule; the latter infinitely
charming with a reclining figure of a girl lost in me-
ditation in the soft twilight; intense pensiveness in
the pale features which stand out from the dark
grey background of night, her hair gently waving
in the breath of her dream as it floats on the
evening air.

M. Fritz Thaulow contributes four canvases,

FRITZ THAULOW AND HIS CHILDREN

BY J. E. BLANCHE

r9