Studio: international art (8.1896)

Studio- Talk

Who is to follow him in
this important office we are
not to know yet. The choos-
ing of his successor is not to
take place for another couple
of months ; and this delay
will be a very useful one, for
it will enable the members
of the Academic body to
weigh very carefully the

frieze for schoolroom decoration* Bv philip w. smith, Manchester qualifications of the various

possible occupants of the

commanding, the place he held among our artists so post. Whoever is selected will have a task of two-
deservedly conspicuous, that his absence now from fold difficulty, to maintain those traditions of artistic
the scene of his many triumphs seems to leave a dignity and professional excellence which the two
blank impossible to fill again. He was, of all men, previous Presidents have established, and to carry
the one best fitted for prominence in his profession, on the work of the Academy at a time when its posi-
for he was a great originator, an artist qualified for tion calls more than it ever has before for discretion
leadership by virtue of an astonishing capacity for in policy and skill in management. It is clear—
overcoming difficulties of the most exacting kind, and this is said without any wish to disparage any
Possessed of an extraordinarily active temperament, member of the Society—that Burlington House
and of a rare power of noting and storing up those has available neither a new Lord Leighton nor a
facts in Nature that he wished to put on record, he fresh Sir John Millais. Whoever is elected will
was able to deal with a variety of material such as labour under the disadvantage of inevitable com-
few others would have dared to handle. And in parison with these two remarkable artists, and
spite of the wideness of his range and of this unless the way is smoothed for him by the good
division of his interest he made few mistakes and sense and sound judgment of his fellows he must
fewer failures. Hardly any one of his pictures certainly suffer in dignity and prove a source of
was uninteresting. He dignified even a common- weakness to the Academy itself.

place motive by the skill with which he treated it ; -

and his superb technique made important many a It may not be generally known that the picture
subject that would have had scarcely any signifi- gallery in the Royal Holloway College, at Egham,
cance to a weaker painter. With such abilities, is open for the inspection of the public on Thursday
and with such vigour of mind and body, he seemed afternoons throughout the year, and during the
to have a right that could hardly be questioned to months of August and September on Saturdays
exercise officially the leadership which was in- also. The collection which the gallery contains is
formally recognised by his professional brethren; well worth seeing, for it includes important works
and, therefore, his election to the Presidency of the by many of the chief artists of our times. For
Royal Academy in succession to Lord Leighton instance, there are two pictures by Sir John
was an obvious acknowledgment of his claim that Millais, The Princes in the Tower, and Princess
could not possibly have
been withheld. The time
for which he occupied
this post was, unhappily,
too short, and his con-
dition of health too sadly
precarious, for this offi-
cial career to be anything
but a nominal one ; but at
least the Academy has had
the satisfaction, and has
done itself the honour, of
inscribing his name upon

the roll of Presidents. decoration for schoolroom by philip w. smith, Manchester

238