Studio: international art (9.1897)

Studio- Talk

The collection of some forty landscapes and
seapieces, exhibited by M. Hamesse at the Cercle
Artistique, attracted a large number of visitors.
He would seem particularly to affect under-wood
studies, of which he has done some very interesting
paintings and eaux-fortes. M. Wolfers sent to this
exhibition several specimens of applied art, and
M. de Rudder contributed amongst other things a
beautiful bust in wood — a material which sculptors
nowadays seem to despise, yet which lends itself to
the most supple effects.

This exhibition was followed by M. Baertsoen's,
He shows again his big picture, Un Soir de Pcchc,
which was one of the chief successes at the Champ
de Mars this year. It was reproduced at the time
in The Studio, and was very much liked.

This large work is very effective; yet there are
other canvases in this exhibition, less ambitious
perhaps, but of much greater charm; for instance,
several scenes from the Courtray beguinage, perfect
of their kind, in form and colour and in drawing,
and also some of these quiet little "bits" of
Nieuport, which so well express the spirit of these
sleepy old Flemish towns. F. K.

HOLLAND.—A very important ques-
tion has been attracting public at-
tention for the last few months. In
August last the editor of the Amster.
dammer Weekldad, in a remarkable
article bearing the title, "A Rembrandt Museum,"
expressed the wish that a building might be erected,
in which the works of Rembrandt that exist in
Holland might be seen in a favourable light. This
article has been much discussed, and the Editor
has asked me to interview some eminent artists
and connoisseurs in Holland and elsewhere. Of
some of these opinions I shall give a summary
here. In Holland the opinion of Josef Israels
and of Jacob Maris is of the greatest importance
on this question, because without doubt there are
no persons in the world better able to judge and
understand Rembrandt's works than these two.
Both were of opinion that the project was the
natural solution of the long-debated Rembrandt
question. Israels said that a great collection of
works of one painter is perhaps only possible in
the case of Rembrandt, because his work is so
infinitely varied. " If this ever happens," he said,
"the whole world will come to see it." Jacob
Maris was also of opinion that the only rational way

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to exhibit the works of this genial artist was in a
building recalling his epoch, and in rooms fur-
nished with gobelins and old Dutch leather, as
they were in Rembrandt's time. Later I hope to
give some opinions of celebrated men of other
countries.

At the Hague two exhibitions are filling the
halls of the two art clubs. In "Pulchri Studio,"
a most remarkable loan exhibition of French
masters, shows Corot, Courbet, Daubigny, Decams,
Delacroix, Diaz, Dupre, Isabey, Jacque, Jeannin,
Millet, Monticelli, Rousseau, Troyon, and Vollon,
in all their strength and splendour. Most of these
paintings are kindly lent by collectors like H. W.
Mesdag, the marine painter, his brother Taco
Mesdag, Messrs. Fop Smit, Langerhuizen, de
Kuyper, dxx.; and among them are masterpieces
like the celebrated Descente des Vaches of Rousseau,
the Femme du Pallet of Vollon, the Hagar and
Ismail of Millet.

In the Kunstkring the members are exhibiting
water-colour and other drawings. Here a tendency
towards style, and flat, decorative treatment is often
noticeable. Very delicate in this genre are the
pen-drawings by Mrs. Baukema-Philipse, and
among the other exhibitors I may briefly note the
names of Rink, de Josselin de Jong, Mrs. Ekker,
Moulijn, and Van Hoytema. Ph. Z.

VIENNA.—Since the beginning of Nov-
ember, Michael Munkacsy's latest
work, the Ecce Homo, has been on
view at the Vienna " Kiinstlerhaus."
To be quite candid, the impression it
leaves is that of an artistic failure, both with regard
to execution and colour, in spite of—perhaps all
the more so on account of—the tremendous
flourishing of trumpets and advertisement with
which the artist is in the habit of introducing his
works to the public. It would require too much
space to enter into details concerning the merits or
defects of this large canvas, but to sum up the im-
pression of it as a whole, it is a work of much
strong detail, and, in the figure of Christ, a con-
ception both original and bold, with some of the
surrounding figures betraying the subtle touch of a
master hand; but the entire canvas is incoherent,
laboured and theatrical in the extreme. A sincere
welcome to the artist returning to his native
country after so long an absence, may be clothed
in the expression of a hope that he may yet live to
regain his lost powers and create works of an artistic