Studio: international art (9.1897)

Studio- Talk

realistic facts or falling into the error of painting
allegories instead of pictures. A couple of years
ago it was the pathetic scene After the Crucifixion
in a corner of an Eastern cottage; to day it is S.
Francesca Romana distributing bread to the poor.
The picture has just been sent off to the church
near 1 aigano where the artist's S. Carlo Borromeo
hangs.

FOR /AODEKNE

S. Francesca Romana was a Roman lady of
noble birth, who from childhood showed herself
of religious and charitable inclinations. Married
young, she brought up a large family with wisdom
and devotion, still finding time to help the poor;
finally, left a widow, and her children being grown
up, she ended her days in a convent which she
herself had founded. The first glance at Professor
Martmetti's picture shows us that we are in Rome :
the stone facing of the doorway which frames the
saint and her friend is of travertine, and in the
corner an ancient tomb projects, such as one con-
tinually meets with in Rome. The half effaced
marks of mural decoration under the tomb further
show us that we are in an atrium, not in the
open air ; and this accounts for the cold diffused
lighting of the picture and for the luminosity of
the shadow within the doorway. This is un-
doubtedly one of the strong points of the painting.
It is so easy to get good relief by placing an illumi-
nated figure against the blackness of an open door;
so much more difficult, but also so infinitely more
subtle in effect, when the relief is obtained, not prin-
cipally by the chiaroscuro arising from the depth of

shadow behind, but from exactitude of drawing poster by otto fischer

in the principal figure. The figure of the Saint, as
she leans slightly forward beside her friend Vanozza
is in the most admirable perspective, while her out-
lines are softened rather than thrown up by the
greyness against which she stands. The effect is
still further cunningly heightened by the stone
steps within the doorway, which lead away the eye

to the necessary distance in the background. At

r , ........ ,r _ r descriptions. In some instances two painters have

the top of the stairs is visible the half figure of a 1 .

W/ILHEL/A

11 I \\ "\\.

ERLIN,—No sooner is the great annual
Exhibition closed than the Art Salons
open their doors, and thus afford the
Berlin public the opportunity of in-
specting and making themselves ac-
quainted with the latest artistic productions of all

made one exhibition serve for the works of both ;
in others we have " one man " shows. Not always
is there anything really new in these displays,
seldom anything so stimulating as to demand par-
ticular attention.

girl with a basket of loaves ; while a man below
calls to her. Altogether the skilful composition of
this part of the picture, where it was so easy to be
trite, reveals a mind of solid artistic understanding.
The Saint still wears her secular dress as a Roman
matron. The dress is a dark green, that of her

friend a kind of pink ; and notwithstanding the Gurlitt, however, in his tastefully-selected dis-
variety of colours used below (the old woman with play, introduces a new-comer, of whom great things
outstretched arms has green sleeves boldly con- have already been predicted. He is a young man,
trasted against a blue tunic) these two dominate who, I conjecture, has never been out into the
the whole. I. M. A. world, nor seen what has already been done in art.

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