Studio: international art (10.1897)

Studio-Talk

wreath of wild olive that is to crown the brow of
the victor in the Olympic Games; and on the
marble runs the legend Beauty's Wreath for
Valour's Brow. The figure is characteristic and
not over idealised ; the face especially, while re-
taining the type required by the subject, is modelled
with a firmness that renders it distinctly individual.
The pose of the head gives a good opportunity,
which has not been lost, for many details in the
front of the neck ; and the forward extension of
the arm gives scope for delicate relief in the
muscles of the shoulder-blade. The drapery is
perhaps, somewhat too massed behind; but the
folds give no sense of heaviness, and it forms a
most admirably arranged setting for the very
graceful line that runs from the shoulder to the
point of the outstretched foot. The hardness of
the angles of the capital is taken off by the tiger's
skin on which the girl is sitting. This cannot be
seen in the photograph.

As regards cutting, this statue may vie with the
antique. Mr Couper was fortunate enough to

BAS-RELIEF BY MR. COUPER

find a block of marble in which the creaminess
of the reflections already give an appearance of
age; and he has taken advantage of his good
luck. He worked at it with his cutters for

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eighteen months ; not resting until he had brought
out every most delicate detail in the modelling of
the flesh, and until the drapery had become a
soft, clinging web. Truly artistic is the combina-
tion of highest finish with apparent unfinish; the
latter heightening the effect of the former and
occasioning the most admirable chiaroscuro. The
cutting of the capital must have been a consider-
able trial to the workman. He had cut it to
perfection: as smooth and finished as alabaster;
and had then under Mr. Couper's special super-
vision to work with hammer and file till it was as
uneven as if it had been long exposed to the
weather. Simple as is this statue in conception,
the thoughtful conscientiousness of its working
out, the truly artistic feeling which breathes from
it and is visible in even the mechanical details of
the execution, make it live in the memory as a
thing one is the richer for having seen.

I. M. A.

DRESDEN. — The Verein Bildender
Kuenstler has opened an exhibition
I at Arnold's Galleries, which offers
fresh proof of the fact that Dresden
promises to regain its art prestige
of former times. There are no representative
" gallery " pictures, but only sketches, studies, and
smaller works. Bantzer, the head of the group of
younger artists, has contributed a fine landscape.
Besig shows some landscapes, the motifs of which
are taken from the village and surroundings of
Goppeln, where many artists spend the summer.
1''. Rentzsch has sent some excellent combinations
of embroidery and painting, one, with iris flowers,
being particularly noteworthy as an excellent
solution of a combination which is seldom satis-
factory. E. Walther's studies of flowers are very
fascinating. He is as successful when he treats
them naturalistically, as when he rearranges them
into decorative head and tail pieces, or into patterns
for wall papers. Unger shows some excellent land-
scape sketches of Bornholm, the Danish island,
where he pursued his studies this summer. In
addition, he contributes half a dozen etchings which
show him to be steadily improving in the art. I
think he will in time become one of Germany's
best masters of the point. He belongs to the few
who have learnt from English etchers what the
value of line means, and who does not seek, like
most continental artists, to imitate the tone effects
of painting when he etches. R. Midler's spirited
and careful animal drawings should be mentioned,
as well as the fine river landscape by Ritter, and