Studio: international art (10.1897)

Studio-Talk

BRONZE STATUETTE BY H. HAHN '

are more calculated to attract the connoisseur and
private collector, the Kunstlerhaus has opened its
annual Exhibition to the greater public. This is
always an event of general, though not necessarily of
great, artistic interest. The Kunstlerhaus—being
under high patronage and every year opened by the
Emperor—is quite a fashionable resort of the upper
circles. There are plenty of all-round good works to
be seen this time among the portraits and landscapes
(especially those by Max Koner, Leopold Horowitz,
Arthur Eerraris, Pochwalski, F. v. Pausinger, and
others). Rudolf Alt's watercolours are as fresh as
ever, and there are also some good foreign contri-
butions, among them a fine Madonna inplein air by
George Hitchcock. In regard to sculpture, there
is a marked falling off as compared with last year.
Some of the younger artists have altogether ab-
stained from participating in this Exhibition, there
being a movement for " secession " going on at pre-

sent, the result of which remains as yet to be
seen. W. S.

-LORENCE.—A curious feature of the

, Florence exhibition has been the
' "popular vote." "Popular" must,
however, be understood in no very
wide sense, as the "populace" con-
sisted of subscribers and of such as had paid their
entrance fee, but were not actually painters or
sculptors. Still, the result was an odd one. Passing
over story pictures, such as Dicksee's Reverie, the
lot and consequent prize fell on Prof. Senno's large
canvas of heifers coming to drink at a copse-shaded
pool. Everything is brilliant here, in the light of
that hour in the late afternoon which, in a clear
atmosphere, rivals the early morning in intensity;
the knap-weeds are growing jewels, the leaves are
of a peculiar vividness, the glimpse of sky on the
right, where the eye is carried to the required dis-
tance and human dwellings suggested, seems cut
out from the glorious Elban heavens ; for although
Senno has been so long away from his " Island,"
he still carries its sky and its crystalline atmosphere
in his mind. Every detail reveals the Professor's
delicate observation and feeling, from the move-
ment of the heifer's uplifted head to that of the
wagtail perched on the branch (" there are always
wagtails where there are cows," says Senno, though
we may be allowed to doubt whether they perch
just in front of the nose of a moving heifer). The
execution is as solid and conscientious as is usual
with this artist. Yet the picture does not represent
him at his best. Although full of air, it is essen-
tially a studio picture, and this on account of its
over-elaboration ; there is too much detail: it does
not compose as one looks at it.

Prof. Senno is the most poetical of landscape
painters. He calls himself sentimental; but that is
a mistake. He is too robust and reserved for senti-
mentality. His pictures are thought out, are con-
ceptions in the true sense of the word. " I think,"
he said, as I was chatting with him the other day,
"that pictures should be synthetic. You should
observe unceasingly, so unceasingly as to do so as
unconsciously as you breathe. But you should
not sit down and copy what you observe on to your
canvas as though you were a photographic lens.
You should carry your pictures within you, let them
take form and proportion in your mind, composing
themselves out of 'even your unconscious observa-
tions, before you give birth to them. Then paint,

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