Studio: international art (11.1897)

Decorative Art at the Champ de Mars

recall with infinite charm
the ineffaceable memory
of Loie Fuller.

Equal praise is due to
M. Pierre Roche, whose
golden Venus in glazed
earthenware, and whose
aluminium Giroette display
the true artistic tempera-
ment. As much cannot
be said of his bindings, or
his stoneware group of four
nude women, or of his
earthenware cupola with
its metallic-looking surface,
which is a strange and wild
conception.

There are plenty of hor-
rors, too, in M. Fix Mas-
seau's exhibit. He has
attempted to turn toads
and orchids into inkstands
and chandeliers and match-
boxes, both in pewter and
in stone. The work is
laboured, disjointed and
unwholesome, quite devoid
of art, and as clumsy as it
is childish. And yet,
among all these night-
mares, one comes across
a delicate woman's face in

EMBROIDERED SILK WALL HANGING BY FELIX AUBERT StOne, which attracts and

fascinates one. This little
head is consoling and corn-
should, however, blame ourselves if we failed to posing after all the morbid complexities around,
stigmatise as an example cf the worst possible taste The work displayed by the celebrated German
the interior—fit only for cannibals—exhibited by engraver, Karl Koepping, may be unreservedly
M. Hector Guimard. Nothing more ugly, more praised. His blown glass exhibits a delightful
pretentious, or more inartistic could be con- fancy, and one could not imagine anything more
ceived ; one shudders at the idea of being con- exquisite. There is no ornamentation, no elabora-
demned to live amid horrors such as these. We tion, nothing that is superfluous. The chalice of
can imagine no greater punishment. And to a flower in its natural, normal shape serves him
think that there are those who hold M. Guimard as the basis of art productions of extraordinary
to be the real, the only renovator of the art of beauty.

decoration ! This supple glass lends itself to every require-
But to resume. M. Carabin, who shows both ment of the artist with the most perfect ease
taste and ability in his ring in gold, iron and silver, and freedom. It all breathes the spirit of nature,
and in his stoneware (as illustrated in The Studio for there is nothing involved or artificial about
of March last), has gone hopelessly wrong over it. M. Tiffany's work is inferior, and yet the
his trinket-box and his mirror-frame in worked results he has achieved are in their way veryj
copper. However, we need not insist upon this remarkable, although they suggest too much
unfortunate mistake, but rather console ourselves striving after effect, too much effort. This work
with these six little bronze dancing figures, which seems to be the manifestation of a decadent art ;