Studio: international art (11.1897)

Studio-Talk

Mr. J. E.( !hristie's Vanity
Fair, which was lent by the
Glasgow Corporation to the
recent Exhibition of the
New English Art Club at
the Dudley Gallery, is a
picture of more than ordi-
nary importance. Not
only does it mark an epoch
in the artist's career, his
arrival, after some years of
devoted labour, at a place
in the front rank of modern
men, but it is also a notable
instance of the manner in
which abstract and allego-
rical subjects are handled
by the younger school of
the present day. It is an
illustration of the tendency
which has arisen among
the artists who wish to
prove their independence
of the out-of-date academic
school, to use the details
of the life around us to
clothe and give character
to the abstractions that
still suggest themselves as

BOOK-COVER DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY MESSRS. KELLY AND SONS WOrthy motives for pictO-

rial effort. Vanity Fair, as
Mr. Christie has imagined

from imitation—namely, that the lessons learned it, takes the form of a booth such as may be seen

in modifying another person's idea soon provoke a at any village fete to-day. The nymph who clis-

designer to show his own powers of invention. tributes the glittering bubbles that attract the

Because Messrs. Kelly are evidently working to- crowd, is only a strolling player in her tawdry

wards a distinct style of their own, one can be theatrical garb, and her admirers are the idlers

lenient to their first efforts, which, good though who have been brought together by the bustle

they be, are little more than ingenious modifications and novelty of the scene. The allegory is made

of accepted types. It is always a regret that the to most men more persuasive and intelligible by

value of a fine creation is endangered by transcripts its modern dressing; the moral it points is a

which mimic the body but lack the spirit of the homely one, the tale it adorns a narrative with

original. An artist's personal feeling should also be which every one is well acquainted.

considered ; no one is gratified by travesties of

his own designs. This moralising is not aimed at We do not often have the chance of seeing any-

Messrs. Kelly particularly ; and even if it did apply thing like an exhaustive display of the work done

to some of their work, the later specimens show by artists of our own times. The annual exhibi-

effort to develop a manner of their own, and so tions at the Academy and other galleries of the

have power to arouse interest that the most accom- same class have but a temporary interest, and are

plished " exercise in the style of So-and-so " would only vaguely valuable as evidences of progress from

fail to elicit from any honest critic. For Tenny- year to year. Occasionally when a commemorative

son's poem on the flower which " all can raise, now show, like the great gathering at Manchester ten

all have got the seed," holds a pertinent lesson to years ago, is organised we get an idea of the scope

craftsmen no less than to rhymesters. and variety of the art of this country, because

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