Studio: international art (11.1897)

Studio- Talk

the painting of the group, and a rather too universal
distribution of tinsel and gold lace on the costumes
to make the whole effect entirely pleasing, but
technique and drawing are satisfactory, and the
scheme of colour harmonious.

Graceful in composition, poetical in feeling and
harmonious in colour is Mentessi's Madonna and
Child, entitled Visions, a tempera in soft grey tints
thrown into relief by the sunlit half distance. The
grouping of attendant saints reminds one irre-
sistibly of Botticelli, though Mentessi is far
from allying himself with the adorers of the pre-
Raphaelite and ostentatiously simple in art. 77
Duello (The Duel), a finely painted and dramatic
picture by Repine, is one of the most remarkable

works in the Russian school. The skilful manage-
ment of the evening light shining through the trees
and lighting up the figures, which tell their own story,
is highly creditable, and far from being theatrical
or purely scenic as in the case of Siemiradzki's huge
canvas, The Girl Martyr, in the same room. The
picture palpitates with life and emotion. Laurenti,
while departing from his usual style, shows an unsus-
pected power of grasping the decorative possibilities
of the nude figure, in his picture Nuova Fioritura
(The New Flora). There is a certain lack of finish
and modelling in the figures, due perhaps to haste,
but the design is graceful, and the note of colour in
the background is both harmonious and pleasing.
This picture has been acquired, together with
several others, as the nucleus of a gallery of
modern art in Venice.

': SEPTEMBER " BY E. TITO

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