Studio: international art (13.1898)

Charles Couriers Paintings on Silk

FAINTED SILK FAN BY CHARLES CONDER

sought shade and retirement. Farther away are aftercomer who has had his place at the table of
pebbly beaches beside a sea coloured like moon- the gods, and recounts the legends of the morning
stone and chrysoprase, and off this coast lie the as they were told, drowsily, at the evening feast.
Fortunate Islands. In other parts of this favoured I shall not describe a score of panels in which
district will be found blue cloudlike woods planted the happy region and its legends are depicted, but
by Watteau and Debucourt, in whose alleys only one or two explorations of its strange or out-
fashions still persist as old and as gay as Fra- lying parts.

gonard. Indeed, there are corners of woodland In one the scene is pushed as far as London,

more antique, and the horsemen of Anquetin, In a window looking out on a street two women

prancing about the glades with their strongly- sit, one a girl, the other older. On one hand is a

marked profiles, have been known to burst upon figure of Cupid, on the other a statue of Marcus

nymphs who have queened it naked in that oblivion Aurelius, and redcoats go marching down the

since the hand of Titian took from them the shame street.

of dress. In another a naming witch-revel goes forward in

By an intelligible misunderstanding in the case a building whose windows are filled with painted

of an English boy, Conder's talents were devoted, glass. Through the lean saints and bloody martyrs

at the earliest moment possible, to the trigono- stained upon them shines a Spring landscape,
metrical survey of Australia. Work so elementary, In a third are seen two figures who have travelled

and instruments so inexact for the appreciation of eastwards till the path ends in weeds and briars,

landscape, could not, however, content him long, and a gate with rusty hinges. Beside it sleeps an

From deserts where nothing is to be seen, eaten, angel, and a sword has slipped from his hand,

drunk, or dreamed but cosines, he found his way to They wake him and ask, "What gate is this?"'

the Garden and embarked upon its more congenial He replies, " The gate of Paradise." " Why then,

survey. He has made pictures of other sorts, but is the path grass grown and the gate choked, and

those I speak of are stained, after a fashion of his why do you sleep?" "Because no one ever cares,

own, on panels of white silk, some of them shaped to come here now."

for fans. The delicate flush of their colour agrees In another, of which some idea may be gathered!

with the frail texture of the stuff, and of the tales from the coloured reproduction, a cavalcade is.

confided. They shine and die out like those we setting off for the Fortunate Isles; avant-couriers.

tell ourselves in sleep, or like the movement of a are speeding along the beach, and under the filmy -

fan that opens and shuts, poises and wavers, upon canopy of the car a cheiromant is reading the

a breath of air. For their teller is not a crier, nor pilgrim's destiny.

a wrestler, nor a pioneer, nor a registrar, but an In yet another, the ship has touched the port.

233