DOI Heft:
No. 96 (March, 1901)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19787#0161
Studio- Talk
of art, rising at length to the position of Professor
at the School of Fine Arts at Weimar, and then
into the full public recognition of his remarkable
gifts, we are struck at once by the strong in-
dividuality of the man and the universal quality
of his genius. The work of no modern painter
is more entirely the expression of himself and
of his whole self than Boecklin's. Whatever
he gained from Greek mythology, from German
romantic art, from the great Italian, French
or Flemish masters, did but fructify his own
intensely original artistic nature. In studying
his landscapes we feel at once that to him a land-
scape was, to use Amiel's words, un etat d'dnie,
that he waited upon those moments of the strangely
beautiful self-revelation of Nature that were in
harmony with his moods, so that such pictures as
the Spring Day or the Villa by the Sea have all
the magical power of an evocation of Nature. The
masterly beauty of his composition is beyond dis-
pute, but his treatment of colour has given rise to
difference of opinion, and yet what seems to us
characteristic in Boecklin's landscapes in this
respect is the way in which colours of the last
degree of intensity are so wisely harmonised that
though they dazzle, they rarely offend the eye.
The subjects in the treatment of which Boecklin
was happiest are those that deal with the elemental
forces of Nature, and the mythological conception
of those forces. This son of a mountain race
understood the sea in its mystery and might as few
marine painters have done. The marvellous play
and movement of the waves in such masterpieces
as the Sirens and Tritons or The Play of the Wave,
the calm, far-stretching solitude of the watery waste
out of which rises the mystic Isle of the Dead,
reveal a profound and intimate knowledge of and
feeling for the sea in its wrath or in its rest. But
what impresses us most in Boecklin's work is the
essentially mythological spirit in which he treats
those mythological subjects to which he devoted
the greater part of his work. It is in such pictures
as Pan Frightening the Shepherd, The Battle of the
Centaurs, An Idyll of the Sea, or The Sirens and
Tritons, that the quite elemental forces of his
genius come into full play. R. M.
RIO DE JANEIRO.—It is a long time
since I sent to The Studio my last
letter, but this delay has been due to
no lack of interesting art news here.
We have had two or three rather important
one-man exhibitions, and also the annual Fine
Arts Exhibition, which, though small as regards
the number of exhibits, contained nevertheless
some pictures worthy of mention.
Joao Baptista da Costa, the landscapist, of
whose simple and charming pieces of Nature, so
full of beautiful light and atmospheric effects,
there were three fine specimens, revealed himself
as a powerful figure painter in a large picture which
he called A Sorrowful Monient. The subject
is rather commonplace, but it has received at
the hands of da Costa a vigorous and inspirit-
ing treatment. The colour-scheme is sombre,
137
of art, rising at length to the position of Professor
at the School of Fine Arts at Weimar, and then
into the full public recognition of his remarkable
gifts, we are struck at once by the strong in-
dividuality of the man and the universal quality
of his genius. The work of no modern painter
is more entirely the expression of himself and
of his whole self than Boecklin's. Whatever
he gained from Greek mythology, from German
romantic art, from the great Italian, French
or Flemish masters, did but fructify his own
intensely original artistic nature. In studying
his landscapes we feel at once that to him a land-
scape was, to use Amiel's words, un etat d'dnie,
that he waited upon those moments of the strangely
beautiful self-revelation of Nature that were in
harmony with his moods, so that such pictures as
the Spring Day or the Villa by the Sea have all
the magical power of an evocation of Nature. The
masterly beauty of his composition is beyond dis-
pute, but his treatment of colour has given rise to
difference of opinion, and yet what seems to us
characteristic in Boecklin's landscapes in this
respect is the way in which colours of the last
degree of intensity are so wisely harmonised that
though they dazzle, they rarely offend the eye.
The subjects in the treatment of which Boecklin
was happiest are those that deal with the elemental
forces of Nature, and the mythological conception
of those forces. This son of a mountain race
understood the sea in its mystery and might as few
marine painters have done. The marvellous play
and movement of the waves in such masterpieces
as the Sirens and Tritons or The Play of the Wave,
the calm, far-stretching solitude of the watery waste
out of which rises the mystic Isle of the Dead,
reveal a profound and intimate knowledge of and
feeling for the sea in its wrath or in its rest. But
what impresses us most in Boecklin's work is the
essentially mythological spirit in which he treats
those mythological subjects to which he devoted
the greater part of his work. It is in such pictures
as Pan Frightening the Shepherd, The Battle of the
Centaurs, An Idyll of the Sea, or The Sirens and
Tritons, that the quite elemental forces of his
genius come into full play. R. M.
RIO DE JANEIRO.—It is a long time
since I sent to The Studio my last
letter, but this delay has been due to
no lack of interesting art news here.
We have had two or three rather important
one-man exhibitions, and also the annual Fine
Arts Exhibition, which, though small as regards
the number of exhibits, contained nevertheless
some pictures worthy of mention.
Joao Baptista da Costa, the landscapist, of
whose simple and charming pieces of Nature, so
full of beautiful light and atmospheric effects,
there were three fine specimens, revealed himself
as a powerful figure painter in a large picture which
he called A Sorrowful Monient. The subject
is rather commonplace, but it has received at
the hands of da Costa a vigorous and inspirit-
ing treatment. The colour-scheme is sombre,
137