Studio: international art (27.1903)

Reviews

DECORATIVE PANEL FROM AN ETCHING BY W. BALMER

direct, not, however, without a fund of imaginative the breeze. The beauty of this figure and 01 its

invention, apparent in such decorative panels as gesture, and the life and movement the sculptor

the one here reproduced ; the latter allegorical, has put into it, are admirable. At the summit of

philosophical, as enamoured of the idea as of its the monument the frontier of Switzerland is indi-

artistic expression; and each of them aiming at cated by a rugged bounding-line. On the oppo-

the transcription of his sense of things and of life. site side of the model is the figure of a drummer-

Perhaps since Stauffer no modern Swiss etcher, in boy, who is beating the call to arms. The whole

dealing with the portrait, has employed the etching work, which is at once expressive and decorative

needle with more sensitive sureness and vital effect in conception, seems to soar from the calm block

than Balmer. on which it reposes, and strikes us as an admirable

-- symbolic expression of that inspiration which

Basel has had the honour of giving to the world seized upon the pensive author of the Journal

several of the most distinguished modern Swiss Zntime, and made him for a moment the living

artists, amongst them Boecklin and Sandreuter. voice of patriotic feeling. R. M.
Balmer also hails from Basel, where he began

his studies, devoting himself at first to architecture. REVIEWS.

Soon, however, his predilection for painting made Pintoricchio. By Corrado Ricci. Translated from

itself felt, and he betook himself to Munich. After the Italian by Florence Simmonds. (London :

this he travelled in Italy, France, England and Heinemann.) ^5 5.?. net.—It appears to have

Holland, spending one winter in Rome and another been reserved to the twentieth century to dispel

in Paris. It was to the chefs-cFceuvre of the old the general ignorance with regard to the beauty

masters that he was drawn more than to any and significance of the work of Bernardino di

others, and these he studied with ardour and Betto of Perugia, or, as he is generally called,

enthusiasm. But he shrank from the risk the Pintoricchio. Although he was, of course, fully

specialist runs of losing himself in the mere appreciated from the first by his fellow artists,

virtuoso. His aim has ever been to bring to the he has suffered, as did so many others, from the

subject-matter of art an untrammelled individuality, fact that he was the contemporary of the great

to see with his own eyes,, and to give as adequate galaxy of Italian masters who in the fifteenth

an utterance as possible to his own artistic sense century brought painting to such perfection in

of things. His achievements as an etcher are a Italy. Pintoricchio's work in the Sistine Chapel

precious contribution to this branch of art in would have received more attention if it had

Switzerland. not been brought into direct contrast with that of

-- such a mighty genius as Raphael, and had his fine

The project for a monument in honour of frescoes in the Appartamenti Borgia been the

Frederic Amiel, which the Swiss sculptor Mr. de only mural decorations of the kind in the Vatican

Niederhausen exhibited a short time ago in they would have been universally recognised as

Geneva, is worthy of special mention. This the masterpieces they undoubtedly are. A little

small rough model is of rare beauty and simplicity, volume published a year ago by Messrs. Bell did

and reveals a development in the sculptor's talent, something towards giving the neglected artist his

It symbolizes the popular song "Roulez, Tambour," true place, and'paved the way, as it were, for the

which was composed by the Genevese philosopher sumptuous publication just issued by Mr. Heine-

in a moment of patriotic emotion. The monu- mann, the illustrations of which are admirable,

mental value of the central figure is at once The photogravures are the most successful, but the

apparent. Flying, as it were, against a rugged coloured plates render satisfactorily the delicate

mountainous background, a woman-warrior bears and subdued tones of the originals, bringing out

the Swiss flag, the folds of which are floating in the dryness of the plaster ground, and the crisp
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