Studio: international art (35.1905)

Studio-Talk

success is much neglected
by the younger men. M.
Richir’s work has always
been remarkable for its
thoroughness, and an ex-
amination of the accom-
panying reproductions of
certain of the panels, will
show that everything in the
conception points to a
thorough understanding of
the possibilities of the sub-
ject, which is, moreover,
excellently treated from a
technical point of view.

BOWLS BY DAMMOUSE

M. Richir, who is still quite young,
already occupies a high position as a
portraitist, but this is his first attempt at
decorative art of this particular kind.
The painter, who is now one of the pro-
fessors at the Brussels Academy of Fine
Arts, is a pupil of Portaels and of Herman,
and can boast of a knowledge of drawing
which is unusual in the Belgian school
of to-day, where this avenue to artistic

VASES

the valley beneath. Then, returning to Paris, he
suddenly becomes the historian of the Universal
Exhibition. Herein the artist makes his chief
contribution to the exhibition, and some of his
studies, in which he follows, step by step, the con-
struction and demolition of notable buildings, are
absolutely of the first importance, and deserve to
live. His peaceful visions of Brittany, with their
warm sunsets, and ever that appreciation of the
meaning of nature’s architecture, fully justify the
opinion expressed by the best critics, that Prunier
is one of the most individual artists of our Young
French school. H. F.

BRUSSELS. — Inspired by the seductive
scene in Gluck’s great opera
‘‘Orpheus,” where a vision of
that land of the blest, the
Elysian fields—forming one of the most
ideal of stage effects—rises before the
eyes of the spectators, the distinguished
Belgian painter, Herman Richir, has
chosen this subject for twelve decorative
panels with which to adorn the walls of
the music room of M. Fontaine de
Laveleye at Boisfort, Brussels.

The panels are twelve in
number, seven of which are here reproduced. All
save one are uprights, and they form a deep frieze
which covers nearly half the wall. They surround
the room and at first were intended to be con-
tinuous, but for convenience sake were divided
into separate pictures. They show more depth
and finish than ordinary frescoes.

The panels all vary in size, but each depicts a
corner of that “ refuge so beautiful and tranquil,
where happiness lives for ever, where sweet tran-
quillity reigns,” and M. Richir contrives to bring
before us that lovely garden just as poets have
sung it, as the faithful have believed it, and he
draws for us a heavenly retreat where Spring always

BY DAMMOUSE

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