Studio: international art (38.1906)

The Portrait JVork of Joaquin Sorolla

exactness and unbounded preciosity the work of
art as it has left the hands of the artist. It is to
this “ process ”—a sufficiently barbarous word when
it has to do with a method of mechanical transcrip-
tion rising almost to the dignity of an art—that
Bugatti entrusts the works he considers worthy of
being definitely fixed. More fortunate than Barye,
who was unable to find satisfaction of his aesthetic
idea in the more or less skilful work of his colla-
borators, still feeling their way in processes more or
less imperfect, Bugatti well knows how much he
owes to his co-worker and friend, the artistic
fondeur H^brard, who has brought the process of
casting to a high state of perfection.

Although Bugatti has not yet completely dis-
closed himself to public and to critics save as an
animal sculptor, certain statuettes seen in his
atelier—portraits of friends done in his leisure
moments—have so much real charm, with matt rise
so authoritative, that they open up a whole horizon
of promise for the work he will presently produce.
“Form—is it not all one in its apparent diversity?”

asked Theophile Gautier. And why should Bugatti
model men with less success than beasts ?

M. Horteloup.

The portrait-work of

JOAQUIN SOROLLA. BY
LEONARD WILLIAMS.

I passed the morning of the other day—one of
a number of such profitable mornings—in the
studio of Sorolla. Thirty or forty canvases were
round about me. Upon them were the men,
the women, and the children of our time ; royal
and noble personages, ministers and diplomats,
leaders of society, ladies and gentlemen of tranquil
and domesticated life, unknown (as yet, and doubt-
less wishing to remain unknown) to notoriety cr
fame ; novelists and men of science ; actresses and
dramatists ; the painter’s children, and the children
of his patrons or his friends.

A life of pitiless, of absolutely unremitting labour
is Sorolla’s. I have seen him weary of five minutes

PORTRAIT OF ECHEGARAY
26

BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA