DOI Heft:
Nr. 168 (March 1907)
DOI Artikel:The International Society's seventh Exhibition
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20774#0163
The International Society's Seventh Exhibition
“the hammock”
—at least, almost everybody outside the Royal
Academy. At the Royal Academy refinement in
the art of painting, if nothing else, is better under-
stood ; refinement lending to beauty which, if some-
times practised at the International, would leaven
wholesomely their exhibitions. To what end is
the Society tending if beauty is to be of so little
account? No art was ever more subject to
beauty than that of their first President, and M.
Rodin finds it unfailingly in other shape. For
the rest, apparently there are less than a score of
members and associates who make it their aim.
Such a painter as Emile Claus refuses to subscribe
to the painty atmosphere. Messrs. Blanche,
Lavery, Sauter, Crawhall, Priestman, Cottet,
Milcendeau, Walton, Nicholson, Grosvenor Thomas,
D. Y. Cameron, Orpen—taking a few names—help
to quiet the turbulent walls, for each of these artists
approaches some aspect of life, and by reason of
the affinity it has with his temperament makes it in
art his own. Nature must always be accepted
BY JOHN LAVERY
or rejected, for the purposes of art, in obedience to
temperament. It is a sophistry to pretend that an
artist should approach nature unemotionally and as
a huge still-life group. In the picture called The
Sonnet in this exhibition a group of human figures
have been arranged with all the incongruity, and
more than the irrelevancy, to which we are accus-
tomed in still-life groups. The picture bears witness
to its creator’s undeniable powers, but we miss in
it evidence that it was called into being at the
dictation of those temperamental preferences which
alone lead an artist to subjects from which he can
create greatly.
The painting which Emile Claus exhibits is of a
fine September morning. The quietness of the
morning — this is something outside a colour
problem. An analysis of morning sunlight is
always an achievement, but a greater achievement
and fulfilment than this is the picture by Claus,
with its evocation of the morning spirit.
M. Blanche is as fond of the surfaces of costly
141
“the hammock”
—at least, almost everybody outside the Royal
Academy. At the Royal Academy refinement in
the art of painting, if nothing else, is better under-
stood ; refinement lending to beauty which, if some-
times practised at the International, would leaven
wholesomely their exhibitions. To what end is
the Society tending if beauty is to be of so little
account? No art was ever more subject to
beauty than that of their first President, and M.
Rodin finds it unfailingly in other shape. For
the rest, apparently there are less than a score of
members and associates who make it their aim.
Such a painter as Emile Claus refuses to subscribe
to the painty atmosphere. Messrs. Blanche,
Lavery, Sauter, Crawhall, Priestman, Cottet,
Milcendeau, Walton, Nicholson, Grosvenor Thomas,
D. Y. Cameron, Orpen—taking a few names—help
to quiet the turbulent walls, for each of these artists
approaches some aspect of life, and by reason of
the affinity it has with his temperament makes it in
art his own. Nature must always be accepted
BY JOHN LAVERY
or rejected, for the purposes of art, in obedience to
temperament. It is a sophistry to pretend that an
artist should approach nature unemotionally and as
a huge still-life group. In the picture called The
Sonnet in this exhibition a group of human figures
have been arranged with all the incongruity, and
more than the irrelevancy, to which we are accus-
tomed in still-life groups. The picture bears witness
to its creator’s undeniable powers, but we miss in
it evidence that it was called into being at the
dictation of those temperamental preferences which
alone lead an artist to subjects from which he can
create greatly.
The painting which Emile Claus exhibits is of a
fine September morning. The quietness of the
morning — this is something outside a colour
problem. An analysis of morning sunlight is
always an achievement, but a greater achievement
and fulfilment than this is the picture by Claus,
with its evocation of the morning spirit.
M. Blanche is as fond of the surfaces of costly
141