Studio: international art (42.1908)

6". Melton Fisher

Makers (1888), Festa (1889), La
Sposa (1890), Una Cresina: The
Confirmation of a Child, Venice
(1891), L'Asta: A Sale by Auction
(1894), to quote the chief of the pic-
tures he exhibited during this period,
he had denned his place in the art
world—and this place, it could be
seen, was one of undeniable dis-
tinction.-

At first he seemed inclined to con-
tinue in London the same kind of
search after beauty in everyday life
with which he occupied himself in
Venice, for soon after his return from
abroad he exhibited an important
picture, Clerkenwell Flower Makers
(1896), in which all the characteristics
of his eailier style are fully displayed.
But his maturing convictions soon
led him to see that his love of colour
and feeling for graceful line could be
more completely asserted in subjects
of a more abstract type; and accord-
ingly, he has for the past ten years
occupied himself more and more

by s. melton fisher

with those dainty fancies by which he
is best known to-day — with such de-
lightful compositions as In Realms oj
Fancy, which was bought by the Chantrey
Fund Trustees in 1898; Sleep; and the
Tambour Frame, the ■ first of which is
in the National Gallery at Wellington,
New Zealand, and the other in the
National Gallery at Perth, Western
Australia; Poppies; June; La Belle au
Bois dormant, an exquisite example of
his treatment of the nude figure; the
graceful Ballerina, which was one of the
features of the 1907 Academy; Dreams,
which was acquired for the Corporation
Gallery at Oldham; and The Chess
Players, which was added not long ago
to the collection in the Walker Art
Gallery at Liverpool. Throughout the
whole of this series there runs an obvious
intention to deal with nature in a spirit
of pure eclecticism, and to record only
those among her many aspects which
would lend themselves best to the illus-
tration of the particular aesthetic truths
' clytie " by s. melton fisher which he wished to advocate.

181