DOI issue:
No. 196 (July, 1909)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20967#0156
Studio-Talk
At the Carfax Gallery the Hon. Neville Lytton
and Mr. Charles Louis Geoffroy held an exhibition
together. There is some similarity in their aims—
the cultivation of the traditional. They are both
very content with scholarship for its own sake, and
Mr. Lytton adds a sense of romance. As a
draughtsman in water-colours of landscapes Mr.
Geoffroy’s talent takes an extremely high place,
but in them again it is nature always viewed
through old conventions.
Messrs. Dowdeswell’s Galleries were very in-
teresting last month in the exhibition of the art
of Jan Steen (1626-1679), with its Hogarth like
command of dramatic grouping and impulsive
acceptance of every phase of life for subjects. In
such single panels as the one of his wife with a
mandoline, there is, perhaps, most opportunity to
study the beautiful and intimate qualities at the
expense of which some of his larger canvases
attained their cordial readiness to embrace the
difficulties of complicated moving scenes. At
the same galleries Miss Eleanor Fortescue
Brickdale’s drawings, inspired by Browning’s
poems, exhibited all the characteristics of her
painting to advantage. They showed in many
fine passages of work advancement even on
previous success, and an imagination always
responsive to poetical influence. This respon-
siveness was refreshing, since the poetic title is
still adhered to in some quarters only as an
adventitious interest to the actual painting.
Mr. Arthur Studd’s exhibition at the Alpine
Club last month was of especial interest. Mr.
Studd is in love with Venice, and it is to her
service that the chief part of his talent has
been devoted. He has cared little, however,
for the many-coloured splendour in which a
multitude of her lovers has delighted to deck
her. Instead of the numberless gems of every
hue, he has chosen the opal alone as the sym-
bol of her beauty, and has taken pleasure rather
in evoking through a veil of misty greys and
blues a subtler variety of shifting tints. He has
painted her as she has appeared to him, quite
simply in a mantle of vapour and with her
girdle of the sea, and has sought in each
picture to give a kind of lyrical expression to
the mood induced by what he has seen and
felt. Next to Venice, he has been particularly
attracted by the queen of Spanish cities, Seville.
In the formation of his style Mr. Studd has
come largely under the influence of Whistler,
with whom he was on terms of friendship. It
is evident, at the same time, that he has learned
much at first hand from some of the original
sources of inspiration to which the phase of art
represented by his master is itself indebted. His
paintings are always agreeable in tone and pleasing
in design, and they are at the same time clearly
the work of a refined culture and a loving hand.
At the Ryder Gallery last month Mr. Stewart
Dick exhibited a collection of water-colours and
paintings, principally of Spanish scenes. Mr. Dick is
much more successful with the medium of water-
colour, which he handles with greater firmness and
decision than is apparent in his oils, and in addition
his water-colours reveal a finer harmony of colour.
The qualities we refer to were seen to advantage
in such subjects among others as View from the
Bridge of Toledo, Madrid; Church of San Antonio,
Madrid ; and Trees in Knole Park, Sevenoaks.
“ THE RED BRICK HOUSE ” BY ARTHUR STUDD
I30
At the Carfax Gallery the Hon. Neville Lytton
and Mr. Charles Louis Geoffroy held an exhibition
together. There is some similarity in their aims—
the cultivation of the traditional. They are both
very content with scholarship for its own sake, and
Mr. Lytton adds a sense of romance. As a
draughtsman in water-colours of landscapes Mr.
Geoffroy’s talent takes an extremely high place,
but in them again it is nature always viewed
through old conventions.
Messrs. Dowdeswell’s Galleries were very in-
teresting last month in the exhibition of the art
of Jan Steen (1626-1679), with its Hogarth like
command of dramatic grouping and impulsive
acceptance of every phase of life for subjects. In
such single panels as the one of his wife with a
mandoline, there is, perhaps, most opportunity to
study the beautiful and intimate qualities at the
expense of which some of his larger canvases
attained their cordial readiness to embrace the
difficulties of complicated moving scenes. At
the same galleries Miss Eleanor Fortescue
Brickdale’s drawings, inspired by Browning’s
poems, exhibited all the characteristics of her
painting to advantage. They showed in many
fine passages of work advancement even on
previous success, and an imagination always
responsive to poetical influence. This respon-
siveness was refreshing, since the poetic title is
still adhered to in some quarters only as an
adventitious interest to the actual painting.
Mr. Arthur Studd’s exhibition at the Alpine
Club last month was of especial interest. Mr.
Studd is in love with Venice, and it is to her
service that the chief part of his talent has
been devoted. He has cared little, however,
for the many-coloured splendour in which a
multitude of her lovers has delighted to deck
her. Instead of the numberless gems of every
hue, he has chosen the opal alone as the sym-
bol of her beauty, and has taken pleasure rather
in evoking through a veil of misty greys and
blues a subtler variety of shifting tints. He has
painted her as she has appeared to him, quite
simply in a mantle of vapour and with her
girdle of the sea, and has sought in each
picture to give a kind of lyrical expression to
the mood induced by what he has seen and
felt. Next to Venice, he has been particularly
attracted by the queen of Spanish cities, Seville.
In the formation of his style Mr. Studd has
come largely under the influence of Whistler,
with whom he was on terms of friendship. It
is evident, at the same time, that he has learned
much at first hand from some of the original
sources of inspiration to which the phase of art
represented by his master is itself indebted. His
paintings are always agreeable in tone and pleasing
in design, and they are at the same time clearly
the work of a refined culture and a loving hand.
At the Ryder Gallery last month Mr. Stewart
Dick exhibited a collection of water-colours and
paintings, principally of Spanish scenes. Mr. Dick is
much more successful with the medium of water-
colour, which he handles with greater firmness and
decision than is apparent in his oils, and in addition
his water-colours reveal a finer harmony of colour.
The qualities we refer to were seen to advantage
in such subjects among others as View from the
Bridge of Toledo, Madrid; Church of San Antonio,
Madrid ; and Trees in Knole Park, Sevenoaks.
“ THE RED BRICK HOUSE ” BY ARTHUR STUDD
I30