Studio: international art (49.1910)

Studio- Talk

summer exhibition of the Royal Academy, we
shall defer what we have to say till next month,
when we hope, as usual, to reproduce a selec-
tion of the works exhibited. We propose in the
same number to give some of the interesting
things from the exhibition of the International
Society at the Grafton Galleries, which we under-
stand will continue to be the Society’s show-place
now that the New Gallery has been closed to art.

The footsteps of multitudes of art-lovers will this
summer be turned to the Great White City at
Shepherd’s Bush, where a bounteous feast has been
prepared for them in the Japan-British Exhibition.
There can be no question that, so far as art is con-
cerned, the display is the finest of its kind ever
brought together. The assemblage of British works
of art at the Franco-British Exhibition, two years
ago, was a remarkable one,
but the present collection
is even more noteworthy.

The King has signified his
interest in the Fine Art
section by lending a group
of historical works, and
many other distinguished
owners have been gener-
ous in their loans of
masterpieces. The price-
less treasures which have
been sent to the exhibi-
tion from Japan will of
course attract many stu-
dents and connoisseurs,
eager to avail themselves
of the rare opportunity
afforded them of making
intimate acquaintance
with the artistic genius of
Nippon. One of the works
on view in this section is
the Chinese Landscape
reproduced opposite. It
was painted in ink by
the famous Sesshu, a
painter priest of the
fifteenth century and one
of the half-dozen greatest
of Japanese artists.

Sesshu spent some years
in China, where his genius
was acknowledged as
readily as in his own
country, and he received

an order to decorate a part of the Imperial Palace
at Peking—an honour never accorded any foreign
painter before. His heavy, strong brush work was
no doubt a little difficult for his imperial patrons to
understand at first, but a little acquaintance with
the spirit and methods of Eastern art is sufficient
to make clear the nobility of Sesshu’s ideas and
the power of his execution.

The exhibition now being held at the French
Gallery, 120, Pall Mall, offers an excellent oppor-
tunity of considering the work of three of the most
gifted painters of the last generation in its relation
to that of present-day artists now showing at
Burlington House and the Grafton Galleries; for
the influence of Maris, Mauve, and Fantin un-
doubtedly shows itself in certain phases of the
art of to-day. But apart from the opportunity of

“A DUTCH INTERIOR” by JAMES MARIS

{By permission of Messrs. Thos. Wallis & Son)

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