Studio: international art (54.1912)

Reviews and Notices

sinking and seal-cutting, and many pieces of silver-
smiths' and jewellers' work. The writing, printing,
and etching sections also were well represented.

At the St. Martin's School of Art Mr. J. E.
Allen's pupils showed in September the results of
the work of the preceding session. The exhibition
was particularly strong in modelling, the class for
which is conducted by Mr. McCrossan, an artist
who had the advantage of working for some
years in the studio of Mr. Alfred Gilbert.

For some years the study of sculpture has been
abandoned at the Slade School. In the days of
Professor Legros the modelling classes were en-
couraged, and the practice of the art of the medal-
list in particular was one of the features of the
school work. In the nineties a modelling class
directed by Sir George Frampton was carried on for
several sessions, but after his departure no successor
was appointed till a month ago. A new teacher of
modelling has now joined the Slade staff in the
person of Mr. J. Havard Thomas, whose election,
it may be hoped, signifies that the famous school
in Gower Street will deal as seriously with the
education of the sculptor as it has done with that
of the draughtsman and painter. Mr. Thomas is
best known as the author of the well-known statue
of Lycidas, now at the Tate Gallery, the rejection
of which made so much stir in the world of art in
the spring of 1905. Mr. Thomas was one of the
earliest supporters of the New English Art Club,
and the honorary secretary of the movement of
twenty-four years ago that had for its object the
foundation of a " National Art Exhibition " as a
rival to the Royal Academy. W. T. W.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES

The Post Impressionists. By C. Lewis Hind.
(London: Methuen and Co.) -js. 6d. net.—The
expression of character and emotion has long been
acknowledged to be the essence of artistic work.
The painter who is able to see behind the veil of
mere materialism, and to place upon his canvas
some suggestion of the underlying or moving spirit
of his subject, is the one who compels the highest
admiration. It is equally true, however, that his
craftsmanship must not be lacking. His sense of
form and colour, the perfect training of his eye and
hand, are absolutely necessary qualifications, for
without them he cannot adequately record the
subtleties of his brain-impressions.

Mr. Lewis Hind, in his efforts to distinguish what
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he believes to be admirable in the work of the
painters he classes as leaders of the Post Impres-
sionist movement, unduly emphasises, we think,
their power of "expression." Matisse, Gaugin, and
Van Gogh as "expressionists" are incomparably
inferior to Daumier, to Forain, or to Phil May.
That they are not entirely lacking in this qualification
goes without saying, for there is a certain brutal,
immature display of character visible in the portrait
of Matisse by himself, and in that of Pere Tanguy
by Van Gogh, both of which are illustrated in
Mr. Hind's book ; and this is sufficiently notable to
command some attention from the connoisseur,
but the clumsiness of their presentment must
appal rather than appeal to the understanding of
the cultured critic. As a matter of fact Gaugin
and Van Gogh might be more correctly described
as followers of Daumier than as leaders of Im-
pressionism ; but how immeasurably far they were
behind their master in every artistic attainment
may be realised by any student who will take the
trouble to examine the subject.

Mr. Hind, in common with other writers on the
subject, frequently finds much to admire in the
"decorative" powers of the Post Impressionists.
Among the numberless examples of their work very
carefully examined by us in the Salons des Inde-
pendants, we have seen very little that can lay any
claim whatever to decorative value. The decorative
quality of an object is largely due to a knowledge
and sense of colour-harmonies and proportion,
and the placing of well-considered masses in
agreeable juxtaposition. In the work of Korin, of
Koyetsu, and of Sotatsu we find these decorative
qualities at their best, and even in the colour-prints
of almost any of the older Japanese designers may
be found work that is infinitely superior in its
decorative qualities to that of the greatest master
of the Post Impressionist school. An indis-
criminate jumble of bright colours is not in
itself decoration. The superb decorative value
of a choice old Persian carpet was only obtained
by the exercise of great artistic perception of
colour-harmony and distribution. Without that
perception—and to a large extent it is at its best
instinctive—we get such examples of garish colour
and parodies of decoration as may be seen to-day
from the looms of Morocco and certain districts of
Asia Minor. And it is to such latter-day produc-
tions that the best so-called " decorative" work of
the Post Impressionists bears some sort of com-
parative relation.

If the Post Impressionists pose as " individual-
ists," "expressionists," or "decorative artists," they