Studio: international art (56.1912)

THE STUDIO

The paintings of wilfrid

G. VON GLEHN. BY T. MARTIN
WOOD.

Perhaps Mr. von Glehn’s art is known best
by his exhibits at the New English Art Club’s ex-
hibitions. The Club represents what is most original
in strictly English painting. To be a member of it
seems to class an artist as one in possession of a
modem secret. But its exhibitions may be likened
to a broad stream taking in many tributaries rising
in places far apart. Mr. von Glehn’s exhibits are a
novelty there by being in a style that is not novel—
a style that represents, it seems to me, the naturalised
and now most characteristic form of Impressionism
in England. Like every other style it thrives best
upon a special subject-matter—that is, like every

other style having its origin in the solution of a
special artistic problem. It was the illusion of
solidity in objects—of space behind and in front of
them—that was the chief prize of this method. It
did not make an ideal of “ flatness,” in which some
people now see the ideal of painting, as a piece of
decoration. The problem of “atmosphere” is still
one which has not been exploited to the full in
decoration. There is in Mr. von Glehn’s art a
leaning towards decoration, and it seems probable
that this tendency in his work will increase. It
will be interesting to see how far he retains the
method special to Impressionism. It is almost the
question of how far Impressionism is the method of
realism and not of decoration. That is a point
which has yet to be decided.

By glancing at our illustrations it will quickly be

“the loggia”

FROM THE OIL PAINTING BY W. G. VON GLEHN
(In the possession of the Hon. Joseph H. Choate)

LVI. 231.—June 1912

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