DOI issue:
No. 234 (September 1912)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21157#0346
Studio-Talk
fail to exercise some influence upon his style are
Count Kalckreuth and Hans Thoma. Kalckreuth
was president of the Karlsruhe Kiinstlerbund
during the period of its apogee, which was also the
time when he was a fertile etcher. From him Conz
acquired many technical hints. But Thoma gave
him something more valuable, a guide for his con-
ception of and feeling for art.
Thoma’s life-work, especially the latter half of
it, may be looked upon as a protest against the over-
assthetical self-conscious and super-refined phases
of art which have obtained ever since Manet, ever
since artists began to “ explain ” what they were
driving at. His ideal is the art of the period before
1870, not in so far as it was fettered by stupid
academic rules, but in so far as its appeal to the
public was then a plain unsophisticated one. Since
then artists have grown so wondrously wise, have
heaped theory upon theory, proving each time that
now at last they are upon the right path and hitherto
all had been wandering in the dark. Simplicity in
spirit, a kind of style that needs no word of explana-
tion even for the initiated, is, according to Thoma,
what we are really in need of. And this is what he
has inculcated in his followers. The Conz etchings
reproduced here display this style. There are no
traces of an attempt to surprise one by cleverness,
by an extraordinary pose, or by unusual technical
skill. The language used, so to speak, is that of a
man of deep feeling, but of simple learning: one
whose strength lies in what he has to say, not in the
seductive way of saying it. H. W. S.
BRUSSELS.—The question of lace-making
is one that is prominent at the present
moment, for there are many who are
seeking for a practical means to bring this
exquisite art into vogue again. Without going back
to the golden days in the history of lace-making,
says the writer of an article published in “ Le Soir,” it
is sufficient to note the falling off in the last few
years of the income this craft brought to the country.
The number of its practitioners, once very nume-
rous, being now reduced to a few aged workers, the
young lace-makers who have succeeded them have
lost the secret of their predecessors’ technical per-
fection. For the want of expert craftswomen certain
of the “ points ” have been lost, and others are rapidly
falling into disuse ; thus it is with Grammont lace,
so fine in quality, in which one admires the formes
de aartf on an almost invisible net. This abandon-
I'AN IN BOBBIN LACE
3M
BY IRENE D’OLSZOWSKA
fail to exercise some influence upon his style are
Count Kalckreuth and Hans Thoma. Kalckreuth
was president of the Karlsruhe Kiinstlerbund
during the period of its apogee, which was also the
time when he was a fertile etcher. From him Conz
acquired many technical hints. But Thoma gave
him something more valuable, a guide for his con-
ception of and feeling for art.
Thoma’s life-work, especially the latter half of
it, may be looked upon as a protest against the over-
assthetical self-conscious and super-refined phases
of art which have obtained ever since Manet, ever
since artists began to “ explain ” what they were
driving at. His ideal is the art of the period before
1870, not in so far as it was fettered by stupid
academic rules, but in so far as its appeal to the
public was then a plain unsophisticated one. Since
then artists have grown so wondrously wise, have
heaped theory upon theory, proving each time that
now at last they are upon the right path and hitherto
all had been wandering in the dark. Simplicity in
spirit, a kind of style that needs no word of explana-
tion even for the initiated, is, according to Thoma,
what we are really in need of. And this is what he
has inculcated in his followers. The Conz etchings
reproduced here display this style. There are no
traces of an attempt to surprise one by cleverness,
by an extraordinary pose, or by unusual technical
skill. The language used, so to speak, is that of a
man of deep feeling, but of simple learning: one
whose strength lies in what he has to say, not in the
seductive way of saying it. H. W. S.
BRUSSELS.—The question of lace-making
is one that is prominent at the present
moment, for there are many who are
seeking for a practical means to bring this
exquisite art into vogue again. Without going back
to the golden days in the history of lace-making,
says the writer of an article published in “ Le Soir,” it
is sufficient to note the falling off in the last few
years of the income this craft brought to the country.
The number of its practitioners, once very nume-
rous, being now reduced to a few aged workers, the
young lace-makers who have succeeded them have
lost the secret of their predecessors’ technical per-
fection. For the want of expert craftswomen certain
of the “ points ” have been lost, and others are rapidly
falling into disuse ; thus it is with Grammont lace,
so fine in quality, in which one admires the formes
de aartf on an almost invisible net. This abandon-
I'AN IN BOBBIN LACE
3M
BY IRENE D’OLSZOWSKA