Studio: international art (58.1913)

Studio-Talk

"the lion comique : a music-hall study"

by frank reynolds

these, we have to observe that as most of the draw-
ings shown in the exhibition had already appeared
in other publications, the area of selection was
necessarily restricted. As a pendant to these we
are fortunate in being able to give a couple of
pages of drawings from a sketch book of Phil May,
whose early death was such a great loss to British
humorous art. The sketch-book from which our
reproductions have been made was kindly lent by
Mr. A. S. Murdoch, of Hampstead.

We offer our hearty congratulations to Sir
Arthur Lasenby Liberty on the honour of Knight-
hood conferred upon him by the King. As founder
and head of the world-famous establishment in
Regent Street, and in various other capacities, he
has exerted a remarkable influence on the eleva-
tion of public taste, and as a recognition of this
the honour he has received is thoroughly well
deserved. The honour of a baronetcy was conferred
at the same time on Mr. Thomas G. Jackson, R.A.,
the distinguished architect, who, among many other
notable achievements, has rendered signal service
to the nation by his work in connection with the
saving of Winchester Cathedral from collapse. Sir
Thomas is to deliver two lectures this month at the
56

Royal Academy—his subject on Monday the 24th
being Byzantine architecture with special reference
to the churches at Constantinople and Salonica,
and on the 27th Italo-Byzantine and Italian
Romanesque architecture.

The winter exhibition of the Royal Academy,
consisting of a retrospective collection of the works
of the late Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, will assist
the task of estimating the nature and extent of his
contribution to the art of painting. The most
noticeable feature is that, artistically, there appear
to be two Alma-Tademas. On the one hand, in
such pictures as The Death of the First-Born,
Egyptien a la Porte, A Roman Scribe, Egyptians
Three Thousand Years Ago, Claudius, Through an
Archway, Ave, Ccesar! lo Saturnalia, we are
confronted with a painter whose colour is noble
and impressive; on the other hand, there is the
Alma-Tadema of the popular and final phase,
whose miraculous skill was frittered away upon
dainty triviality at the expense of the decorative
and dramatic intent of his canvas as a whole.
Every one will be grateful to the Royal Academy
for the exhibition of the pictures we have men-
tioned. The great difficulties of the science of
modern painting Alma-Tadema instinctivelyevaded;

"?" by dudley hardy