Studio: international art (60.1914)

E. M. Synge s Etchings

Blanche, Mr. Francis James, Mr. W. B. E. Ranken,
M. Vallotton, Mr. Nicholson, and Mr. Connard. In
addition, the work of Mr. Davis Richter, Mr. H. M.
Livens, and Miss Katharine Cameron should be
closely studied. Those interested in the subject
should also always search in exhibitions for the
work of Mr. Gerard Chowne, whose art has been
illustrated in The Studio, and for that of Miss
Ursula Tyrwhitt, a brilliant new-comer in the field
—in the garden we might say, except that in the art
of the flower-piece it is the cut flowers that are
privileged; this art commemorates all that flowers
mean to us indoors.

There is yet one aspect of flower-painting which
we have not mentioned. The art affords an oppor-
tunity for the display of virtuosity which painters
who have no regard for flowers will occasionally
embrace. And artists find that painting of this
kind tends to increase the freedom and subtlety of
their execution; they find the shapes and colours

“FLEURS

of flowersjare stimulating while the result premises
them a picture as well as a study. In exhibitions
we are frequently confronted with work of this sort.
It is interesting; whatever an interesting artist does
is interesting. But we shall always remember the
confession of a true disciple of Fantin : that he
found himself unable to paint flowers that came
from a shop quite as sympathetically as those
brought straight from the garden. We believe that
he approached his wrork in the true spirit.

The etchings of e. m. synge,

A.R.E. BY FRANK NEWBOLT.

The tragedy of Edward Millington Synge’s
artistic career was that he began too late and died
too soon, and throughout the greater part of his
life he suffered from chronic ill-health.

The merit of his work can only be appreciated
by estimating its improvement during the short
period w-hen art wTas his
profession. If he had
lived, and the improvement
had continued or been
maintained, he would, in-
deed, have reached very
high rank as a craftsman,
for in addition to his love
of beauty he had that
single-minded determina-
tion to follow his chosen
branch of art, undeterred
by his late start and lack
of early opportunity for
study, that plucks the fruit
of success from the most
unpromising tree.

Like Hope McLachlan,
wThose neighbour he was,
he left Cambridge with
honours, but without the
slightest hope of being an
artist, and died in middle
life just w’hen success was
in sight and his work was
being shownin many British
and foreign galleries. He
wTas a Haileybury boy, the
son of a Chief Inspector of
Schools, and on leaving the
University he found many
careers closed to him on
account of his constitu-
tionalweakness. In 1884,

BY FELIX VALLOTTON

(By permission of Messrs. IV. Marchant and Co. )