Studio: international art (62.1914)

Reviews and Notices

some comment. The rug was made in Khoten to
the south of Yarkand. Examples of this type are
frequently described in error as Yarkand, Kashgar
or Samarkand. They are particularly interesting in
design as they combine motifs which may be
traced to China, Tartary and India. These rugs
may be easily distinguished from other Central
Asian kinds, apart from the designs, the pile being
shorter and more closely woven. Silk rugs also come
from this district, but are very rarely obtainable.

The Inner Life of the Royal Academy. By
George Dunlop Leslie, R.A. (London: John
Murray.) io.r. 6d. net.—Mr. Leslie, who is now in
his eightieth year, was elected an Associate of the
Royal Academy forty-six years ago; eight years
later he became a full member, and in that capacity
has five times served on the Council, or ten years
in all. His father, who died in 1859, joined the
Academy in 1821, and was an R.A. for over thirty
years. Both father and son were students in the
schools, and thus their successive association with
the Academy covers an entire century. Mr. Leslie
can therefore lay claim to an acquaintance direct
or indirect with the "Inner Life" of that body
such as probably no other member has enjoyed
since its foundation in 1768. His book teems
with reminiscences of distinguished artists with
whom from the days of his boyhood onwards he
has come into touch, and having drawn freely upon
his father's stock of recollections he gives manv
interesting glimpses of others who departed before
his time such as Fuseli, who as Keeper had
charge of the school when Wilkie, Mulready, Etty,
Landseer, Haydon and Lesliepirt were students and
benefited by his policy of "wise neglect." In the
opening chapters the author sketches in a pleasant
way the vicissitudes through which the schools have
passed from these early days until the present time,
but those which follow on the annual exhibitions
will perhaps appeal to a wider circle of readers and
especially to that very numerous throng of artists
who, in the early days of spring submit their works
to the scrutiny of the Council often. Mr. Leslie, as
may be expected, warmly defends the system of.selec-
tion which he fully describes. It is evident, he says,
"that the academicians possess the confidence
of the general body of artists of all denominations
from the ever-increasing number of works that arc
yearly submitted for their adjudication." There may
be some who will demur to this inference, but no
one will deny that the task of selection, always
an arduous one, is conscientiously discharged.
Portraiture, as he points out, is almost the only
branch of art in which a livelihood can be obtained
82

in these days, and it is hardly fair for critics
to blame the Council of the Academy for not having
more works of poetic and imaginative character on
its walls. "If these grumblers could only see the
material with which the Councils have to deal, and
hear the unfeigned cheers of delight with which any
work of more than ordinary originality or imagination
when it comes before them is hailed, they would at
least allow that these members of the Academy were
doing their very best to render the ensuing exhibition
as fine and as interesting as they possibly could." ()f
varnishing days at various periods Mr. Leslie has
much to say that will he read with interest. His
first experience of them was in the forties, when as
cmite a young boy he was allowed to be present as
his father's assistant ; he remembers seeing Turner
on several occasions painting on his pictures, and
once, in 1844, the great painter spoke to him. In
later years he was on good terms with W histler, who
exhibited a large number of paintings and etchings
between 1851) and 1878—among them the famous
portrait of his mother: and he emphatically denies
that he was ever badly treated by the Academy.
Of various eminent Academicians with whom he
has been closely associated Mr. Leslie talks
frankly and freely. He speaks in high terms of
Leighton, though he thinks that "the gradual
denationalisation which is so observable in the
character of the works of the British artists of
the present day undoubtedly originated during
Leighton's Presidency"—and he owns to a feeling
of regret that Millais was not elected to succeed
Sir Francis Grant. To the memory of Abbey he
pays a glowing tribute. " Intimately acquainted
with Americans of every sort and variety all my
life," he says, after mentioning his own descent
from Americans, " I never met any who displayed
to greater advantage the best and brightest of their
national characteristics than Edwin Abbey." Abbey
lived for many years at a little country town in
Gloucestershire, but he told Mr. Leslie that his
neighbours did not begin to respect him until he
brought down from London a team of artist
cricketers who beat the local eleven in one innings.
Such is lame ! Written in a pleasant, chatty vein,
Mr. Leslie's book, conveying as it does a good deal
of reliable information about the Royal Academy
and its proceedings of which outsiders are ignorant,
will prove a popular accompaniment to the more
serious histories of that institution.

Sion Longley Wenban (1848-1897). Kritisches
Verzeichnis seiner Radierungen mit einer bio-
graphischen Einfuhrung von Otto A. Weigmann.
Mit einem Bildnis und 76 Abbildungen auf 30