DOI Heft:
No. 259 (October 1914)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: The Grosvenor House exhibition of French art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21211#0014
The Grosvenor House Exhibition of French Art
tributed to the exceptional importance of the sympathetic towards the note of the bizarre in an
exhibition at Grosvenor House. He loves to take un-selfconscious old lady, and by his style alone
for his subject L'Ingenue. But it is not the dream his sitter for ever plays a part in French romance,
of romance that burns in her bright eyes, her ex- and becomes to us not like a personage from real
pression is always old and introspective. The life but one from fiction. Monticelli was also
significance of personality defines itself in her represented by Le Bal, a carnival piece of the
expression, but everything else in the picture is type with which his name is generally associated,
rather indefinite, though Renoir has an amazing On the landscape side the strength of the
power of suggesting form through nebulous con- exhibition was in the work of Monet and Sisley.
tour. His colour is beautiful in the white and In the pictures by Monet we saw his art develop-
the blue of his middle period; later it has the ing as he d^overed truths, the knowledge of
power to distress us by a strange unpleasantness of which has since so profoundly influenced not only
combination. landscape but every other kind of painting. We
Apparently as a foil to the nervous art which we saw him in one picture carrying the greens from
have been discussing, the cornmittee hung two the bright trees out into the grey sky, as our eyes
works by Ingres, in which the coldness and the carry colour from one object to another; we saw
definiteness of the painter were supremely ex- him, in fact, in this exhibition at his best, before
emplified. It was this master's
peculiar gift, by a slight in-
sistence upon the pattern em-
broidering a uniform or a
dress, to preserve, even in the
case of a single figure, the
effect that the picture was
elaborately composed. His
painting is so phlegmatic, and
wears so much the appearance
of a glaze, that one wonders
how the vitality of the drawing
survives so impressively.
Ingres's colour lacks individu-
ality. In his paintings he
achieves most in portraiture.
Like his contemporary, the
writer Stendhal, he was first
and foremost a "reader of the
human heart." Mr. Collins
Baker has recently pointed
out how inevitably in art grasp
of character accompanies
mastery of form rather than
genius for colour.
Hanging above the charac-
teristic portrait of Madame
Gonse, by Ingres, was a portrait
of a lady by Monticelli. In
the two names, Ingres and
Monticelli, we have the
classical and the romantic
opposed. Monticelli reads
character, not analytically but
only sympatheticallv and
from exterior evidence of "la bucheronne" ry firmin auguste renoir
gesture and costume. He is (Theproperty ofMM. Berrtheim-Jeune)
tributed to the exceptional importance of the sympathetic towards the note of the bizarre in an
exhibition at Grosvenor House. He loves to take un-selfconscious old lady, and by his style alone
for his subject L'Ingenue. But it is not the dream his sitter for ever plays a part in French romance,
of romance that burns in her bright eyes, her ex- and becomes to us not like a personage from real
pression is always old and introspective. The life but one from fiction. Monticelli was also
significance of personality defines itself in her represented by Le Bal, a carnival piece of the
expression, but everything else in the picture is type with which his name is generally associated,
rather indefinite, though Renoir has an amazing On the landscape side the strength of the
power of suggesting form through nebulous con- exhibition was in the work of Monet and Sisley.
tour. His colour is beautiful in the white and In the pictures by Monet we saw his art develop-
the blue of his middle period; later it has the ing as he d^overed truths, the knowledge of
power to distress us by a strange unpleasantness of which has since so profoundly influenced not only
combination. landscape but every other kind of painting. We
Apparently as a foil to the nervous art which we saw him in one picture carrying the greens from
have been discussing, the cornmittee hung two the bright trees out into the grey sky, as our eyes
works by Ingres, in which the coldness and the carry colour from one object to another; we saw
definiteness of the painter were supremely ex- him, in fact, in this exhibition at his best, before
emplified. It was this master's
peculiar gift, by a slight in-
sistence upon the pattern em-
broidering a uniform or a
dress, to preserve, even in the
case of a single figure, the
effect that the picture was
elaborately composed. His
painting is so phlegmatic, and
wears so much the appearance
of a glaze, that one wonders
how the vitality of the drawing
survives so impressively.
Ingres's colour lacks individu-
ality. In his paintings he
achieves most in portraiture.
Like his contemporary, the
writer Stendhal, he was first
and foremost a "reader of the
human heart." Mr. Collins
Baker has recently pointed
out how inevitably in art grasp
of character accompanies
mastery of form rather than
genius for colour.
Hanging above the charac-
teristic portrait of Madame
Gonse, by Ingres, was a portrait
of a lady by Monticelli. In
the two names, Ingres and
Monticelli, we have the
classical and the romantic
opposed. Monticelli reads
character, not analytically but
only sympatheticallv and
from exterior evidence of "la bucheronne" ry firmin auguste renoir
gesture and costume. He is (Theproperty ofMM. Berrtheim-Jeune)