Studio: international art (64.1915)

The Edmund Davis Collection—II

Conder, the house contains several works on
silk and an oil picture of the Esplanade at
Brighton from his hand. Before his decorations
we are always present at the actual scene of his
thoughts; no paraphernalia of the studio is brought
between us and this immediate record of his mental
vision, and in such art we pass into the world of
another and experience life as it presented itself to
him. This capacity to command the mood of the
spectator is probably the quality that more than any
other pertains to enduring art.

In a house made dreamy by the work of the
imaginative artists whose paintings we have just
described, it is not unpleasant to encounter by way
of contrast the sharp definition of Philip Connard’s
picture The Yellow Dress. Artists of his kind,
who unmask beauty in actuality, receive their
impressions not unemotionally, and we must be on
our guard against defining their art as objective.
Painting in which feeling is apparent is subjective ;
in fact we may say that painting begins to be art
when it begins to be subjective.

It is an altogether different type of picture that
shows itself in the painting by James Pryde called
The Doctor. Like Hogarth,

Pryde can never quite sup-
press the note of satire in
his work. His themes of
sombre title and grandiose
effect are comedies. He
does everything to dwarf
human figures and reveal
their helplessness in con-
trast with the monumental
and enduring architecture
and the substantial furniture
which are the work of their
hands. It is in the shadow
of these edifices that
destiny seems to wait for
them while it deceives them
with a smile.

As we remember the can-
vases, Walter Sickert’s
Venice hangs near to the
Pryde. Nature is always
seen by Sickert through the
temperamental veil. With-
out the intention of depart,
ing from the scene before
him his representations
convey little that is of
merely local importance •
the most commonplace
236

thing assumes some significance from his inter-
pretation.

A picture to be remembered is The Girl in
White by J. E. Blanche. In a white pinafore, she
leans back in her chair, lost in reverie, her figure
reflected in a near mirror. The swift and sensitive
description of exterior detail is not weakened by
the almost literary mood that prevails. The collec-
tion also contains a portrait from M. Blanche’s
hand.

We must not forget to record the landscape
Dieppe, by the Canadian painter, James Morrice, of
infinitely tender colour, a nature-lover’s rendering
of coast atmosphere—and some garden scenes by
Miss Emma Ciardi, painted with an air of gaiety
that is delightful.

We remember the music-room for, among other
things, some old chairs with silk covers painted by
the collector’s wife. Those who have seen Mrs.
Davis’s fans have found in them an instinct for the
requirement of the fan only little less certain than
was that of Conder. The charm of the touch of
Mary Davis with a water-colour brush rests with its
feminine delicacy : she is to Conder what Berthe

“LBS MARMITONS ” BY CHARLES SHANNON, A.R.A.