Studio: international art (65.1915)

The Edmund Davis Collection

sense of pattern is always very noticeable, we are
less affecled by this result. The artist’s imagination
was riotous, his happy inventive skill never failed,
so that each panel from his hand has its own interest,
and its reproduction, if possible at all, is demanded
from the fact that the originals are not accessible
to many people.

The Whistler pastel is one of a type which has
frequently been reproduced in our pages. It was
the kind of art by Whistler that most closely
approached in character the'emblem of his signature.
The pencil first, and then a soft pastel, alighted
butterfly-like, and made a caressing representation
of an outline, or of delicate ;tone. This observation
recorded, of something sweet in shape or colour, the
butterfly flew away. Here
was an art as spontaneous
as in-drawn breath, an art
to which all afterthoughts
were foreign, in direct con-
trast to the putting in and
painting out, the intermin-
able process by which
Whistler’s finest oil pieces
appeared and vanished to
appear again on their way
to a last stage.

It would not be out of
place to contrast the draw-
ing by Augustus John with
Whistler’s drawing. It is
an early John, “tighter”
and with less gay freedom
of line than he gives us
now. But it has the
characteristic of all “John”
drawings of women, an
ability to represent the
innate even in a slight
drawing, and to retain in
the few lines not only a
suggestion of form but of
spirit. John is marked as
an Englishman by the trait
by which the French
recognise English drawing;
ease and pleasure in
definite drapery, apprecia-
tion of the rhythm that
appertains to folds, de-
termined by movement of
the figure and apparent in
everyday clothes where
they have any fulness.

This sensitiveness in the English to-a kind of beauty
peculiar to drapery has been attributed to the
influence of their Elgin marbles, and there is
every probability that this is the explanation. Of
Greek things we may take this opportunity to
mention two Tanagra statuettes in this collection.
We reproduce one of a lady with a fan, a small
figure the importance of which is made up of
rhythm and colour and that appeal to fancy which
these little relics of ancient civilisation make.

Fixed to the head of the banister rail of the
main staircase in the house is a statuette by Charles
Ricketts. It is highly imaginative in its character,
and we understand was intended as a design for
the tomb of the poet Wilde at Pere Ea Chaise, a

“truth plucking out the tongue of calumny”

BRONZE GROUP BY ALFRED STEVENS