Studio: international art (65.1915)

Studio-Talk

“danse de la peur

BY CLAUDIO CASTELUCHO

PARIS. — Mr. J. Davidson was among
the artists who happened to be in the
invaded districts at the outbreak of
the war, and he has turned his thrilling
experiences to good account. His figure of War
(p. 132), another of an old peasant woman called
Grandmother, and a panel of Belgian Refugees, which
he showed me during his short stay in Paris, were
uncommonly interesting and received no small
amount of appreciation from exacting critics. I
understood that Mr. Davidson intended to show
them in London before returning to his home in
Ceret, which is at present being utilised as a
hospital.

There are few artists in Paris whose work is
better known than that of Claudio Castelucho.
I doubt if one could find any among the many
students who have come under his generous pro-
fessional criticism, in the Academie de la Grande
Chaumiere, who have not whole-hearted praise for
him. Born in Barcelona, he early became a student
in the Ecole des Beaux Arts of that town, and,
later, came to Paris to study under Whistler. But,
unlike most students who came under that Master’s
magnetic guidance, one finds no trace of his in-

fluence in the work of Castelucho. His art is
distinctive and personal, pervaded by the joy and
sparkle of Spanish life. That he is a master of his
medium is emphatically expressed by his facile
achievements. Of a retiring and gentle nature,
he is nevertheless an energetic and prolific worker.
When not occupied as academy visiting professor,
he is always to be found hard at work in his studio
in the Rue d’Assas, yet never too occupied to refrain
from giving a kindly suggestion to some anxious
student. In the various continental exhibitions,
notably in the Salon d’Automne and the Societe
Nationale des Beaux Arts, his work receives unstinted
appreciation.

Those whose quest for art inspiration leads them
to gay, noisy, or turbulent places will find little of
those phases of life in Paris to-day. For some months
she has lost her joyous prefix ; but when one ignores
for the moment the thoughts of the cause, it must
then be admitted that never before has she ap-
peared more beautiful. A new and wonderful
glamour pervades the city, inviting one to dream
and sketch in places where in normal times the
traffic affords little opportunity to do so. There
is a thinly-veiled sadness, however, which creeps in,

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