Studio: international art (65.1915)

Studio-Talk

few months of war. The antique and second-hand
dealer no longer extrudes his wares on the side
walks, and the many vociferous foreigners have
long since returned to their neutral homes. With
their departure and that of the noisy motor-bus,
Paris has asserted a mysterious calm. Perhaps
never before have her artistic appeals been so
impressive and alluring. With few exceptions all
the painting academies are closed, and many have
been entirely abandoned, while those which have
opened their doors do not suffer from over-crowded
class rooms. The old tree at the corner of the
Rue de la Grande Chaumiere and Boulevard Mont-
parnasse has ceased to be a shady resting-place for
the hundred odd models who gathered there to
await the “croquis” hours and to chatter under its
spreading branches; nevertheless, one catches a
glimpse here and there of some reforme artists
trying to elude the hazy gloom with canvas and
paint. Here, as in other large cities less closely in
touch with the zone of war, sketching is not
forbidden, but it is well to be equipped with an
official permission, which, for the etranger who
is provided with a passport, is not difficult to procure.
A new arrival should register his name as early as
possible at the Commissaire de Police of his
arrondissement, where, on presenting himself
with identification papers and two small photo-
graphs, he will receive a Permis de Sejour, and
with it a further permission to sketch or photo-
graph can be obtained from the Secretariat
General de la Circulation et des Transports at
the Prefecture de Police.

At the present time, when there are no
annual salons to form an argumentative topic,
it is not uncommon to hear many discussions
regarding the most suitable sketching-grounds
where one may evade the enemy’s raiders and
not be ruthlessly uprooted by military dis-
cipline or native suspicion. The artist is lucky
who happens to be well known within a
goodly radius of his summer sketching haunts.
Perhaps few will be as fortunate as M.
Fernand Maillaud, whose love for Berry and
its surroundings is also favoured by the region
being close to his Provencal home. His
decorative panel Repos des laboureurs (p. 136),
is thoroughly characteristic of his work as a
painter of landscape with figures, by which he
is so well known, and which is always amongst
the most interesting in the Salon des Artistes
Franqais. E. A. T.

ROME.—The third of the annual exhi-
bitions organised in Rome by the
Secession, which was held recently in
its old quarters at the Palace of Fine
Arts in the Via Nazionale, followed in its main lines
the first two, both of which I had occasion to
notice in these pages. By this I mean that the
artists exhibiting were, with a few additions and
exceptions, the same, while the Directive Council
and Jury of Admission was composed of members
who have from the first manifested their interest in
the movement, and the indefatigable Secretary, Sig.
Bencivenga, is still at his post. Further, as regards
the character of the works exhibited—the note of
audacious modernity as well as the sympathy
shown to all that is most advanced in the art of the
northern Schools—the exhibition followed the
example already set, as it also did in the effort to
provide a beautiful decorative setting in the various
rooms in which the exhibits were displayed. A
glance through these rooms revealed at once the
work of many artists whose names have come
prominently forward in previous exhibitions, such
as Paolo Ferretti, Camillo Innocenti, Ernesto
Lionne, Plinio Nomellini, Pietro d’Achiardi,

“THE SPHINX” BY MARIA ANTON I ETTA POGLIANI

(Rome Secession, 1915)

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