Studio: international art (69.1916)

Studio- Talk

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"the fencing master" by pilade bertieri

that the subject requires to put its pictorial value
beyond question. If the painter were not so
studious and so observant he could not be so
adaptable; it is to the assiduous cultivation of the
habit of investigation that he owes his ability to
keep each separate picture for which he is re-
sponsible in its own appropriate atmosphere.

Men like Mr. Bertieri, in fact, provide the anti-
dote to the poison of those foolish fashions by which
the art activities of every period are liable to be
disturbed. They prove that an artist can be brilliant
without being either extravagant in his ideas or
superficial in his methods, and that the most pains-
taking care in working can be exercised without
any fear that the result arrived at will be lacking
in vitality or wanting in the power to arrest atten-
tion. And the men who, like Mr. Bertieri again,
can paint portraits, character-studies, and open-air
subjects, with equal regard for essentials and equal
thoroughness of technical statement, show that the
pursuit of pictorial quality neither limits the vision
nor cramps the hand. If the young artist, led astray
by the craving for cheap popularity, would realise
that to the regard felt by these men for the very
traditions which he affects to despise is due all the
excellence that gains acceptance for their work,
he might possibly be induced to mend his ways.

A. L. Baldry.

STUDIO-TALK

(From Our Own Correspondents.)

ION DON. —By the death of Sir James
Dromgole Linton, which occurred at
his residence at Haverstock Hill
—^ on October 3rd, not only has the Royal
Institute of Painters in Water-Colours, of which
he was President, been deprived of a leader
whose energetic and whole - hearted interest in the
Institute's welfare has served to uphold the prestige
which this body enjoys among the art societies of
the United Kingdom, but British art in general is
also a great loser. The deceased artist, who was
born in December 1840, became an Associate of
the Institute in 1867 and Member in 1870. In
1883, the year in which the new galleries in
Piccadilly were opened by King Edward (then
Prince of Wales), he was elected Vice-President,
and in the following year, on the retirement of
Mr. Louis Haghe, he was voted to the Presidential
Chair, the honour of Knighthood being conferred
on him soon afterwards. Sir James held the office
of President until 1898, when he was succeeded
by Mr. E. J. Gregory, R.A., on whose death in
1909 he resumed the office. He was held in
high esteem not only as a man but as an artist
whose practice of the art of water-colour painting
was marked by a scholarly appreciation of its
pictorial possibilities.

The Royal Institute in common with the In-
stitute of Oil Painters has to mourn the loss of a
member by the death of Mr. Arthur G. Bell, who
died at Southbourne in September after an illness
of some months' duration. Mr. Bell was a son
of Mr. George Bell the publisher, and was
perhaps best known by his water-colour illustra-
tions of topographical books written by his wife,
such as " Picturesque Brittany " "Nuremberg" and
" The Royal Manor of Richmond," his last work
in this direction being in connection with a volume
to be published shortly which has for its topic the
story of Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole.
An exhibition which the deceased artist held at his
studio in Southbourne a few months ago for the
benefit of soldiers and sailors blinded in the war
realised a substantial sum—over £200.

The casualty lists, with their daily record of
lives nobly sacrificed in the great conflict, have
within the past few weeks contained the names of
three artists who have given evidence of signal
ability in the particular line of work they pursued.

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