Studio: international art (78.1919)

STUDIO-TALK

Addressing the students of the St, John's
Wood Art Schools at the prize distribution
in December, Professor Selwyn Image said
that the distinction drawn between Art and
Fine Art was fallacious and harmful. u For
many a long year/' he said, u I have been
doing my poor best to cry out against it,
and on more than one occasion did so
plainly at Oxford, although the Chair I had
the honour of holding was officially called
the Chair of Fine Art." He ventured a
definition of Art that would perhaps cover
every aspect of the subject, and embrace
music, literature, dancing, poetry, and the
drama, as well as so-called Fine Art and
Applied Art. ** Art," according to this defi-
nition, u is human thought and emotion,
imaginatively expressed through sensuous
appeal." In paying a tribute to the work
of the St. John's Wood Schools he ap-
plauded the efforts of the principal to
extend the scope of training so as to fit the
students to follow, if need be, any applied
art. 000000
We referred recently to the opening of
galleries in parts of London at a distance
from the centre traditionally associated
with art. The latest enterprise in this
direction is that which was inaugurated at
the close of last year by the Chelsea Book
Club at 65 Cheyne Walk, close by Chel-
sea's famous old church overlooking the
river. The chief purpose of the Club is
to sell English and foreign literature, and
to afford facilities to members for the
perusal of Continental periodicals; but art
also figures in its programme of operations,
and already it has had an exhibition of
pictures and drawings by modern French
artists—Derain, Picasso, Signac, Seurat,
and others—and of Eric Gill's woodcuts.
The principal item in the French collec-
tion was a characteristic portrait of a
woman by Cezanne, whose work is rarely
seen in London, though many of our young
artists profess to follow his precepts. There
was also a drawing by Degas, Femme a la
baignoire, but it was not a very important
example. 00000

Philadelphia.—The annual show

of water-colours, pastels, black-and-
whites, and miniatures was recently held
at the Pennsylvania Academy. The modern
influence was very much to the fore in the

DECORATIVE PANEL
BY HENRY THURBURN

water-colour collection, particularly in a
group of works by Mr. Alexander Robin-
son, treating of glimpses of life in Bagdad,
Damascus, and Persia, mosaics of the sump-
tuous colour of the Orient, highly decora-
tive and expressive of artistic emotion
aroused by such scenes. One remarkably

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