Studio: international art (79.1920)

'• THE WOODMAN.” BY
LEON LHERMITTE

MODERN MASTERS AT BARBIZON
HOUSE. a o 0 0 0

PEOPLE who buy pictures to live with
often find it difficult to imagine how
those works which they see and like in
public galleries would look if they were
hung in their own houses. Indeed, many
pictures which look well when seen in a
gallery with a top light produce a dis-
appointing effect in the light of an ordinary
living-room, while others which “ go ”
admirably in a private apartment seem to
lose a great deal of their attractiveness when
displayed in a public gallery. The works
of the Barbizon painters are generally of
the latter kind. Their modest proportions,
their subdued and delicate schemes of
colour, and, above all, their intimacy of
feeling make them delightful to live with,
but disqualify them for asserting themselves

in the glare and distraction of a public
exhibition. 00000
The recognition of such facts may have
induced Mr. Croal Thomson to choose \
private house instead of the regulation
gallery with sky-lights for his new place of
business. At Barbizon House, in Hen-
rietta Street, Cavendish Square, the pic-
tures and drawings which pass through his
hands can be displayed under the conditions
of an ordinary collector's house. The new
gallery is simply a tastefully furnished home.
The surroundings create the proper atmo-
sphere for their enjoyment, and enable col-
lectors to estimate the effects which the
objects they admire will produce in their
own homes. 00000
During the past two seasons Mr. Thom-
son has filled his house with a succession of
fine paintings, drawings, and statuettes. In
June last he delighted his friends with a pri-

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