Studio: international art (85.1923)

STUDIO-TALK

PORTRAIT OF ALEXANDER
BENOIS. FROM AN ORIGINAL
LITHOGRAPH BY G. VEREYSKI

views of the capital, lithographed by Mme.
Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, who is by no
means a novice in this art, like Kustodiev,
but had hitherto been principally known
and esteemed as a wood-engraver. A
further novelty was the appearance of
G. Vereyski, a young artist of the group of
the “ Mir Iskusstva,” as a lithographer.
His portfolio contains ten portraits of
eminent Russian artists, such as Somov,
Alexander Benois, M. Dobujinski, the
above-named Kustodiev, Mme. Ostrou-
mova, and some others. a a a

From the point of view of pure litho-
graphy it cannot be said that all the in-

56

trinsic qualities of this art have been fully
brought out in the portfolios of the Com-
mittee for Popularisation. On the con-
trary, the highest degree of mastership is
not yet attained, and one seeks in vain in
these prints the multiplicity of gradations
as well as the richness of decorative effects
of white and black, which charm us in the
lithographic work of the French masters
of the middle of the past century or in that
of later masters like Toulouse-Lautrec and
Brangwyn. In the very lifelike portraits
of Vereyski lithography is used rather as
a fine medium for the reproduction of
original designs than as an independent