Studio: international art (86.1923)

REVIEWS

“ VISSARION BYELINSKI.” WOOD-
ENGRAVING BY P. PAVLINOFF

notes on the revival of lithographic art in
Russia during the last few years and simul-
taneously gave a short account of the recent
publications in this line. Since that time
the number of these has increased. The
Committee for Popularisation of Artistic
Publications has issued a fourth litho-
graphic portfolio under the title Petersburg
in 1921, containing a dozen original auto-
lithographs by Mstislav Dobuzynski; and
the State Publishing Department at Mos-
cow a big portfolio with twenty original
lithographs by Konstantin Bogayevski. 0
Besides E. Lanceray and Mme. Ostrou-
mova, it was especially Dobuzynski, who
from the beginning of his artistic career
specialised in painting and drawing views
of Petersburg. For the first time he has
now tried to settle such motives by the
medium of the lithographic stone on which
the artist directly designed the views, and
has met with great success. 0 0

From the pure lithographic point of
view the artist was most happy when
choosing winter views, where the bulk of
snow gives occasion for intensive effects
in black and white. 0000
Konstantin Bogayevski was born and

still lives at Theodosia, in the Crimea,
which was also the native town of his
famous colleague the late Russian marinist,
Ayvazovski. The original panorama and
single motives of these waste steppes,
desert creeks and volcanic mountains, full
of relics of past peoples and ruins of Greek
temples, constantly return in the paint-
ings and water-colours of Bogayevski.
Although he is a former pupil of the
Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, his
canvases have nothing in common with the
general character of Russian landscape
painting, where the “ paysage intime ”
and impressionist treatment preponderated
before the war. Bogayevski, on the con-
trary, was always attracted rather by the
classical form of landscape, as created by
Poussin and Claude Lorrain, and this line
prevails in his production. P. E.

REVIEWS.

Laura Knight. A Book of Drawings.
(John Lane, The Bodley Head, Ltd.)
£3 3s. net. This book, recently issued in a
limited edition of 500 signed copies, con-
tains twenty reproductions of the work of
this artist with an interesting foreword by
Mr. Charles Marriott. The variety of
style and subject reproduced is a little
bewildering at first, but is ably expounded
in the foreword by Mr. Marriott, though
it is doubtful whether all will agree with
him that The Bather is the least satisfactory
drawing. It may approach the static form,
but the book is likely to reach many who
are not highly versed in the typical
“ modern ” style of portraying movement,
to whom a simple water-colour of this sort,
cleanly drawn and freshly coloured, is de-
cidedly pleasing. Much the same may be
said of the eleventh reproduction, a water-
colour landscape called Land's End. Laura
Knight's work pre-eminently expresses the
spirit of modern life, and in after years will
help to show how we lived in 1923. Some
aspects at least are recorded in the book
under review, which contains an interesting
and varied selection of drawings worthy of
a place in the library of the discriminating
collector. The descriptive notes facing each
plate are just what the layman wants and
are not too voluminous. 0 0 0

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