Studio: international art (86.1923)

EDINBURGH—PARIS

EDINBURGH. — In embroidery, as
in every other form of art, technique
is the means to an end. As in other
branches, it is often confused with, and
made of greater importance than the end
itself. The young embroiderer should
grasp and hold the fact that the needle, like
the pencil or brush, is a drawing instru-
ment, whose whole work is to express to
perfection the design, which is the end—
the thing of first and last importance. 0
The original members of the Edinburgh
“ Modern Embroideries Society ” are all
trained designers—a fact made apparent
in their work (shown in The Studio,
May, 1923) and in Miss Helen Gorrie’s
panel The Golden Pheasant and her
applique bedspread. Miss Gorrie took
her diploma at the Edinburgh College of
Art, and is now head of the Embroidery
Section of the Dunfermline School of Art,
where her designs are carried out by her
students to a large extent. Work of this
sort demonstrates the immense superiority
of original work—the work of an artist—
over any copyist’s efforts at stitchery,
however perfect in technique. Embroidery
like every other craft, requires that in-
tangible but vital thing, the creative
quality, to make it worth the doing. 0
Despite frantic endeavours on the part
of many artists and much of the public,
art and life persistently maintain some
connection with each other. Side by side
with feminine eruption in other directions
comes modern feminine art, acquiring a
new unassailable position in all depart-
ments. 000000
It is natural that Miss Cecile Walton
(Mrs. Eric Robertson), daughter of artist
parents—the name of Mr. A. E. Walton,
R.S.A., is one which all versed in the
achievement of the Glasgow School must
honour—should have art in her nature,
both by heredity and by reason of early
surroundings, when Whistler was a beloved
family friend and all her world was the
world of art. 00000
Her work, however, is so individual, so
much a development, not of any other
but of herself; it is so strong and so
feminine, so intuitional and so sane, that
she takes her place as a leader of the art
of modern feminine renaissance, and the
fact of her youth gives promise of great

“THE GOLDEN PHEASANT ”
EMBROIDERED PANEL
BY HELEN GORRIE

things to come, both in her own work
and her influence on other artists. Her art
is one of expression of vision, of thought
and feeling made clear by aesthetic pre-
sentment and by use of allegory—beloved
of old masters. Her technical methods are
true servants to her visions — broad,
simple, convincing. Recent sculpture by
her possesses great strength, with the same
personality and the same calm directness
of handling. Miss Cecile Walton’s work
will be watched both in Edinburgh and in
London with the greatest interest. 0

J. W. S.

PARIS.—The painter Jacques Emile
Blanche has presented to the Rouen
Museum an important collection of his
works, which will be placed together in a
room bearing his name. Although Blanche
is a Parisian, his choice of the Rouen
Museum is explained by the fact that he
makes a regular custom of residing for part
of the year in the neighbourhood of
Dieppe, where, moreover, he executed very
many of the works comprised in the gift. 0
This is a remarkable assembly of pictures
painted during the artist's crowded career,
wherein he establishes a definite claim to
be considered a master of the present day
French School. Without dealing with the
works in detail, I may point out that

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