Studio: international art (88.1924)

COPENHAGEN—LE LOCLE

the oil picture of peasants entering upon
a banquet of luxury lit by many candles,
or in 1889, when he painted in Paris the
large oil picture of a laundry, now in the
Museum at Gothenburg, than he was ten
years later, when craft-work had forced
on him the necessity of convention. But
such conventions never led him astray
from the truth, as may be seen in the
majolica figure of a girl in typical Danish
costume, in the decorative Legend of
Love, with its Amorini and young fauns.
He has a fine sense of decoration, which,
exercised in sculpture, has resulted, among
other things, in the Memorial Relief to
Pietro Krohn in gilded marble and bronze ;
but in setting forth ideas, as in a beautiful
bronze head called Reflection, Willumsen
never loses hold of reality, any more than
he does in a fine portrait of a girl in moun-
taineering costume, with a background
of rocks. In this latter work, the deve-
lopment of luminosity in the artist's
colour is marked, and this continues
during the years from 1900 to 1912, and
reaches its climax in the beautiful study

"BERGER CASTILLAN"
BY ALEXANDRE GIROD

I70

" SNOW SCENE." BY
ALEXANDRE GIROD

of two young boys against a background
of waves and points of light. a a
Later, there is a change to more solid
pigment and heavier colour, a change
consonant with the ideas promulgated by
the neo-impressionists. The latest develop-
ment is quite in accordance with the new
principles in painting ; the spirit of the
artist is incapable of rest, while around it
seethe the ideas which are to project the
art of the future. K. P.

LE LOCLE (Switzerland). —Though
Alexandre Girod is of Swiss origin,
his painting has been inspired by Spanish
art. Born in Spain, he spent his youth in
Madrid ; therefore he cannot forget that
old Castille whose rough beauty influenced
his art. a a a a a

It is true that Tuscan painting, which
he studied afterwards in Florence, where
he stayed a long time before coming to
live in Switzerland, kept his attention,
marking its impression. But as some critics
say, with regard to Alexandre Girod's
pictures in the Paris Salon of 1923, " None
of these influences is predominant enough
to allow us to class this painter in such or
such school. He is first of all himself; that
is to say : the spontaneous interpreter of
his intimate vision, a vision of an extra-
ordinary clearness which strikes on the
quick. All that manifests real life and deep
thought the artist knows how to interpret
with a singular strength of expression." 0