|
THE SUMMER EXHIBITIONS AT HOME & ABROAD |
||
  |
IV.~ THE SALON OF THE CHAMP DE MARS. He who would feel the pulse of the most modern Art, and would watch its movements, taking note of its passing fashions, its eccentricities, and also its real conquests, must go to the Champ de Mars, where everything ~~ both the bright decorative aspect of the 'Luministes and Impressionistes as a whole, and the airy lightness, the structural appropriateness of the building in which they are enshrined ~~ induces in the visitor a happy frame of mind, in which he is apt to take the most-optimistic view of the situation. It is not possible to admire unreservedly M. Puvis de Chavannes's great decorative canvas, 'L'Hiver,' intended to form a pendant at the Hotel de Ville to the 'Ete' of last year. Noble groups, noble single figures, abound in it, as well as passages of monumental landscape an the style which the master may be said to have made peculiarly his own, but the whole lacks that cohesion of design, that unity of purpose which mark his best efforts, such as the great decorations at Amiens, Lyons, and the pantheom There is a pause, too, in the success of M. Cazin, one of the most original oil modern landscape painters, and the one, certainly, whose name occurs most naturally after that of M., Puvis de Chavannes. His decorative panel for the Sorbonne, ' L'ours et l'amateur des jardins' (after La Fontaine), fails to convey any dominant impression at all, while, on the other hand, his 'Maison de Socrate 'of the generalised truth, the dignity, of the Chef d'ecole himself. Best, however, are those charming impression, Brume," Nuit grise,' ' Lever de lune,' marked by a kind of serene sadness ~~ as it were, a reflective character ~~ which is peculiar to M. Cazin. A decoration on a large scale: which has a genuine charm and originality of its own is Mr. Alexander Harrison's 'Baigneuses,' a vast expanse of calm, opalescent sea, on the skirts of which a number of nude women and girls are gaily disporting themselves. Much less successful, notwithstanding a certain prismatic beauty of tome, is the companion decoration, Apres une Tempete ~~ Cote d'Amerique.
The art of M. Carolus-Duran, notwithstanding his commanding qualities as a painter, notwithstanding that unsurpassed' rigour .of Colour and general tone which compels the beholder to stand and gaze, whether he would or not, will always be marred by a certain superficiality, a certain vulgarity in the presentment of the human personality, which often interfere to a fatal extent with the pleasure to be derived from his technical skill. He is the predestined painter of the rastaquouere and the nouvelle riche, on which ground even M. Munkacsy himself in vain disputes his supremacy. Here we have, however, his vulgarity rising in one instance ~~ designedly, as we cannot help thinking ~~ to such a height as to acquire an element of grandeur. An aged lady, who has sought to renew her charms with the aid of art, appears seated in an armchair, which is almost a throne, wearing many jewels and much Venetian lace, and robed in magnificent plum-coloured velvet trimmed with fur; she has placed one foot disdainfully on a stool in front of her chair of state. M. Carolus - Duran might well call this portrait - fantasy not 'Mme. X.' or 'Mme, Y.,' but 'Mammon,' tout court; the symbolism, though of a less elevated order than that in Mr. Watts's well-known picture, would be quite as powerful in its way, and perhaps more generally comprehensible to the Philistine. Among the really fine things in the master's comprehensive show of portraiture may be mentioned a group |
Nothing here is so brilliant in its exemplification of the poetic
side of modern realism as Mr. J. S. Sargent's 'La Carmencita,' that study of a Spanish
dan- seuse so thrilling with life, so full of dramatic suggestion, which we described
at length when it was last year at the Royal Academy. By its side stands worthily the '
Study of an Arab Girl,' which was first seen last season at the English Art Club.