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THE STUDIO NOVEMBER 1930 2s. NET
Extrait
Premières pages de l'ouvrage, en accès libre.
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Woman Seated at Table, by Mark Gertler. (Leicester Galleries)
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THE RECENT WORK OF MARK GERTLER the sense of fullness and content which is to be found so notably in the final phase of Renoir’s achievement. Flowers, landscape and human figure all breathe the same richness and security from the canvas. The forms are full and majestic, the hues are brilliant and mellow, while there are a dignity and logic in the composition which give full play to ease of pose and naturalness of gesture without allowing the basic discipline of pictorial structure to become in any way flaccid. The handling is tense and virile, but the inherent graces of the subject are allowed their own share of display within the boundaries of the artist’s rendering. And Mr. Gertler carries out his conception on a broad scale, giving himself room to revel in his own abundance, as in such splendid pictures as that of the sleeping girl, or the two seated girls, or the woman at the table with the luxury of its still-life in front of her. One would not pretend that a picture was any the better for being of a large size, but it is to some extent a testimony to the certainty of Mr. Gertler’s conception of his art, which ought not to be disregarded, that his work actually appears to gain by being shown on a liberal proportion of scale. Many of our contemporary artists have a pretty enough individual talent, which exhibits itself as agreeably as one could demand so long as it is economised or compressed in decorous limits. But when they come to attempting a large canvas it is apt to reveal sad gaps and meaningless spaces. Every inch of Mr. Gertler’s painting contributes to his picture, fortifying the composition and bringing in addition its own charm. The more generously such gifts are afforded us, the better. Contemporary painting is in many cases extremely clever, but there is room for something of the old magnificence as well. Still Life, by Mark Gertler. (Leicester Galleries)
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Finding a rock foundation. The Ritz Tower in the background. Photo by Ira W. Martin
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Like Mushrooms overnight. (Central Park) from a series of thirty views of New York by Ira Wright Martin AN exhibition of thirty photographs by Ira Wright Martin, shown under the auspices of Pictorial Photographers of America. One wonders why “Pictorial.” Is there any other kind of photograph? A picture apparently has to resemble something, which perhaps accounts for the fact that painting to-day is being crowded out by photography from its once popular position. It is this representation of something which makes this exhibition of photographs, recently held in New York, significant. Hokusai, born in 1760, spent his life in recording his impressions of things and places. His thirty-six views of Fuji, representing the great mountain from many aspects and surprising angles, stand poetically and topographically immaculate. Thomas Girtin, born in England fifteen years later, made it his business, during his short life, to represent famous views in different parts of England. His grand panorama of London, sold to a Russian and since lost track of, would probably have proved his masterpiece and would have served as an analogy to Hiroshige’s views of Yedo, the Eastern capital. These two artists were at work about the same time, in distance widely separated, but
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Left, Commodore Hotel; Right, Chrysler Building under construction. Viewed from the Chanin Building having in common the same object, namely, that of topographical representation. Fulfilling this same need for representing places, to an even more exacting degree, comes this exhibition of thirty views of New York one hundred years later. The idea at the back is the same, but the method, in keeping with the times, different. The art of taking photographs is now sufficiently old and established for people to begin collecting them. What, for instance, could be more interesting than the early photographs of London now in the collection of the London Underground Railway, or the opening of the Crystal Palace by Queen Victoria? What would
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The Lefcourt Building on Fifth Avenue not Hollywood give for thirty photographs of the building of Babylon? And now, in 1950, here are pictorial records of New York in a period of phenomenal growth — New York in the throes of making new traditions—its manner and methods of construction. In less than a hundred years’ time these photographs by Ira Wright Martin of the growth of that part of New York which lies between Forty-second and Fifty-ninth Streets, east of Fifth Avenue, will, from their documentary if not from their poetical value, be as much sought after as to-day are the works of those eighteenth-century topographers just referred to. C.G.HOLME
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Hod Carriers. Construction lifts on the Chrysler Building, New York. Photo by Ira W. Martin
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Saint Bartholomew's Church with the Berkeley Hotel in background. Photo by Ira W. Martin, New York
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New York in Transition. Ritz Tower Apartments Photographed by Ira W. Martin
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SERVICES DE TABLE MODERNES Porcelain by Theodore Haviland of Limoges. The design is "Chateau de France," by Jean Dufy FROM the dawn of time each civilization has entrusted to the potters the task of satisfying two fundamental needs: "The presentation and preservation of food." Thus the potter's work faithfully reflects the degrees of refinement which have been attained by each country. During the whole of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, potters limited themselves to the production of rustic pottery. Unskilled in discovering sufficiently precious effects or sufficiently lasting products, they were eclipsed by the metalworkers, until at last only pewter, silver and golden vessels remained in use, up to the appearance of the first Chinese porcelains in the seventeenth century. When the early explorers brought back specimens of this brilliant pottery it created a real revolution. Princely courts thought so highly of it that they became ambitious to have workshops near to them and in their pay, which could reproduce and imitate this work. Thus were founded the workshops of Chantilly, Vincennes, Sévres, Saint Cloud, Mennecy, Chelsea, Derby, Dresden, Meissen, Nymphenburg—names which are a lively testimony of the royal privileges granted in all countries to these factories in which a reviving (or, one might almost say, new) craft took its first steps. It should not be forgotten that our ancestors at that period covered their garments
