Page 46 - Studio International - April 1968

Any adequate history of the modern move­ National Gallery. I did much street and
ment in art will have to take account of the public-place sketching; yet I craved more
significant part played by The Studio. For art nourishment together with some standard
many years it was the leading international and tradition. I also needed pictorial help.
medium of communication between artists. Eventually I looked to the Public Library for
and a direct cause of the rapid proliferation help. Here was an abundance of material­
of stylistic influences throughout the world. some books on Art. but it was some bound
I believe that many modern painters and volumes of The Studio that provided. in their
sculptors. who later became so famous, black-and-white reproductions. material for
would admit that in their early formative study. The absence of colour did not trouble
years when they were isolated in some re­ me as I was interested in design and what
mote province The Studio had a decisive makes a good picture.
Reminiscences influence on their work. Such media of As studio assistants of the Renaissance
communication are now so numerous that painters studied and made copies of their
of The Studio it is difficult to realize the unique position master's drawings, so the illustrations parti­
once held by The Studio.
cularly of the figure in the plates of The
Herbert Read Studio served as my models and I copied
them. Those were the days of Leighton and
Watts. both figure painters. I leisurely worked
at a desk at the Library, learnt about the
figure and the niceties of design. I had to dig
for myself.
Australian artists mostly painted the land­
The Studio played an important part in my scape and those that did portraits leaned
education. When I was ill at school. during heavily on the Royal Academy. Most paint­
the 1914-18 war, my housemaster's wife ings in the Melbqurne National Gallery were
used to bring me early volumes to look at in from the Royal Academy, with some from
bed. How eagerly I devoured them and the Paris Salon. There were also paintings.
awaited the next consignment! I had a pas­ left-overs from industrial exhibitions, and
sionate admiration for Whistler, and his there were also the paintings provided by
watercolours, reproduced in a three-colour Travelling Scholarship pupils made abroad.
letterpress process which has never been These were copies of Old Masters. There
surpassed. were my greatest joy. I remember were no art publications and no criticism.
particularly The Mast and The Convalescent, The posters displayed on the hoardings were
both of which I now know in the original. colour lithographs of London theatrical pro­
and am glad to say are as good as I thought ductions visiting Australia. Literature and
they were. Not all the works of art repro­ the drama fared better.
duced in the early Studios were equally Drawing, which to me means the figure and
distinguished; much of the painting was naturally the nude, I discovered depended
mediocre and the applied design was pain­ upon 'knowing', stored-up information,
fully artistic. But a young man has to go based on never-ending work. and how to
through many phases and perhaps it was apply it. The Studio of those early nineteen­
good for me to get so much art nouveau and hundreds has its place in my early formative
Vienna Secession out of my system, before I years pleasantly recalled.
had the revelation of Cezanne. It certainly Horace Brodzky
inoculated me against the present revival of
art nouveau or any other change of fashion.
But above all these volumes made me happy;
they were. to adapt Hazlitt. my first acquaint­
ance with the arts. They made me feel that I
might some day live in a studio and devote
myself to the one thing that I cared about My congratulations to Studio on attaining
the art of painting, instead of Latin grammar its 75th birthday. It is the only English
and compulsory games. periodical concerned primarily with con­
Kenneth Clark temporary art to survive for even a compar­
able span of years.
It would be impossible to write the history
of British art since 1893 without constant.
and of European or American art without
frequent reference to it.
The Studio has been a continuous, articu­
My first acquaintance with The Studio was late witness of the art scene. There have been
in my 'teens some sixty years ago in Mel­ times when we wish its attention had
bourne, my home town. Although I attended been focused in different directions but this
the evening classes of the Art School of the has been the case with most periodicals.
170