Page 54 - Studio International - April 1968

or Dinan, or only to Shrewsbury. Or busy-but these would be men­ looking for what could be assimilated to this English tradition of
with their new Kodaks. 'allegory', the gift of Watts and the late Pre-Raphaelites: Khnopff and
The Studio was not intended to be a minority magazine. It uses the Puvis de Chavannes can be neatly fitted in. But there are limits to
attractive devices of the 'new journalism', and is to be compared non-realism, as well as to realism.
(I have written before) with such another new magazine as The
Bookman. It aims at an extensive diffused set of groups. It was Realism is one of the great words, of course, and goes, like Science,
there­fore precluded from being a rigorous, programmatic, with Impressionism. And that word is thickly strewn through the pages
avant-garde magazine. It was always in danger from that other, Tit- of The Studio in all its possible applications. In England, it should
Bits, side. only be treated by the methods of historical semantics, as the centre
of a field, attracting and repelling, described in terms of its conjuc­
It is remarkable, in fact, how far The Studio was prepared to go, in tions and oppositions: the most important of these oppositions being
certain directions. Concern for Ja pan or Arts and Crafts, was probably, alas, the poetical: which could cover, of course, both non­
diffusion, not innovation. But it was important to champion an realism and approved-of realism. Many names of Impressionist
architect and designer like Voysey, who in his fields is the hero of the
early volumes. And probably The Studio's boldest act-bolder than painters turn up (Monet was quite a favourite). What is lacking is a
in introducing Beardsley-was Gleeson White's defence (1897) of serious study of any one of them. Compliments are paid. Only to be
Charles Rennie Mackintosh and The Four in the teeth of English taken away by someone else on another page. The Studio's part in
Arts and Crafts, already settled in its deleterious orthodoxy. Such
boldness-the in­fluence was surely Gleeson White's-shows in
almost all that has to do with the printed book. Here we can watch
a true advanced-guard line. This ties up with the championing
of process-reproduction, and spreads from the book itself to
include all manner of graphic work. There is the praise for Will H.
Bradley (an American at that), however qualified, as The Studio's
reception of Beardsley was so often to be, with complaints about
eccentricity. French posters came in the first issue-a new field for
collectors-and the seriousness of the form is always allowed, and
new work carefully and usefully noticed, though, again, warnings
about oddness. Toulouse-Lautrec gets this treatment. It is more
difficult to sympathize with Gleeson White's passion for
book-plates: it belongs to his bookman side. But Anning Bell was
part of the landscape (and of Beardsley's).

It is when he looks for the Fine Arts in The Studio that the eager
reader will suffer most. Yet he is only experiencing the irredeemable
history of English painting (let us not think about sculpture), and
writing about painting, in that deeade. The Studio reflects the dismal
muddle only too accurately. It was not simply a matter of multiple
allegiances, circulation; and all those sketching ladies, and the need
for that defensive- cautionary note. A large cultural situation is
involved, too large for us here, or for me. Within the enveloping
Art/Morality situation, and the new Science/Art situation The Studio
works in the dark.
It is yet again necessary to say sharply that the job of English
painters, writers, teachers, was to assimilate and make available the
huge victories of French Impressionist and post-Impressionist
paint­ing. There were, yes, other jobs involving the assimilation
of other expressive or potentially expressive styles. And in that
careful bold­ness about the graphic arts The Studio may seem to
have met that second demand. Yes, but in a limited way. Graphic
is only graphic, but Fine is Fine. The Studio is devoted to Khnopff, it
notices the Libre Esthetique, the German Secession, it publishes
Toorop's Three Brides. But the Libre Esthetique-by Khnopff-turns
out to be dominated by a Watts portrait. W. Shaw Sparrow
admits Pre-Raphaelite affilia­tions in Khnopff's work in order to
write them down, but he wants Khnopff as painter of life in London
streets, and praises him for avoid­ing the 'vagaries' of 'the Ensors,
the Boschs, and the Toorops'. The Secessionists are not 'merely a
German equivalent of the New Art Club nor a Teutonic version of
the Rose-Croix'; they are more like the Glasgow School. Heine's
remarkable A Dream is reproduced: the com­ment is that Heine
'comes nearer the more fantastic conventions of Rothenstein or
Aubrey Beardsley'. Toorop is congratulated-by W. Shaw Reproduced from an article entitled 'Artistic Houses· by J. S. Gibson,
Sparrow-on having escaped the fatal snares of Turner and F.R.I.B.A .. which appeared in Vol. 1 : above, oriental boudoir, Gloucester
Seurat. The Three Brides, 'odd, fantastic, sibylline', is an 'allegory'. Square, executed by Messrs H. & J. Cooper; facing page, top,
'Allegory' is respectable, 'symbolism' isn't; the 'symbolish painter' staircase in a house, Hans Place, Chelsea, designed by C. F. A. Voysey;
who appears as a character in The Studio is to be laughed at. It may facing page, bottom. part of the entrance hall, Stanmore, decorated by
be surprising to find the 'Rose-Croix' noticed at all. I think The Messrs. William Morris and Co
Studio is 178