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THE ADORATION OF THE KINGS; SCHOOL OF MATTEO DI GIOVANNI; IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, STOCKHOLM

hill, below which the apostles are sleeping in very uncomfortable postures. They are dressed in deep green, red, and violet-coloured garments; the effect of the yellowish red mantle of Peter is heightened by fine, closely-placed golden lines. The middle distance is partly taken up by stiff dark green trees and bushes; in the background appear blue mountains. To the left, in the upper corner, an angel (repainted) with the cup on a yellow cloud is floating down towards Christ.

Italian Pictures in Sweden

well as types and shape of the hands, this picture shows a striking resemblance to a small picture in the Corsini gallery in Rome, which presents the same motive, only in a somewhat different grouping, Christ's figure being placed more in the foreground and only half visible. It is therefore probable that the two pictures are executed by the same artist, Francesco Bianchi Ferrari, among whose earlier works the painting in the Corsini gallery is generally counted. The Stockholm painting, which belongs to the author, is obviously also a work dating from the artist's youth, giving evidence rather of great care and accuracy than of technical accomplishment. Peculiar and interesting is its deep brilliant colouring, reminding one of Flemish work. (To be concluded.)

The picture is painted with a very pointed brush, and, especially in the manner in which the lights are treated with threadlike lines of gold or white, reminds one of the technique of a miniature painter. With reference to technique and colouring, as

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SOMEWHAT unusual note of coolness and caution has tinged most of the notices of Watts's life and work that have hitherto appeared. We are so accustomed to the unstinted praise of dead mediocrities that this coolness almost implies that as a painter Mr. Watts, in spite of the loftiness of his aims, was almost less than a mediocrity. This tendency may in

part sive praise, and in part to want of perspective, although as so much of Watts's painting belongs to an earlier generation than ours there ought to be little difficulty in making a fair estimate of his rank.

be due to a reaction from such exces

We are inclined to think that custom has much to do with this hesitancy. Mr. Watts was lavish both in painting pictures and in presenting them to the public, so that his departure is the departure of a personality almost too familiar for impartial admiration. His reputation, for the moment, thus suffers in comparison with that of an artist like Whistler, whose genius was always surrounded with a certain glamour of remoteness.

It is generally recognized that Watts stood alone in embodying the larger sentiments of our time in a dignified and splendid form, a form which use, as in the case of Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam, has made for the moment almost too easy of approach. The criticism is hardly fair, for we accept unchallenged a similar facility in the Bible stories told by Rembrandt and Michelangelo.

Then, having hesitated over a simplicity which is in reality the result of supreme synthetic power, we grow still more doubtful over Watts's technique. We admit the variety of his achievement in portraiture

and landscape and figure painting, as well as the grandeur of his design, his unerring pictorial sense, and the beauty-force and emphasis of his colour; but one and all we appear to think that he could not paint.

Watts's open avowal of a didactic aim may have had something to do with this: may not the rest be the result of a contemporary fashion? The modern ideal of technique is based upon that part of the achievement of Velazquez which Mr. Sargent expounds so brilliantly. This . obvious directness of brushwork is a wonderful thing, but the subtle power and splendour of a Titian has behind it a far greater reserve of knowledge and beauty. May not the apparent hesitation in Mr. Watts's work be due to the need of suggesting more than the crisp presentment of a momentary aspect can suggest, just as the summary modelling of his forms is due to the necessity of subordinating unessential facts to general breadth of effect? His peculiar use of pigment in the same way was the result of a deliberate purpose to combine richness and luminosity with that permanent freshness which is best secured by working without a liquid medium, and by the trusting to time to smooth and blend any roughness of surface or sharpness of contrast. For these reasons we think that the future accord to Watts as an executant almost the high place which it must accord to him as a creative designer and as a colourist; a place by the side of Rubens and Titian, and so little short of the summit of human achievement in the arts that it is perhaps natural we should hesitate to recognize its loftiness at once.

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[By the courtesy of the Marchioness of Granby, we are enabled to reproduce a portrait of Mr. Watts, drawn by her in his studio in the summer of 1898, while he was painting a portrait of Mr. Cecil Rhodes.]

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