but seems now to have left them behind for strong,
closed, purely abstract compositions. Santomaso has further refined his free handling (half-way, as it were, between Har- tung and Kermadec), adding a new elegance to his always beautiful colour. Afro's thin- stained paintings are as gentle as Vedova's futuristic explosions of black and white arc violent; Scialoja establishes a rectangular rigidity with low-toned tact; Sergio Romiti breathes his subtly simple, suggestive com- positions on to canvas with deceptive ease and finality; Reggiani is a flat-patterner. Against these, as figurative artists, are placed Carlo Levi, an excellent writer but an amateur painter; Spinosa, another colourist whose work I do not recall seeing before; and Brancaccio, sometimes reminiscent of Saetti. Tht sculptors are Mirko, Italy's most in- ventive metal-worker, Minguzzi, Consagra, Viani and, as a counter-weight, Greco. This exhibition shows a freshness, a breadth of handling, an assurance of attack, a flair for colour, which is immediately impressive. Oddly enough, much of it is work which—so far as I am concerned—does not seem to wear well.
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Do not miss, if you have not already seen it, Courbet's Toilette de la Mariee, which is still on view for another day or two at the National Gallery before it returns to America. At Leighton House there is an, opportunity to study drawings and water-colours by Ruskin. New Calder mobiles are heaving, trembling and twirling light-heartedly at the Lefevre Gallery, At the Victoria and Albert Museum is an exhibition of recent work by students of the Royal College of Art, the assurance of which is almost oppressive; it includes an excellent sculpture of a little girl by S. C. Harpley. Earl Haig and Denis Mathews share the Redfern with gentle, soft- toned landscape paintings and drawings and sketches of China respectively.
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