Art

[SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.]

THE most important event of the.month is Mr. Jacob Epstein's show of new sculptures at the Leicester Galleries, where he has had the temerity to " insult " public opinion, the female sex, and Heaven knows what with his monumental sculpture Genesis.

His bronzes are acclaimed with the customary plaudits due to a great reputation, but Genesis has proved too much for sentimentalists to swallow and, after all, newspapers have their duty to their public. Already the tide of righteous indignation is swelling in full-throated chorus. Mr. Epstein has not given the Eatandswill such a gallop for months ! He is accused of

• obscenity, of lack of consideration for woman in her supreme achievement, and worst of all, of playing yet one more dis- graceful joke on the too, too patient British public. So far, I think, full marks should be given to the newspaper philippic which begins so splendidly, You white foulness ! He called

you Genesis." That is in the manner of Charles Dickens, who wrote of Millais' painting, Christ in the House of His Parents: " She (Mary) would stand out from the rest of the company as a monster in the vilest cabaret in France or the lowest gin shop in England."

Epstein's Genesis is a huge kneeling female figure, hewn direct from a block of white marble. She leans slightly back-

wards—a gravid, suffering goddess of fecundity. Hideous,

ape-like, sub-human, if you like, but as I see her and as I believe Mr. Epstein intended her to be seen, the prototype of fertile woman. She is meant to be primitive—so primitive in intellect

that the dividing line between man and beast scarcely exists— and to express that curious dignity which women with child and beasts in whelp almost always possess. To charge Mr.

Epstein with indecency is palpably ridiculous, and the indict- ment of bad taste is not, I feel, sustained; but to suggest that

Genesis has no raison d'elre beyond that of a practical joke is

the remark of an imbecile. The artist has a perfect right to express his concept as and how he chooses and the public may like or dislike the result, but dislike does not carry the license to condemn in terms of moral criticism or of personal invective because the product of the artist's genius does not fit in with the public's views.

If Genesis is to be attacked it must be attacked from the angle of pure sculpture, and that Mr. Epstein has made

extremely difficult. It does not, however, show to the best advantage in its present position in the Leicester Galleries owing to the impossibility of securing an equal view from all sides, and would have been better placed in the first room where Lord Rothermere's excellent portrait in bronze now stands. The other sculptures are all portrait busts in bronze, brilliant psychological studies which should arouse no resentment.

Isobel Powys, Lydia, Putti, Rebecca and La Belle Juive are the most interesting technically, but there is little fault

to be found anywhere. Mr. Epstein is the great master of the psychological portrait bust—all but the most bigoted must admit that—and, if only for this reason, his other work should be treated with average good manners. However, I will leave Mr. Epstein to posterity with the parting reflection that the good citizens of Florence stoned David.

The Loan Exhibition of Scottish Art and Antiquities at 21 Grosvenor Square is well worth several visits. It is divided into sections which include pictures, silver, pewter, arms, costumes, needlework, books, and MSS. There are also many interesting personal relics of the Jacobite period, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles I, and later Scottish celebrities. Among the pictures are some twenty Raeburn portraits and a representative group of paintings by Allan Ramsay.

At Barbizon House, 9 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, thirty-four XIXth century French paintings illustrate the growth of French paintings in the last century up to the beginning of impressionism. Courbet, Boudin, Harpignies, Fantin Latour, Millet and Daubigny are exceedingly well represented, but the Corots are not of the first order. This is a very pleasant and informative show which deserves to be widely known. Other exhibitions which should be seen are the exhibition of Litho- graphs by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec at the Independent Gallery, 7A Grafton Street, two exhibitions of new paintings by Keith Baynes and Esther Sutro at Alex. Reid and Lefevre's Gallery, 1A King Street, St. James's, the retrospective exhibi- tion of Paintings by Roger Fry at the London Artist's Associ-

ation, 92 New Bond Street, and the memorial exhibition of Water-colours by R. H. Wright, lit Walker's Galleries, 118 New Bond Street. At the Wertheim Gallery, 3/5 Burlington Gardens, there is a considerable show of paintings by the late Christopher Wood. He died last summer just as there were

signs that he was settling into his stride. Too much must not be made of his actual achievement in spite, of the unusual promise that is evident in his last work, but it was good enough to secure him a place at least in the history of contemporary painting.

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