ART.
MR. MUNNINGS' PICTURES OF GIPSIES.
Ix a treatise on the arts a long chapter might be written on the successful filling up of corners and odd spaces between important parts. Indeed, it might be laid down that the final test of the perfection of the artist was to be found in these byeways of pictures, poems, and music. Many are the Ways of getting over the difficulties. Elaborating the unessential, like explaining the obvious, is the final mark of the bore, and to dazzle with technical dexterity is not much better. Mr. Munnings has yet to reform his technique in this direction, for his great gifts as a painter by nature often lead him astray, as may be seen in a very attractive small collection of his works at Messrs. Connell and Sons, 47 Old Bond Street. In several pictures here we find instances where the painter has had things to deal with which it was not wise to em- phasize for pictorial reasons, but which could not well be left out without making the work incoherent. To solve the problem of the youth's legs in The Gipsies' Pitch the artist has chosen a way out by means of few tiresomely clever tricks of the brush. The same may be said of the rubbish in the middle of the encamp- ment in the Hop Pickers' Caravans, and indeed few of the pictures are free from this weakness. It is because so much in these works is so good that the failure of parts becomes a serious matter, for Mr. Munnings paints with that eloquence and spon- taneity which mark the real artist. How admirable is the Fortune Tellers at Epsom, the cool greys of the colour setting off so well the finely characterized figures. Equally good is the Costume Picture, where the gipsies appear in all their bravery of vast hats and gorgeous shawls, and how excellent and dignified a pattern is made from the great vans drawn up under trees, and what a delightful frieze-like decoration is pro- duced by the Hop Pickers' Return. The one failure is a picture of a different kind, and strangely entitled Romance at Last, in which some young ladies in strange dresses sit in an ordinary landscape and alas ! only succeed in being per- fectly commonplace. If Mr. Munnings will forego the sparkling joys of legerdemain he may be a great painter. It is difficult to think of a more complete contrast to these brilliant, and generally beautiful, improvisations than the drawings and paintings of China and the Chinese by M. Jacovleff at the Grafton Gallery. Here the passion is for form as it was with Andrea del Castagno. Indeed, many of these works are, infused with the authentic spirit of the Florentines to a degree rarely met with. But this Russian artist is extremely modern too, and he can be quite as advanced as the rest and yet show a passion for form. The large picture of Soechew (98), with its wonderful houses, canals and bridges, ja a most impres- sive landscape, while the drawing in black and red chalk of A Woman of ()shims Island (158) who carries a bucket on her head has the grandeur of monumental art.
H. S.
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