Art
THE BRITISH ART ENULIBITION IN VIENNA] Ix no other capital of the world could a more delightful welcome have been accorded than has been given this week to our English pictures ; and if the owners thereof could hear a tithe of the praise extended to their treasures they would feel recompensed for their generosity.
It is a lovable Austrian quality to give unstinted praise to the achievements of other nations. As regards the British Art Exhibition, which has come after the July days of trouble and depression, there is a special warmth in the chorus of praise, as if the pictures appealed not only to the eyes but also to the heart. There has indeed been an extraordinary atmo- sphere of excitement and expectation about the opening of this Exhibition which has made it something quite apart. The interest in British painting is being undoubtedly enhanced in this part of the world, and one may predict that this Exhi- bition will be the forerunner of other exhibitions in various capitals, for those who live abroad have understood that out wonderful schools of painting have been practically unknon in Europe and that it is time to make clear England's important contribution to the world of Art. This has been the main idea of the present exhibition.
The great hall of the Sezession Gallery is filled with our pictures. They are masterpieces of the, eighteenth centurY7 well-born men and women looking down on us from their * This subscription will be " less than the price of a glass of beer_" over and above the price of the seat. • Without this sub- scription Opera cannot be run at, less than an annual loss of £60,000.
frames with that repose and confidence which comes of centuries of an assured position. If one has visited the many exhibitions held in recent years of interesting but terribly nervous and tormented pictures, which are the natural outcome of the War and after-conditions, these pictures of Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Raeburn, Hoppner, Lawrence, Opie, Cotes make a deep impression.
Youth is represented triumphantly by Reynolds's exquisite Miss Hickey, deliciously demure under the shade of her white hat, and by the nonchalant grace of Mr. Thomas Rum- bold. Romney's adorable Mrs. Davenport seems to turn just to glance at us as she passes lightly by. The lovely Raeburn children have taken Vienna by storm. Then with them the Lady Raeburn's portrait with its exquisite ease and spontaneity is infinitely pleasing.
As we move from picture to picture we see framed through the doors leading to the other rooms either Queen Elizabeth by Gheeraerts the younger, or Gainsborough's Miss Tyler of Bath, witty and tender, or Burne-Jones's Love among the Ruins, looking like an enamel against the white-draped wall, or the lovely Lady Diana Cooper by Ambrose McEvoy, whose pictures might by right take their place side by side with his forerunners of the eighteenth century, or Henry Lamb's battle picture—all diverse and different and yet connected in a great national tradition.
A. CHILSTON.
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