Art
THE GOUPIL GALLERY, 3 REGENT STREET.]
Aristide Maillol, an exhibition of whose sculpture, drawings and wood engravings is now being held at the Goupil Gallery, is not too well known in England, though in Paris he disputes first place among living sculptors. He started life as a painter, abandoned painting for tapestry, then turned to making majolica and to trying to find lost glazes, and finally, through making small clay figures, arrived at serious figure modelling at the age of forty. Count Harry Kessler explains in a foreword how one day at the Louvre Maillol showed him an antique statue of Venus which had been dredged from the sea. The waves had smoothed and simplified all detail, and Maillol said, " That statue has been my teacher," meaning that a statue must even be beautiful when worn as smooth as a pebble. Maillol follows this ideal and concentrates on the masses which make up the figure, working chiefly on the torso and less on the feet and hands. His female models are from his native place, Banyuls, and are of the sturdy type. His Torse No. 1, full size in lead, is magnificent, and so, on a smaller scale, are Torse de jeune Femme, and Petit Torse au Dauphin, both in bronze. Nue debout and Jeune Femme, No. 17, are examples of his female type. His Tite de Renoir proves that, when required, he has a mastery of character. There are also twenty-two drawings, all figures, and a delightful set of wood engravings for the Eclogues of Virgil.
At the seine gallery are woodcuts and engravings by Mr. Eric Gill. Mr. Gill mixes his subjects in a bewildering way, but whatever his subject he produces a work which both in design and execution shows him to be a craftsman of the first order, especially as regards line. Each one of his works needs careful study, and from among a very fine collection one need only single out his Rachel Rothenstein, Illustrations for" An and Love," and Frontispiece for " Book of Engravings."
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