Post-Impressionism

The chief of these were the decorations in the Refreshment Room at the Tate Gallery by Rex Whistler; the Refreshment Room at Morley College by Royal College of Art Students under Prof. W. Rothenstein; the Peel Institute by Prof. Tonks's students; lunettes for the L.C.C. Hall by the pupils of Walter Bayes, etc.

Schools.

In regard to the teaching of art, the Royal Academy's methods have from time to time been the subject of much adverse criticism, principally on account of the "academic" outlook of its art standards. Despite its remarkable effort in electing Au gustus John and Richard Walter Sickert to its ranks, it has not changed its methods or its qualities; for two swallows could not make an artistic renaissance in Burlington House.

The best schools were the Slade, the Royal College of Art and the Westminster School of Art. At the former, Professor Henry Tonks succeeded Professor Fred Brown. The tradition of teach ing the students at this school to draw like old masters was uniformly carried on. The teaching of Professor W. Rothenstein at the Royal College has been most fruitful, while at the Westmin ster Sickert carried on a tradition which was essentially artistic, teaching a student to find his inspiration in real life and giving him a flexible means of expressing his perception. Sickert was succeeded by Walter Bayes, a sound constructor of pictures, in whose teach ing scientific means predominated over emotional perception.

An event of artistic importance was the opening, in 1926, of a wing for Modern Foreign Art at the Tate Gallery.

Current Painting.--In

London, as in Paris, the younger painters are undecided. The two main influences are Matisse and

the douanier Rousseau. The latter is the more popular as being easier. After all, he was untrained, and had a great posthumous success. The former influence is fatal. The victims of it en deavour to imitate the end without having known even the be ginning. Two young painters, Ben and Winifred Nicholson, at tempted to combine both influences. Only one painter, C. R. W. Nevinson, attempted to imitate the Italian Futurists, after their exhibition in 1912. He had a brief success and became a realist, of uncertain quality, more or less after the Central Continental pattern. Two other painters who have had success in the dawn of the Post-Impressionist movement were John and Paul Nash— particularly the latter. Although he is sometimes an artist within a strictly limited range, he is more often an illustration of the limitations of this method—which is its tendency to substitute ingenuity for art.

As is the case in Paris and elsewhere, the main stream of art flows on almost undisturbed by the agitations which make copy for journalists and so agitate the desires of the collector. The few undoubted and accepted artists of the time pursue their own line of development. Walter Richard Sickert, Lucien Pissarro, P. Wilson Steer, Ambrose McEvoy and Augustus John are names on which the historian can rest with some degree of certainty. Al though the French influence has been a predominating factor in modern English art, it has been proved that English art is at its best when it is purely English.