THE ART SOCIETY AND MEDICI PRINTS.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14761, 3 September 1913, Page 5

THE ART SOCIETY AND MEDICI PRINTS.

fr_ TO THE EDITOR OV "TTTB rRESS." S^r, —The critics of the Medici Print scherno probably have no objection to good reproductions of good pictures— in their proper , place. What these critics do object to i 3 the Art Society's disregard for the artistic fitness of things in allowing those prints to be hung in the Gallery. Similai'ly, I havo no objection to hearing reproductions of orchestral music by tho gramophone —in lay own home—but if the Musical Union, at ono of its orchestral concerts, introduced items by a gramophone, 1 should regard such action as being in tho worst taste, and if the executive of tho Musical Union attempted to justify that action by stating that the music reproduced was,by orchestras that could not be heard here, and that the records wero good ones., I should consider that the executive had placed itseli almost'beyond criticism, and if the editorial columns of "The Press" approved tho executive's action in euch terms as these: —"Is it seriously contended that pcoplo who cannot travel to hear the world's greatest orchestras ehall bo debarred from hearing anything in the shape of reproductions, however good, unless they have the money to make a collection of records for themselves?" I should .bo forced to the conclusion that "The Presses" musical criticism was of no more value than its art criticism. Practically all the pictures by the Old Masters are, primarily, designs. t Many of them, while complete.in themselves, are but details in architectural schemes —component parts of a homogeneous whole. In such cases, directly the picture be removed from its architectural sotting, it will lose in a great measure its artistic significance. Then, again, ono of the chief considerations in design is scale. Shapes and masses, proportions «nd values that may bo j very beautiful in one scale, will be altogether different when reduced to a smaller scale. Let you, sir, and let Mr Butterworth, look at any small replica of the Venus do Milos—there are many about— and you. and he, will sco that the elements of characteristic beauty—the dignity and the. strength— in the original are absent from the small replica, perfect though thnt replica may be. And when the desijrn that is reduced is pictorial and in colour, tho loss will ue much greater, for in such case there are considerations relating to scale, other than those of form and texture — considerations of colour and light and of tone. The means which an artist may employ to produce a particular effect of colour and light in n Inrgo picture are necessarily entirely different from the means ho may employ to produce the earn© effect in a small picture. And if the technique of the large picture be copied "in miniature," even with perfect accuracy, tho effect will not bo similar. Artists "feel" their siibjccts in particular sizes. Those, sir, are commonplaces in art, but it is necessary to refer to them because the advocates of the Medici Print scheme seem to- bo ( ignorant of them.—Yours, etc.,. ' A MERE ARTIST.