POST-IMPRESSIONISTS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 18, 26 February 1914, Page 5

POST-IMPRESSIONISTS.

ADAM ON HIS HEAD. Dissensions among the English PostImpressionists have considerably reduced the strength of Mr Eoger Pry's army. Mr Duncan Grant and Miss Vanessa Bell are all that remain of the old guard whose captain has found it necessary to seek French support for the second exhibition of the '' Grafton Group'' at the Alpine Club Gallery. Without the interesting contributions sent from across the Channel there would scarcely have been enough material to justify the holding of a special exhibition; and, as it is., the sa£vty and solidity of most of the French work is apt to make one lose patience with the sensationalism of the English extremists. Is it anything but 'sm if Mr Duncan Grant, in his large design "Adam and Eve" makes Adam stand on his hands with his gnarled, knotty lower extremities in the air? It is sad to learn from the catalogue that the picture is lent "by kind permission of the Contemporary Art Society," an association formed fo'/ the active assistance of all that is best in contemporary art, by purchase and eventual distribution of the acquired works among our public galleries. How tired one gets of the distorted bottles and twisted angular basins of Mr Tabley's still life, and of all the wornout formulas of the new creed. is little evidence of strong emotional impulse among the English members of the Grafton Group, although Mr Fry approaches emotional statement in "The Farmyard.'' The paintings are supplemented by -a few pieces of sculpture carved by M. Gaudier-Brzeska: the same arbitrary contortions and affectations of Stone Age rudeness which take us back to the very infancy of art. One of his carvings in red stone, which may reasonably be held to represent a monkqy cuddling its infant, is described iu the catalogue as '' Dancer.''