names it. Then there is the bright fresh quality of
' The Railway Whistle,' by Adolfo Tommasi ; the
' Forbidden Fruit,' another of Giani's clever impres-
sions ; and Garini's ' From the Hills'; the brilliant
colouring of Vinea's ' Gardener s Daughter ' ; his
' Gathering Wild Flowers,' and a little landscape
with misty sunset and cattle which is better as a
colour harmony than the other two. Wandering
on, one lingers before ' The Squall,' by Ferroni, or
meditates upon the indefinable melancholy of ' Le
Macchiajole,' by Fattori, and the undulating rise
and fall of Pompeo Mariani's sweep of sea, which he
gives us in his grey transcript of ' The Wave,' with
even more sensation of vivid play in his smaller
sketch of the same subject.
Although there is not a great show of water-
colours, a few out of the number are distinguished
for their charm and freshness of colour, as Monte-
fusco's sketches of Neapolitan peasants, especially
the ' Chestnut Seller,' and one of ' Peasant Women,'
Detti's brilliant ' Ball on Board,' Pittara's ' O Pesca-
tore,' the 'Winter Rain' of Calderini, and the
' Studies ' by Pontecorvo, which apart from their
sweetness of tone and colour are distinctive in a more
poetic sense as expressing the beauty of solitude and
sunlight among rocks and boulders and fading hills.
The most virile and artistic work among the
sculpture is the masterly conception of Monteverde,
' Jenner's first experiment in Inoculation,' which
is essentially expressive of the forward bent of
realism, while retaining its character as a masterpiece
by the cultured thought which defines every line
and animates with vivacity the inert stone. This
group is justly awarded the place of honour in the
plastic arts, though Jerace's ' Germanicus ' stands
out as noble work ; while the imaginative quantity of
his ' Decus Pelagi,' and ' Excubitor ' — a spheroid
casket of gold coiled about by a winged creature,
snake-like and scaly below the breasts — is united
to the more abstract refinement of style of the
Hellenic marbles.
Curiously imbued with the sjjirit of the fifteenth
century and Renascence sculpture are the terracotta
busts of Eaisto Rossi. The one of ' Savonarola '
might well have been executed, judging by the
spirit and manner of the work, from the great
zealot in the flesh, instead of many centuries later.
Quite of to-day are the humorous and clever bronzes
and terra-cotta heads, single figures, and groups from
the hands of Pisani, Benini, Constantino Barbella ;
and the groups b y Professor Focardi, whose 'I'm first,
Sir,' ' You Ragamuffins ! ' and others, are by this time
tolerably familiar to every one from the copies and
engravings that have been made from them.
There in the midst of playful children, of gleam-
ing figures hewn out of the purest marble, and
heads of veiled women, trivial perhaps in motive, yet
cleverly executed, stands Franceschi's ' Ad Bestias,'
a terrible and despairing figure ; the anticipation
of his doom wrought into the gasping hollow face,
expressed by the forward droop of the shrunken
figure, by the nerveless hands bound together, and
by the feet as they clutch the ground. Meanwhile
a sad, sweet white ' Ophelia ' stands afar.
Mary Reed.
THE ART STUDENT IN PARIS.
FEW among the men who have enjoyed the freedom of the student's life in Paris, look back upon the experience without a sigli of regret. Its discomforts, its privations, its despair, jiave had their harsh outlines blun-ed by distance and time, while clear and conspicuous there rises a memory of sunny mornings when art seemed the only thing worth living for, and evenings at the restaurant, when, after very plain fare, discussion rose high and keen over the merits of rival ateliers. The pleasure of these days may no doubt in great part be attributed to the exuberance of youth, but independent of this, the positive conviction must be taken into account that here at last, after much futile search and disastrous blundering, was ample opportunity of well-directed study, and the constant stimulus of the companionsliip of men to whom drawing and painting were the most serious of all occupations. Idlers enough abounded, amongst them often the most lucid and convincing talkers, but the average tendency was in the direction of very serious and sustained work. In the time the writer spent in Paris the various nationalities mingled but little save at the studio, and even there intimacy between a Frenchman and a foreigner was the exception. So great was the invasion of the various schools by strangers, that in many cases Americans and
