DOI Heft:
Nr. 158 (April 1910)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The art of Mr. Albert Goodwin, R.W.S.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19866#0134
Albert Goodwin, R.W.S.
THE ART OF MR. ALBERT
GOODWIN, R.W.S. BY A. LYS
BALDRY.
There are two large sections into which the
great mass of landscape painters can be divided—
the men who paint nature as she is, faithfully and
in detail, and the men who use her suggestions
as the foundation for pictorial abstractions, in
which strict reality is subordinated to the expres-
sion of a personal sentiment. The first type of
artist is dependent for his success upon his selec-
tive sense. If he has the power to recognise which
of the subjects he sees is really paintable, and to
choose out of the material presented to him just
what is wanted to make an attractive picture, he
will please his public and will produce work that
is sufficiently convincing. If his taste, however,
is imperfect and his vision is not under the control
of his intelligence, if he is more ready to insist
upon fidelity in the representation of facts—any
facts—than upon the accurate rendering of actu-
alities which are aesthetically interesting, his work
will be neither pleasing nor convincing. It will,
no doubt, have a marked degree of photographic
truth, but, like much ill-considered photography,
it will only prove how easy it is to waste labour on
motives which are unworthy of glorification by
means of art. He will fail first because he has
chosen his subject unwisely, and secondly because
he has been unable, through lack of imagination
and in consequence of his habit of setting down
uncompromisingly what is before him, to perceive
what possibilities of artistic suggestion and adap-
tation that subject may possess.
The other type of artist uses his selective sense
in a different way. He seeks not so much for the
ready-made subject that he can reproduce bit by
bit and detail by detail on his canvas as for one
that sets him thinking, one that he can build upon
and develop. Nature is to him the source of his
inspiration, the exciting cause by which his imagi-
nation is stimulated into activity; and she rouses
in him the desire to record the impression she has
made upon him. He sees her not literally but
th rough the medium of a creative temperament
which is not content to take things merely as they
are. This temperament influences him in his
1 thun " (chalk drawing) (By permission of Messrs. Leggatt Bros.) by albert goodwin, r.w.s.
XL. No. 158.—April, 1910. 85
THE ART OF MR. ALBERT
GOODWIN, R.W.S. BY A. LYS
BALDRY.
There are two large sections into which the
great mass of landscape painters can be divided—
the men who paint nature as she is, faithfully and
in detail, and the men who use her suggestions
as the foundation for pictorial abstractions, in
which strict reality is subordinated to the expres-
sion of a personal sentiment. The first type of
artist is dependent for his success upon his selec-
tive sense. If he has the power to recognise which
of the subjects he sees is really paintable, and to
choose out of the material presented to him just
what is wanted to make an attractive picture, he
will please his public and will produce work that
is sufficiently convincing. If his taste, however,
is imperfect and his vision is not under the control
of his intelligence, if he is more ready to insist
upon fidelity in the representation of facts—any
facts—than upon the accurate rendering of actu-
alities which are aesthetically interesting, his work
will be neither pleasing nor convincing. It will,
no doubt, have a marked degree of photographic
truth, but, like much ill-considered photography,
it will only prove how easy it is to waste labour on
motives which are unworthy of glorification by
means of art. He will fail first because he has
chosen his subject unwisely, and secondly because
he has been unable, through lack of imagination
and in consequence of his habit of setting down
uncompromisingly what is before him, to perceive
what possibilities of artistic suggestion and adap-
tation that subject may possess.
The other type of artist uses his selective sense
in a different way. He seeks not so much for the
ready-made subject that he can reproduce bit by
bit and detail by detail on his canvas as for one
that sets him thinking, one that he can build upon
and develop. Nature is to him the source of his
inspiration, the exciting cause by which his imagi-
nation is stimulated into activity; and she rouses
in him the desire to record the impression she has
made upon him. He sees her not literally but
th rough the medium of a creative temperament
which is not content to take things merely as they
are. This temperament influences him in his
1 thun " (chalk drawing) (By permission of Messrs. Leggatt Bros.) by albert goodwin, r.w.s.
XL. No. 158.—April, 1910. 85