DOI Heft:
No. 160 (July, 1906)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: A romanticist painter: J. L. Pickering
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0118
J. L. Pickering, Painter
A ROMANTICIST PAINTER:
J. L. PICKERING. BY A. LYS
BALDRY.
In all landscape painting that is not merely
literal and commonplace in idea, the sentiment
which the artist succeeds in conveying counts for
much when the value of his effort comes to be
appraised. If he is a man of high intelligence and
is rightly in sympathy with nature, the sentiment
which he imparts to his work will be both persua-
sive and impressive, and will go far to establish his
position as one of the greater exponents of the art
which he practises. If he is not a thinker, if he
lacks sensitiveness, and if he is readier to fall into
conventional methods of expression than to keep
his mind in a proper condition of responsiveness to
nature’s suggestions, the pictures he paints will be
soulless and unconvincing, and will
never gain for him acceptance as a
master of his craft. He may be
endowed with great manual dex-
terity, he may be a facile and con-
fident draughtsman, and may know
how to put- together the details of a
composition with admirable in-
genuity ; and yet all this technical
knowledge will give him nothing
more than a momentary popularity,
because his shallow and superficial
cleverness will not satisfy the de-
mands of the thinking men whose
favourable verdict is needed to justify
the permanent enrolment of his
name among the more distinguished
followers of the artistic profession.
For it must be remembered that
the feeling by which his work is
inspired is a real reflection of his
temperament, and is to be taken as
evidence of his own appreciation
of the truths which it is his duty
to study. It is the impression
which his subjects make upon him
that he has to transmit to others,
and unless he is himself sincerely
impressed he cannot hope to con-
vince the people of intelligence to
whom he seeks to appeal. The
sound and earnest artist does not sit
down before nature and slavishly
copy bit by bit and detail by detail
the scene before him, nor does he
limit himself to a stolid assertion
XXXVIII. No. 160.—July, 1906.
of obvious facts. His aim is rather to seize
upon the salient and dramatic characteristics of
the motive that he has chosen as worthy of
pictorial treatment, to render these characteristics
in such a way that they will lose none of what
he conceives to be their proper significance,
and by eliminating all trivialities that would
weaken the effect he desires to produce to
make his picture tell its story clearly and with
simple dignity. The success or failure of his
effort depends entirely upon the sharpness of his
impression and upon the extent to which it has
induced him to recognise the possibilities of his
subject. What his eyes have seen awakes in his
mind a train of thought which leads ultimately to
a temperamental expression of his idea about the
particular phase of nature that has been presented
to him, and the aesthetic value of this expression
A ROMANTICIST PAINTER:
J. L. PICKERING. BY A. LYS
BALDRY.
In all landscape painting that is not merely
literal and commonplace in idea, the sentiment
which the artist succeeds in conveying counts for
much when the value of his effort comes to be
appraised. If he is a man of high intelligence and
is rightly in sympathy with nature, the sentiment
which he imparts to his work will be both persua-
sive and impressive, and will go far to establish his
position as one of the greater exponents of the art
which he practises. If he is not a thinker, if he
lacks sensitiveness, and if he is readier to fall into
conventional methods of expression than to keep
his mind in a proper condition of responsiveness to
nature’s suggestions, the pictures he paints will be
soulless and unconvincing, and will
never gain for him acceptance as a
master of his craft. He may be
endowed with great manual dex-
terity, he may be a facile and con-
fident draughtsman, and may know
how to put- together the details of a
composition with admirable in-
genuity ; and yet all this technical
knowledge will give him nothing
more than a momentary popularity,
because his shallow and superficial
cleverness will not satisfy the de-
mands of the thinking men whose
favourable verdict is needed to justify
the permanent enrolment of his
name among the more distinguished
followers of the artistic profession.
For it must be remembered that
the feeling by which his work is
inspired is a real reflection of his
temperament, and is to be taken as
evidence of his own appreciation
of the truths which it is his duty
to study. It is the impression
which his subjects make upon him
that he has to transmit to others,
and unless he is himself sincerely
impressed he cannot hope to con-
vince the people of intelligence to
whom he seeks to appeal. The
sound and earnest artist does not sit
down before nature and slavishly
copy bit by bit and detail by detail
the scene before him, nor does he
limit himself to a stolid assertion
XXXVIII. No. 160.—July, 1906.
of obvious facts. His aim is rather to seize
upon the salient and dramatic characteristics of
the motive that he has chosen as worthy of
pictorial treatment, to render these characteristics
in such a way that they will lose none of what
he conceives to be their proper significance,
and by eliminating all trivialities that would
weaken the effect he desires to produce to
make his picture tell its story clearly and with
simple dignity. The success or failure of his
effort depends entirely upon the sharpness of his
impression and upon the extent to which it has
induced him to recognise the possibilities of his
subject. What his eyes have seen awakes in his
mind a train of thought which leads ultimately to
a temperamental expression of his idea about the
particular phase of nature that has been presented
to him, and the aesthetic value of this expression