DOI Heft:
No. 198 (September, 1908)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: The problem of modern interior painting
DOI Artikel:West, W. K.: An artist from Australia: Mr. Arthur Streeton
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20967#0293
Arthur Streeton
vision. The eye embracing a whole scene is
appealed to by a general sense of colour, but if
first one object is looked at and then another, the
colour of each one of them is seen as a separate
sensation. With such separate sensations we have
the beauty of contrast so greatly desired of the
primitives, and inevitably impressionism evolved
towards the art of Whistler, hovering at the very
border of purely musical and harmonic expression.
The precision of the Dutchmen enabled them
to excel with the beauty of surfaces in the most
trifling things, things which you cannot make
mystic. It is perhaps those whose failure is with
the beauty of this world who plunge into mysticism.
The old ideal of a realism perfectly finished and
intelligible is not usurped, but supplemented by
the desire for the sensation of space and air.
But the hands of the modern painter are embar-
rassed with a knowledge which makes everything
mysterious. The edges of things evade him, and
he has always found it impossible for him to
paint what he sees with receipts still in his hand
for the old things. T. Martin Wood.
A
N ARTIST FROM AUSTRALIA
MR. ARTHUR STREETON.
The career of Mr. Arthur Streeton
affords an admirable illustration of the way in
which a man of clear artistic conviction and
vigorous individuality can make for himself a
position of distinction in the art world without
having enjoyed the advantages of any systematic
training. The artist who is self-taught, who has,
that is to say, acquired the necessary knowledge
of the practical details of his profession by his own
exertions, is apt to develop in a manner that is
more or less unexpected. He has no ready-made
system of working provided for him by masters
who make it their business to smooth the student’s
way to a complete knowledge of craftsmanship; he
has no opportunity offered him of profiting by
the experience of men who have reduced executive
processes to rule, and who can prescribe exactly
the methods he should employ to express his ideas
and impressions. He learns no school tricks and
no time-saving devices which enable him to attack
“LA SALUTE, VENICE”
BY ARTHUR STREETON
259
vision. The eye embracing a whole scene is
appealed to by a general sense of colour, but if
first one object is looked at and then another, the
colour of each one of them is seen as a separate
sensation. With such separate sensations we have
the beauty of contrast so greatly desired of the
primitives, and inevitably impressionism evolved
towards the art of Whistler, hovering at the very
border of purely musical and harmonic expression.
The precision of the Dutchmen enabled them
to excel with the beauty of surfaces in the most
trifling things, things which you cannot make
mystic. It is perhaps those whose failure is with
the beauty of this world who plunge into mysticism.
The old ideal of a realism perfectly finished and
intelligible is not usurped, but supplemented by
the desire for the sensation of space and air.
But the hands of the modern painter are embar-
rassed with a knowledge which makes everything
mysterious. The edges of things evade him, and
he has always found it impossible for him to
paint what he sees with receipts still in his hand
for the old things. T. Martin Wood.
A
N ARTIST FROM AUSTRALIA
MR. ARTHUR STREETON.
The career of Mr. Arthur Streeton
affords an admirable illustration of the way in
which a man of clear artistic conviction and
vigorous individuality can make for himself a
position of distinction in the art world without
having enjoyed the advantages of any systematic
training. The artist who is self-taught, who has,
that is to say, acquired the necessary knowledge
of the practical details of his profession by his own
exertions, is apt to develop in a manner that is
more or less unexpected. He has no ready-made
system of working provided for him by masters
who make it their business to smooth the student’s
way to a complete knowledge of craftsmanship; he
has no opportunity offered him of profiting by
the experience of men who have reduced executive
processes to rule, and who can prescribe exactly
the methods he should employ to express his ideas
and impressions. He learns no school tricks and
no time-saving devices which enable him to attack
“LA SALUTE, VENICE”
BY ARTHUR STREETON
259