Studio: international art (55.1912)

The van Randwijk Collection

Wharfedale seems to be Turner’s own special
domain. His small, active, and odd-looking figure
seems always to be moving somewhere beside the
gleaming river. But if Turner rules in Wharfedale,
his temple is assuredly at Farnley Hall. This is the
spot to which his worshippers must make frequent
pilgrimage, the spot where his wonderful works are
treasured and his memory kept bright and alluring.
The pious feelings with which the admirers of
Turner’s genius regard Farnley Hall were ad-
mirably expressed by Mr. Ruskin in the words he
used to his hostess on the occasion of his last visit
to the house. “Farnley,” he said, “is a unique
place. There is nothing like it in the world, a
place where a great genius was loved and ap-
preciated, who did all his best work for that place,
and where it is treasured up like a monument in a
shrine.”

Though tnere are something like
four score of Turner’s drawings at
Farnley devoted to the local
scenery, these form but a small
portion of the total number of his
works in this magnificent collection.

It includes also a noble series of
Swiss drawings, Rhine and Italian
subjects, and such masterpieces of
English water-colour art as A First-
Rater taking in Stores, Lancaster
Sands, The Snowstorm on Mont
Cenis, The Fish-Market at Hastings,
and the Scarborough. But works
of such capital importance are
worthy of separate treatment, and
readers will, I am sure, learn with
pleasure that arrangements have
been made by The Studio whereby
a choice selection of them will be
placed within reach of the public in
the shape of excellent colour-repro-
ductions.

A. J. F.

*** Mr. Fawkes has kindly placed
at the disposal of The Studio, for
the purpose of reproduction in
colour, a considerable number of
drawings by Turner belonging to
the Farnley Hall Collection and
comprising some of the finest ex-
amples of his genius. Details of
the publication of these reproduc-
tions will be found among our ad-
vertisements this month.—Editor.

96

The van randwijk collec-
tion.— I. THE SCHOOL OF
THE HAGUE. BY MAX EISLER.

The collection of pictures brought together
by Mr. van Randwijk is the outcome of a well-
developed aesthetic instinct, and as a whole is
thoroughly representative of the New Dutch
School that consistently carries out the principles
inaugurated by such men as the distinguished
amateur and art dealer E. J. von Wisselingh, who in
the early days of the new criticism was a courageous
and determined upholder of the Barbizon and
Hague Schools, and the sea-painter Hendrik W.
Mesdag, after whom the gallery in the Laan van
Meerdervoort at The Hague is named. The
Barbizon and Hague masters, indeed, dominate both