DOI chapter:
Chapter I: First Impressions
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62482#0035
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 3
surrounded in her portrait by the beautiful sky and the grand
laurel leaves, put in as the great Venetians would have
painted them ; of Miss Eden, with the long throat and rosy
fair English colouring ; the painter of yet another portrait
which had bewitched me even more than all these, “ A lady
singing.” I had met and greatly admired the original of the
painting, Miss Russell, the sister of my father’s private
secretary, but when I saw her portrait on the walls of the
Royal Academy I had quite lost my heart to it. It was not
an important work, but it was so very much Watts, unlike
any painting of other schools or individuals. It rendered
that particular atmosphere and distinction of a modern
English lady in a fervent yet restrained language of art.
There was atmosphere and loose texture in the quality of the
painting, noble truth in the drawing, and the special charm
of spontaneity in the brush work. A silvery grey dress with
one pink rose fastened to it echoing the fair pink on the
cheek, made the colouring of the picture—a slight work of
a great master—containing, however, the power of stamp-
ing itself on the memory as a thing of beauty, a very true
test of greatness in a work of art. And yet another gem I
remembered which helped to pile up the interest with which
the figure in the sealskin coat inspired me. I had only then
seen it once, on the walls of the Academy—the painting
on panel called “Choosing,” another of those pictures which
once seen is never forgotten. A beautiful fair girl’s head
and a perfect throat stretching forward towards a branch of
camellias ; a hand slid caressingly under one of the deep
pink flowers, the smooth enamel leaves painted as no one
but Watts could paint leaves. These pictures were the
only work I had then seen painted by the figure standing
looking at Rossetti’s picture, but these were enough to
single him out as one apart from ordinary mortals. I was
surrounded in her portrait by the beautiful sky and the grand
laurel leaves, put in as the great Venetians would have
painted them ; of Miss Eden, with the long throat and rosy
fair English colouring ; the painter of yet another portrait
which had bewitched me even more than all these, “ A lady
singing.” I had met and greatly admired the original of the
painting, Miss Russell, the sister of my father’s private
secretary, but when I saw her portrait on the walls of the
Royal Academy I had quite lost my heart to it. It was not
an important work, but it was so very much Watts, unlike
any painting of other schools or individuals. It rendered
that particular atmosphere and distinction of a modern
English lady in a fervent yet restrained language of art.
There was atmosphere and loose texture in the quality of the
painting, noble truth in the drawing, and the special charm
of spontaneity in the brush work. A silvery grey dress with
one pink rose fastened to it echoing the fair pink on the
cheek, made the colouring of the picture—a slight work of
a great master—containing, however, the power of stamp-
ing itself on the memory as a thing of beauty, a very true
test of greatness in a work of art. And yet another gem I
remembered which helped to pile up the interest with which
the figure in the sealskin coat inspired me. I had only then
seen it once, on the walls of the Academy—the painting
on panel called “Choosing,” another of those pictures which
once seen is never forgotten. A beautiful fair girl’s head
and a perfect throat stretching forward towards a branch of
camellias ; a hand slid caressingly under one of the deep
pink flowers, the smooth enamel leaves painted as no one
but Watts could paint leaves. These pictures were the
only work I had then seen painted by the figure standing
looking at Rossetti’s picture, but these were enough to
single him out as one apart from ordinary mortals. I was