DOI Heft:
No. 56 (October, 1901)
DOI Artikel:D'Anvers, N.: Robert Weir Allan and his work
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22775#0329
R. IV. Allan
discussed with reverent enthusiasm. In 1875,
the year of Robert Allan’s arrival in Paris,
Lepage exhibited his pathetic and masterly Petite
Communion and the more ambitious Bergers,
which were received with a chorus of admiration
from artists, though the lay critics looked coldly
on their vivid realism ; whilst in 1880, just before
Mr. Allan left Paris, appeared the Joan of Arc, in
which the gifted young Frenchman may be said to
have touched his highest point of excellence.
Robert Allan’s student time coincided therefore
with the art career of Lepage, who exercised
perhaps more influence on him than did any of
the men under whose direct criticism he studied.
He was, however, from first to last, too thoroughly
individual to owe much to any other artist, and
out of the conflicting elements of the French
ateliers he emerged more British than ever. No
false pride spoiled the simplicity of the art student’s
life in those happy days, and anyone who looks
into Mr. Allan’s humorous face and notes the
merry twinkle in his eye as he tells some amusing
incident from the long-ago, can well imagine what
a bright Bohemian life he and his chum led in
the big, bare studio, with its walls covered with
sketches and studies. The address perhaps was
rather against the new quarters, for this ideal
studio was in the Boulevard d’Enfer, a name
perhaps not altogether inapplicable to some of
the neighbouring ateliers. Here real home-made
porridge was eaten, a store of the wherewithal
having been sent for from the northern home in a
goodly sack, after several unsuccessful attempts
had been made to procure it in the restaurants.
The spirited restaurateur, indeed, had got the real
thing, and his chef-de-cuisine had learnt to turn it
out well; but, then, the exorbitant price of 60 cen-
times a plate was charged, for the farine d’avoine
had been bought at the pharmaciens in tiny packets
sold as a medicine—for what ailment was not
specified, though it may possibly have been home-
sickness. The Scotch songs sung, the wild
reels danced in Mr. Allan’s studio, which some-
times alarmed the natives admitted to a share in
the revels, kept home memories alive even in the
Boulevard d’Enfer, proving how just was the
criticism of the Frenchman who said that if two
Englishmen were thrown on a desert island they
would not speak to each other till a third ship-
wrecked fellow-countryman arrived to introduce
them to each other, but that if the same mis-
fortune befell two Scotchmen they would have
founded a Caledonian club before the week
was out.
“MAKING FOR HOME”
232
(By permission of Alexander Hay, Esq.)
BY R. W. ALLAN
discussed with reverent enthusiasm. In 1875,
the year of Robert Allan’s arrival in Paris,
Lepage exhibited his pathetic and masterly Petite
Communion and the more ambitious Bergers,
which were received with a chorus of admiration
from artists, though the lay critics looked coldly
on their vivid realism ; whilst in 1880, just before
Mr. Allan left Paris, appeared the Joan of Arc, in
which the gifted young Frenchman may be said to
have touched his highest point of excellence.
Robert Allan’s student time coincided therefore
with the art career of Lepage, who exercised
perhaps more influence on him than did any of
the men under whose direct criticism he studied.
He was, however, from first to last, too thoroughly
individual to owe much to any other artist, and
out of the conflicting elements of the French
ateliers he emerged more British than ever. No
false pride spoiled the simplicity of the art student’s
life in those happy days, and anyone who looks
into Mr. Allan’s humorous face and notes the
merry twinkle in his eye as he tells some amusing
incident from the long-ago, can well imagine what
a bright Bohemian life he and his chum led in
the big, bare studio, with its walls covered with
sketches and studies. The address perhaps was
rather against the new quarters, for this ideal
studio was in the Boulevard d’Enfer, a name
perhaps not altogether inapplicable to some of
the neighbouring ateliers. Here real home-made
porridge was eaten, a store of the wherewithal
having been sent for from the northern home in a
goodly sack, after several unsuccessful attempts
had been made to procure it in the restaurants.
The spirited restaurateur, indeed, had got the real
thing, and his chef-de-cuisine had learnt to turn it
out well; but, then, the exorbitant price of 60 cen-
times a plate was charged, for the farine d’avoine
had been bought at the pharmaciens in tiny packets
sold as a medicine—for what ailment was not
specified, though it may possibly have been home-
sickness. The Scotch songs sung, the wild
reels danced in Mr. Allan’s studio, which some-
times alarmed the natives admitted to a share in
the revels, kept home memories alive even in the
Boulevard d’Enfer, proving how just was the
criticism of the Frenchman who said that if two
Englishmen were thrown on a desert island they
would not speak to each other till a third ship-
wrecked fellow-countryman arrived to introduce
them to each other, but that if the same mis-
fortune befell two Scotchmen they would have
founded a Caledonian club before the week
was out.
“MAKING FOR HOME”
232
(By permission of Alexander Hay, Esq.)
BY R. W. ALLAN