International studio (18.1902/1903)

guarded too carefuHy from the sun's bleaching
light.
To Girtin, on the other hand, a portfolio is an
insuit. He is nothing if not a man of action, and
his art fires at a long range ; none should set it to
hit a connoisseur in the eye at a distance of a
yard. His pictures should be framed, then hung
in a good light—only care must be taken not to
place other good work in competition with their
triumphing quietness of tone and their iargeiy-
handied design. Few water-colours can bear the
test of such a rivairy with the finest of Girtin's.
Even modern pictures, painted broadly in the
freshest of bright tones, may look duli and spotty
when Girtin's work is placed near them.
One is aware, of course, that the foregoing com-
parison will not be liked. Still, one cannot choose
but remember that there is always loss as well as
gain in the transitions through which the arts slowly
pass, partly by means of changes made in their
conventions and partly in response to the needs
of an altering type of society. Thus, for instance,
the convention and the civilisation that gives us a
Rodin could not by any chance produce a Pheidias ;

and hence a writer on art must be able to admire
the new greatness and yet keep in mind the
inevitable loss of many old-time ideals, all at
variance with the existing civilisation. In all
reconstruction much precious old material must
be lost, wasted, or thrown aside as useless. Re-
cognising this fact, I mean neither to praise Girtin
nor to blame his successors of our time when I
point out that English water-colour is going away
from some of Girtin's good qualities. To say that
is only to state a fact that seems inevitable. Con-
temporary painters certainly give us many im-
pressions of Nature far and away more " fresh-air-
like " in brightness of tone than Girtin's ; but they
have rarely over their schemes of work a command
equal to that which Girtin had over his. Nor is
the reason of this hard to find. Their aim is
widely different from his, for they wish to make
their impressions of Nature far more realistic than
his, higher in key, gayer in related subtleties of
tone, richer with an impassioned desire to reflect in
art what the eye sees. Can this be done with pig-
ments, pigments and oil or water, containing no
trace of the sun's heat and light ? Conventions in


"WKITTLE CHURCH, NEAR CHELMSFORD

FROM A SKETCH BY THOMAS GIRTIN
37