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DOI article:Sparrow, Walter Shaw: The centenary of Thomas Girtin: his genius and work
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26228#0124
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Thames sketches ittustrated in this articie, and the
fact wiii be borne in upon you. Monet, one feeis
quite sure, after seeing the out-door impressions
just named, wiii weicome Girtin as a precursor.
Girtin's tones, as I have said, are quiet; they make
no attempt to vie with the wondrous grey briiiiancy
of Nature's hues; they translate, they interpret,
theydo not imitate; but the effects produced by
their deiightfui harmonies in a iow key are yet
quite wonderfuliy real at their best, when unharmed
by "foxey" tints of decomposed indigoand Roman
ochre, two vicious colours much used in Girtin's
time.
In his most fortunate efforts there are two
quaiities that cannot be praised too highiy; the
one is weight of styie, the other is an unfaiiing
sense of structure expressed in boid draughtsman-
ship. Suppose we examine these quaiities carefuiiy,
under separate headings.
i. —Girtin drew so weli that
his hand and eye worked together as by some secret
spontaneous impuise, unerringly, and with consum-
mate ease, hrmness, huency, truthfulness, and
precision. With equal skiil and daring he wili
draw for you a ruined abbey or a vast prospect, a
noble cathedral or a busy, crowded street, a carter
with his team of horses, a coid dawn breaking over
a stretch of mooriand, a storm in the mountairs
a waterfaii, a view of oid Paris, a simpie Engiish
viiiage, or a great line of huddled old houses seen in
rapid perspective across a river. His every touch
is quick with vitality, fuii of meaning, fuli of know-
iedge; there is nothing slovenly or haphazard in
his most rapid suggestions of form by biots of coiour.
No wonder that his friends loved to watch him at
work, and delighted to taik together about the
" sword-play " of his enchanted brush. Remember
aiso how Cotman as weli as Turner, how Dewint
and R. P. Bonington, not to speak of many lesser
men, came under his sway and profited much by
fohowing his exampie. Mr. Roget does not ex-
aggerate when he says that a group of rising painters
sprang up around Girtin, and became, under his
inftuence, the school of water-colour that Hourished
in Great Britain during the hrst haif of the nine-
teenth century. And another fact of equal impor-
tance comes to mind. Leslie, in his "Memoirs
of Constable," shows that Girtin's ascendency
over young men of genius was not conhned to the
painters in water-colour. Constable himself, the great
hope of the landscapists in oils, altered the whole
course of his practice after studying about thirty of
Girtin's works that Sir George Beaumont brought to
his notice as examples of breadth and truth. Yet
"GODALMtNG CHURCH" FROM THE WATER-COLOUR BY THOMAS GIRTtN
90
Thames sketches ittustrated in this articie, and the
fact wiii be borne in upon you. Monet, one feeis
quite sure, after seeing the out-door impressions
just named, wiii weicome Girtin as a precursor.
Girtin's tones, as I have said, are quiet; they make
no attempt to vie with the wondrous grey briiiiancy
of Nature's hues; they translate, they interpret,
theydo not imitate; but the effects produced by
their deiightfui harmonies in a iow key are yet
quite wonderfuliy real at their best, when unharmed
by "foxey" tints of decomposed indigoand Roman
ochre, two vicious colours much used in Girtin's
time.
In his most fortunate efforts there are two
quaiities that cannot be praised too highiy; the
one is weight of styie, the other is an unfaiiing
sense of structure expressed in boid draughtsman-
ship. Suppose we examine these quaiities carefuiiy,
under separate headings.
i. —Girtin drew so weli that
his hand and eye worked together as by some secret
spontaneous impuise, unerringly, and with consum-
mate ease, hrmness, huency, truthfulness, and
precision. With equal skiil and daring he wili
draw for you a ruined abbey or a vast prospect, a
noble cathedral or a busy, crowded street, a carter
with his team of horses, a coid dawn breaking over
a stretch of mooriand, a storm in the mountairs
a waterfaii, a view of oid Paris, a simpie Engiish
viiiage, or a great line of huddled old houses seen in
rapid perspective across a river. His every touch
is quick with vitality, fuii of meaning, fuli of know-
iedge; there is nothing slovenly or haphazard in
his most rapid suggestions of form by biots of coiour.
No wonder that his friends loved to watch him at
work, and delighted to taik together about the
" sword-play " of his enchanted brush. Remember
aiso how Cotman as weli as Turner, how Dewint
and R. P. Bonington, not to speak of many lesser
men, came under his sway and profited much by
fohowing his exampie. Mr. Roget does not ex-
aggerate when he says that a group of rising painters
sprang up around Girtin, and became, under his
inftuence, the school of water-colour that Hourished
in Great Britain during the hrst haif of the nine-
teenth century. And another fact of equal impor-
tance comes to mind. Leslie, in his "Memoirs
of Constable," shows that Girtin's ascendency
over young men of genius was not conhned to the
painters in water-colour. Constable himself, the great
hope of the landscapists in oils, altered the whole
course of his practice after studying about thirty of
Girtin's works that Sir George Beaumont brought to
his notice as examples of breadth and truth. Yet
"GODALMtNG CHURCH" FROM THE WATER-COLOUR BY THOMAS GIRTtN
90