International studio (18.1902/1903)

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in weight presented by light and by heavy things.
J. F. Miilet, perhaps the greatest modern master
in weight of styie, once toid a student in Deia-
roche's studio that certain studies of the nude had
the appearance of being painted with honey and
butter. The same criticism might be applied to
much well-known work. Indeed, many painters
seem to be unable to appreciate even the most
striking contrasts of weight. Whether they re-
present a baby or a battleship, an oak tree or a
petticoat, their work has the same want of sub-
stance, the same lightness of artihciai treatment.
They give us nothing but painted shadows, for
Nature appeals to them as a thing unreal, an
" unsubstantiai fairy place."
If you turn now to Girtin, and study his art
attentiveiy, you wiil understand what is meant by

his weight of style. He sees Nature in the round,
and his work suggests variety in heaviness as weii
as in iightness. As an example of this, one may
here make mention of the busy scene so admirably
drawn in the N3. AwA, a reproduction from
the iarge aquatint in Girtin's voiume of Paris
views. Note the soiidity of the houses, see how
massively they stand upright on their secure foun-
dations, and, further, do not fail to watch the
picturesque crowd, for it is alive with actuality.
There is nothing here to remind us of the shadow-
like unrealness presented by a thronged street in
a camera obscura.
One would wish to continue this subject further,
but enough has been said to show that Thomas
Girtin is something rnuch more than one of the
leading painters in English water-colour. He is a
master in the true mean-
ing of the word. In his
Iife, a very short tife of
twenty-seven years and a
few months, he not only
achieved more for the art
he followed than any of his
contemporaries, but, work-
ing abvays under the guid-
ance of a strong will and
a high intelligence, he
asserted without fear his
original aims, and was
soon recognised as a
leader. Girtin never felt
tempted to follow with
meek patience in anyone's
steps, and be a servant in
the use he made of his
predecessors. That he
was affected by his inter-
course with Canale, with
Piranesi, with Rubens,
and with Richard Wilson,
is certainly true ; but he
showed in that intercourse
a masterly acquisitiveness,
equal and similar to that
which Dryden noted in
Ben Jonson, and which
enables one to say of
him that he not only in-
vaded great men, but
took from them by right
of conquest whatever he
deemed necessary for his
own portion of renown.


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