International studio (22.1904)

his environment, so that he may, in his turn,
transfer to others the results that have been pro-
duced upon his own temperament. The more
original a worker in any field is, the stronger will
be the effect of his creations upon others, and the
greater this influence the more will he be en-
couraged to remain faithful to his style, his choice
of subjects—in a word, to his own individuality.
A landscape painter can but interpret the trees and
the forests, the meadows, the river, and the sea,
the groups of peasants' cottages, and the cloud
masses above them—all as they reveal themselves
to him ; and if he is true to himself, he will impart
to them his own mood, whether that mood be
happy or sad. There will ever be differences in
the renderings of the same scenes by different
hands. One will care only to express the senti-
/ ment of a landscape, another will give more
attention to its aesthetic side; and it is when the
latter is chosen that an artist's work can, strictly
speaking, be called decorative. It is the first
impression made on the spectator which decides
the question of the true character of any work of

art. What lovely colouring ! what finely distributed
light! what a wonderful effect upon the wall! is the
immediate exclamation on looking at a really deco-
rative piece of work. This is, however, only a
transitory feeling, for it is at once followed by a
realisation that what for the moment appeared
merely a dash of blue colour or a sombre light,
really, rings the changes on the whole scale of
human emotion, arousing pleasure or disappoint-
ment, as the case may be. The greater the skill
of the decorative artist, the more finely graduated
are the effects upon the spectator of what, to the
uninitiated, might appear a mere ordinary piece of
ornamental work.
The power of thus playing upon the responsive
instrument of human nature has been granted to
Walter Leistikow in a very high degree. Some
of his paintings have apparently even a symbolic
meaning. Swans float gracefully upon little lakes,
stormy petrels wing their flight high up among the
clouds, calling up visions of repose or of conflict,
suggesting far more than their literal meaning, so
that the looker-on finds himself raised to a higher


DECORATIVE LANDSCAPE

FROM THE PAINTING BY W. LEISTIKOW

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