International studio (23.1904)

A Painter of Hardy s JVessex

sistent with painting on the spot, to work in
comfort. It was because I found working in a
gale or in a biting easterly wind — and one
finds the full force of the latter on Egdon Heath,
for instance—entail much discomfort, that I had
my small portable studio constructed. This I take
to any spot where I intend to paint, for use if the
weather prove unfavourable for sitting out in the
open air entirely unprotected, and I have found it
of great service and comfort. I like introducing
suitable figures and incidents into landscape, and to
enable me to do this I very frequently make rough
sketches of figures—a horse and cart, a ploughing
team, a shepherd and his flock, or other useful
subjects, which I am afterwards able to introduce
into some suitable picture. I have had some
amusing adventures and experiences in Wessex
with my models. Young farm hands are great
critics in their way, and once, when I had almost
finished a large picture with which I felt fairly well
satisfied, one of my models said to his companion,
‘Not sae bad, Bill, be un? But oor Jim Smith he
do paint bettr’n that. He painted the Oil of Wight
without as much as lookin’ at un ! ’
“ On another occasion an old labourer asked me
to paint a portrait of his ‘ old oornan ’ as large as
that, pointing to a 36 by 24 canvas. The amount

I was to receive in respect of this commission was
not to be ‘ more’n two-and-six ! ’
“ Our van,” said Mr. Whitehead, “ is frequently
taken for that of ‘ real gipsies ’ or of peregrinating
evangelists. Another somewhat amusing incident
occurred to me one day when I desired to paint an
interesting old doorway in the village of Hinton
St. Mary. As is my custom, I asked permission
of the occupier of the house, who, not understand-
ing what I wished to do, turned to her daughter
and asked, ‘What does un mean?’ The young
woman explained that I wanted to paint the door-
way in oil paint—although I wished to sit in the
garden to do it; and the old lady, at last having a
gleam of comprehension, exclaimed, ‘ Well, he can
do it if he’ll do it for nothin’. But I can’t be put
to no expense about it.’ I fear she was much dis-
appointed when she discovered her mistake.
“ I rarely paint a subject,” continued Mr. White-
head, “just as I find it, notwithstanding the fact
that many people well acquainted with the district
in which I delight to paint and wander speak of
my pictures as exactly like the places. One must
select; and it is just here that photography, to my
mind, fails, and always will fail, although I would
be the first to admit that many skilled workers show
so much artistic feeling in the photographs they