International studio (23.1904)

A Cottage in the Country

During May a new art
departure was made in
Stirling, when the Artistic
Handicrafts Club held its
first exhibition. The prin-
cipal crafts represented were
repousse metal-work, china-
painting, painting on linen,
wood-staining, basket-work,
embroidery, and lace-work.
The most noteworthy ex-
hibits were those by Mrs.
Morley, Mrs. Gordon Watt,
Miss Algie, Miss Nellie Har-
vey, Miss Baker, Miss Mac-
farlane, and Miss Carter. view from front entrance m. h. baillie scott, architect


Regarding his own pictures it is difficult to get
Mr. Whitehead to speak, save in the most im-
personal manner. “ I am never satisfied ; seldom
even pleased with what I turn out. But,” with a
rather grim smile, “ it is fortunate for me that
many people are.”
If one were asked to indicate the distinguishing
features of his work, we should incline to the opinion
that they are strength of drawing, truthfulness to
the scene chosen—so far as is consistent with that
selective faculty which he places so highly amongst
the qualifications which should be possessed by a
landscape painter—and the great sympathy shown
by him with Nature’s varying moods. Most of his
pictures, too, have skies of great distinction : broad,
free, vigorous masses of cloud, although—as is
shown in his Frosty Mortiing, Morning Mist, and
similarly constituted pictures—the more delicate
and evanescent cloud effects and phases of Wessex
landscape are by no means neglected by him.
Regarding Mr. Whitehead’s gifts, a well-known art
critic wrote, near ten years ago, “ To me he appears
to catch the very soul of English landscape, with
all its tender greys and greens and poetic charm.”
Those who have had the opportunity of inspecting
many of his pictures will
probably find that this
opinion coincides with the
one at which they will after
due thought have arrived.
Most of the pictures re-
produced (with the excep-
tion of the etchings) are by
kind permission of their pre-
sent owners, to whom, for
such permission, we would
tender our best thanks.

COTTAGE IN THE COUNTRY
BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT.

The sketches which accompany this
article show the plans and some aspects of
a small summer dwelling recently designed for an
artist. On opening the front door—a door roughly
constructed of oaken planks and fitted with homely
metal work—one enters a passage wide and low,
where the grey-brown of timber, which, roughly
finished by the adze, seems to still retain some hint
of its woodland home, and to bear evidence to
human handicraft, is supplemented by cool spaces
of innocent whitewash and by the subtle variation
of grey tone in its stone-flagged floor. From the
cool shade of this low passage, one looks beyond
to the sunny, open space of a garden courtyard, and
beyond this through the vista of the pergola
bordered with flowers and roofed with leafage.
Through the leaded glazing of the screen which
forms one side of this passage, one obtains a hint
of the hall, which relies for its effect as the passage
does, on mere building. The modern tradition of
house building, which ends by making a room or a
passage a rectangular box lined with smooth