DOI issue:
No. 92 (October, 1904)
DOI article:Van der Veer, Lenore: The Artists' Society and the Langham Sketching Club
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26962#0386
The Langhcim Sketching Club
“the treasure
having a proper working studio with tall windows
to the north, and that the professional artist’s
model came into full being.
The Langham, for such it has now come to be
generally termed, is really responsible for the
finished product of the modern model; for
it started first as a seminary for artists, and
soon became a seminary for models as well.
During their little evenings of studying from the
“ rustic figure,” and later of their drawing from
the nude, they were slowly inaugurating another
accessory career to art—
in giving importance to the
part played in this work
by the models who posed
for them, and soon the
professional model came
to be an established fact.
The Langham has names
on its books of models who,
because of their associa-
tion with famous painters,
have just right to distinction
themselves. Some forty
years ago there died in
London one of their old
models, who had sat to
Sir Joshua Reynolds. It
matters little that it was
for his painting of the
Infant Hercules. Suffi-
cient for us that he had
sat to the first great Pre-
sident of our Royal
288
Academy and the greatest
of English masters. But
this model’s life stretches
over the most important
period in English painting.
He was an accessory figure
on the stage of art at the
time when Reynolds and
Gainsborough, and Romney
and Etty and Lawrence and
Raeburn were playing their
parts for the pride of all
time. He saw the slow
rising of Whistler’s star,
and he left the world at
the time when the artistic
trend seemed likely to
become mediaeval with the
BY GEO. H. EDWARDS
advent of Burne-Jones.
This model had no small
stock of art knowledge—indeed, it is the special
privilege of models to pick up much general infor-
mation in their close associations with artists during
their working hours. The small talk of painters is in
itself a whole technique of art criticism, and, more-
over, the model sees the artist in his moments of
inspiration and in his most desperate hours, and
has, should he care to give open expression to it,
a much clearer grasp of the personality of the man
with the palette than the most interested public
can ever hope to secure. He has been behind
t "r-g;, —
I -'Mi--
A- t) feivi _ 0 ■
1 LEAP FROG
BY ARTHUR RACKHAM
“the treasure
having a proper working studio with tall windows
to the north, and that the professional artist’s
model came into full being.
The Langham, for such it has now come to be
generally termed, is really responsible for the
finished product of the modern model; for
it started first as a seminary for artists, and
soon became a seminary for models as well.
During their little evenings of studying from the
“ rustic figure,” and later of their drawing from
the nude, they were slowly inaugurating another
accessory career to art—
in giving importance to the
part played in this work
by the models who posed
for them, and soon the
professional model came
to be an established fact.
The Langham has names
on its books of models who,
because of their associa-
tion with famous painters,
have just right to distinction
themselves. Some forty
years ago there died in
London one of their old
models, who had sat to
Sir Joshua Reynolds. It
matters little that it was
for his painting of the
Infant Hercules. Suffi-
cient for us that he had
sat to the first great Pre-
sident of our Royal
288
Academy and the greatest
of English masters. But
this model’s life stretches
over the most important
period in English painting.
He was an accessory figure
on the stage of art at the
time when Reynolds and
Gainsborough, and Romney
and Etty and Lawrence and
Raeburn were playing their
parts for the pride of all
time. He saw the slow
rising of Whistler’s star,
and he left the world at
the time when the artistic
trend seemed likely to
become mediaeval with the
BY GEO. H. EDWARDS
advent of Burne-Jones.
This model had no small
stock of art knowledge—indeed, it is the special
privilege of models to pick up much general infor-
mation in their close associations with artists during
their working hours. The small talk of painters is in
itself a whole technique of art criticism, and, more-
over, the model sees the artist in his moments of
inspiration and in his most desperate hours, and
has, should he care to give open expression to it,
a much clearer grasp of the personality of the man
with the palette than the most interested public
can ever hope to secure. He has been behind
t "r-g;, —
I -'Mi--
A- t) feivi _ 0 ■
1 LEAP FROG
BY ARTHUR RACKHAM