International studio (24.1904/1905(1905))

Frederick Sandys

whole range of art. To all great artists children
have been strangely inspiring, and for Sandys they
would seem to have had many attractions. Not
for him are the little airs and graces that point to
an artificial and premature development, not for
him the eyes of adult coquetry in a baby’s face, the
false charm of Greuze; to him they are sincere and
natural creatures, now dainty, now full of the un-
conscious joy of life, and he drew them wide-eyed
in a world of wonder, happy and unspoiled.
These drawings of his must not be confounded
with pastels. There is no similarity between them
and the work of Russell, for instance; but if we
seek in the art of older days for something analogous
we shall find it in the drawings of Holbein, of
Clouet of Dumoustrier. They are drawings in
chalk, and the method employed was described by
the artist himself. He said : “ In making a chalk
portrait I first faintly outline
the features, and then, very
lightly, with cotton wool, I put
on a flat, even tint over the
whole face. It is something
like a flat wash in water-
colours, only there is a little
more colour. Then only do
I begin to work up the
features, with black and an
ordinary red chalk only.” It
will be evident that the result
is not a flesh-and-blood simili-
tude of the sitter. What
Sandys aimed at, and what he
attained, was a true likeness
conveyed by means of a con-
vention at once beautiful in
itself and charming in its re-
sults. For a number of years
he produced these portraits,
and his subjects ranged from
Matthew Arnold to John
Richard Green, from Marie
Meredith to Jean Palmer,
from Henry Graves to Alfred
Tennyson; one of the most
interesting of those executed
in later years being a charac-
teristically veracious present-
ment of the well-known sculp-
tor Percy Wood, which shows
him adorned with the eagle’s
feather and other accessories
incidental to his rank as a
chief of North American

Indians; this chiefship being a unique honour con-
ferred on the sculptor by the Indians themselves in
recognition of the skill with which he recorded
their traits and their outward seeming in imperish-
able bronze, and in appreciation too, one suspects,
of his sympathetic outlook and genial attitude to all
men. A wonderful series are these drawings of
Sandys, and if they could be displayed together in
some gallery there is little doubt as to the chorus of
applause that would greet them. They are searching,
almost unrelenting, in their drawing, exquisitely
seen and handled, and as far removed from the
trivial as from the fantastic; though thoroughly de-
finite and detailed, they are not in the least
“niggled” or tight—in short, they are beautiful
examples of the draughtsman’s art, learned,
accomplished, and effortless.
In the same category as these portraits must be

BY FREDERICK SANDYS
(By permission of Messrs. Laurie Sf Co.)

!5