International studio (24.1904/1905(1905))

C. H. Shannon's Lithographs

sometimes seem to contain a challenge as to whether
we would have held his hand to accuracy at the
expense of those hardly divined inner motives.
In the drawing entitled The Three Sisters
we cannot help sharing some of the delight that
must have gone into the drawing of the dark case
against the white of the rest of the picture. From
his memory of an effect the artist has set this scene,
at once one of the most beautiful and one of the
least attractive of his lithographs. There is some
ugliness in its composition, yet in its massing of dark
against grey and grey against white, and in the deli-
cacy of suggested detail, it goes beyond the other
drawings here illustrated. In the outlines and the
folds of the sleeves of the bending figure one feels
that the quality of the drawing goes about as far
as it can be taken—further, indeed, than it has
been taken at any time in the particular modern
quality of sensitiveness.
Albeit, the figure in itself
is not beautiful, and its
action is not one of grace.
It is easy to forestall the
criticism of anyone who
is quite matter-of-fact as
regards this drawing, as to
the improbability of the
positions of the figures and
of their environment: such
critics are welcome to their
trivial standpoint, perfectly
sound and justifiable so far
as it goes — which is a
very little way, not far
enough to reach any remote
conception of the unreal
spirit in which the artist so
often works with such a
show of realism. The
sympathetic quality of the
drawing of the nude before
the small round mirror is a
revelation of Mr. Shannon’s
art; in it one is made aware
of the appreciation of subtle
and moving form with
which he draws those
nudes of his with their
delicate and fragile beauty.
It is apparent how with his
chalk he has, as it were,
caressed the drawing, re-
turning to go over the
never rigid outline, as a
3o

musician would strike a note a second time to
hear again its pleasant sound.
A description of the lithograph entitled The Shell
Gatherers is not to be embarked upon; more than
any other it claims to be approached in the spirit
in which it was conceived. Full of meaning and
of beauty as it is, it has not so transparent and
tangible a perfection as some of his other works.
There is about it a certain mood of symbolism,
emotional rather than intellectual. Fortunately the
symbolism of some Pre-Raphaelism, bordering as
it does at times upon the Sunday puzzle, does not
menace the charm of Mr. Shannon’s art. Partly
its charm lies in its elusiveness—a quality which
places it with those high arts understood by the few;
the few who, arriving at their knowledge after
a long journey, or born themselves with incomplete
genius, fall under the spell, having all else


NO. 2. THE STONE BATH SERIES FROM THE LITHOGRAPH BY C. H. SHANNON