International studio (24.1904/1905(1905))

J. R. Weguelin

preference for fantasies which make no pretence of
being didactic or even serious, are all in the best
spirit of Paganism. If Mr. Weguelin had been a
contemporary of Horace, he and that attractive
worshipper of the bright side of existence would
most certainly have been intimates; there would
have been the strongest bond of sympathy between
them, and they would have rollicked together with
perfect contentment. But as he happens to belong
to an age which has forgotten how to enjoy itself
in the Horatian manner, he seeks instead to re-
create the world which his predecessor found so
pleasant and to people it with figures which would
have satisfied the fastidious taste of Horace himself.
Circumstances, beyond doubt, were in great
measure responsible for the development of Mr.
Weguelin’s particular preferences in art. He was
born—in 1849—at the village of South Stoke, near
Arundel, of which his father was rector, but several
years of his early boyhood were spent in Italy and
chiefly at Rome, so that during the most impres-
sionable period of his life he was brought into
very close contact with just what was needed to
fill him with a love for classic achievement. He
went, indeed, to the very fountain-head, and the
knowledge he imbibed there has guided him
rightly through all the effort of his later years.
Such surroundings to anyone of his temperament
could not fail to be permanently inspiring ; they
definitely determined his direction, and had upon
his character an influence which has certainly not
diminished with lapse of time.
He had no regular art training while he was
living in Italy—nothing, at all events, which could
be regarded as efficient preparation for the pro-
fession which he has followed since Some lessons
were given him by an Italian drawing master, but
these came abruptly to an end when the teacher
disappeared to join Garibaldi and was not heard
of again. He did not actually begin serious study
until he had arrived at the comparatively mature
age of twenty-two, when he became a student at
the Slade School, which was then—in 1871—under
the direction of the present head of the Royal
Academy, Sir Edward Poynter. From this sound
teacher Mr. Weguelin obtained just that strict drilling
in the principles of design and composition which he
needed to make his artisticconceptionsproperlyeffec-
tive, and he acquired then a grasp of his craft which
has never failed him since. He remained for some
years at the Slade School, and during the latter
part of his stay there was taught by Professor
Legros, who had succeeded Sir Edward Poynter in
the professorship.
194

His first appearance as an exhibiting artist was
made in 1875 or 1876, when he sent to the Dudley
Gallery a water-colour drawing called The Death of
the First-born. Oddly enough, though he has
since achieved such remarkable success as a water-
colour painter, he showed, after this first attempt,
nothing more in that medium for nearly twenty
years He devoted himself instead to oil painting;
and as about this time he fell strongly under the
influence of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, he began
the series of pictures which shows the extent of his
concession to pictorial archaeology. How far this
influence affected him can be judged from such an

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BY J. R. WEGUELIN