International studio (25.1905)

board may, at the hands of art, show a beauty as
apparent, and make a far more interesting picture.
This shows how ah depends on treatment; it opens
up, too, the wide discussion as to how far ugliness
of association mitigates the wresting of real beauty
from ugly things.
Mr. Monk's attitude towards his art is that of a
tentative scholar. He understands well how treat-
ment can give to an uninspiring subject an unusual
interest. The interesting lines of buildings, the
lines of scaffolding, the lights that windows receive
into their shadows, the significance of a black
object on the white background of a London
street, have for him the fuller meaning that the
trained adjustment of vision, which becomes

second nature with the artist, can give them.
But he has never allowed this to sever his con-
nection with that wider public who cannot go the
whole way with the artist, with the into
those curiosities of technique which grow out of a
trained or personal way of seeing, and which
selects from life only that which is necessary for
its own display. This is an attitude on the part of
Mr. Monk bred of a humility which prevents him
believing that the natural vision of man, with its
desire for completeness, can really be proved to
be entirely foolish by artistic sophistry. Yet his
attitude is, too, the outcome of an understanding
of those qualities of selection, of restraint, and
vivacity that place some of the best work of the
great etchers beyond the
appreciation which is to
be had from uncultivated
and indolent students of
these matters. Perhaps
because the artist has
not a scornful intolerance
of the natural as opposed
to the artistic man, and
yet is himself possessed
with the aims of art,
he has been enabled, in
scholarly and workman-
like etchings, to exer-
cise, with a certain amount
of confidence in the wider
public, his faculty of
selection and restraint,
and to respect the etcher's
technique without being
tempted into that art
which, content to exist for
its own sake, becomes,
for the ordinary person,
hieroglyphic.
For Mr. Monk the thing
that he has etched exists
for its own sake as well
as for the sake of his
picture; his subject-matter
does not resolve itself
for him merely into an
arrangement. The sub-
ject itself has attracted
him. The implements of
labour in the street, the
scaffolding, the figure of
Justice holding the scales
over the gateway, have


A COURT IN DRURY LANE"
34

FROM THE ETCHING BY W. MONK