International studio (25.1905)

'THE PRECARIOUS STREET

FROM AN ETCHING BY W. MONK

had significance for him apart from the artistic.
This may or may not give added worth to a picture ;
it is a thing persona! to the artist, and to ourselves,
if we !ook for the human element in art. Mr. Monk
does not work in the frame of mind that wou!d
enable him to approach Oxford as a beautifu!
arrangement of buildings apart from the city's
associations. He has not that cold artistic analysis
which sometimes benefits a work of art by the fact
of the artist being open only to one impression—
that of outward beauty apart from the association
of ideas.
Whilst sensitive to associations, his art is very
synthetic, and but little realism enters into the
quality of his line. Everything that comes in

under his needle sur-
renders its surface quality
for the sake of uniform
quality in the etched
line. The nearest ap-
proach we have to an
absolute realism is in
and
yet there it is only the
lines drawn close together
in the engines that give
it this appearance. The
apparent realism here will
be found on examination
not, after all, to be one
of treatment, but one
only of value, the value
of the dark engines on
the white road being
rightly observed. The
observance of this is
probably the whole reason
for the etching, and yet
the interest of an incident
familiar to those who
live in the city enters
unconsciously into our
analysis of the subject.
We are almost un
consciously interested in
the human industry
which with such slight
drawing finds expres-
sion here. A building
covered with advertise-
ments may not strike
everyone that passes
with its artistic effect;
it will be an effect
that will come home to the reader with added
emphasis when passing some building decorated
in this way, retaining the while in his memory
Mr. Monk's etching called We
may be swept by some such effect day after day
and never know it; we may gaze at it, read it,
think of it, and never think of its beauty until we
are shown it by art. Then every time we go by
again we renew in our minds a picture that gives
us pleasure; we translate it for ourselves into the
colours someone's art has lent it, into the lines his
drawing has given to it. Mr. Monk's work through-
out is characterised by an unassuming and restrained
technique which avoids any appearance of shallow
facility. T. MARTIN Woon.

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