DOI Heft:
Nr. 106 (December, 1905)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: The illustrated books and paintings of W. Graham Robertson
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26961#0144
IV. Graham Robertson
fancy far more than in many an elaborate canvas.
The drawing is carried far enough in it to lead our
imagination captive; if this doesn’t prove any-
thing eise it proves that as a work of art it is finished.
“Finished” is probably the word more often mis-
understood than any other in artistic language. If
one accepts art to mean something much more than
the imposition upon our senses of mere skill, then
one accepts only that art as finished which has
delivered its message, in the sense that it has
completely engaged our imaginative sympathy.
As far as he carries it, Mr. Graham Robertson’s
art is in a sense perfected. We shall appreciate its
value best by going with the artist to the sources
that have afforded him his happy inspiration. Let
us take his illustrations to the Songs of Old Canada.
Canada, in the light of this book, is a very much
misunderstood place. We are accustomed to
think of it as if there never coulcl have been any
old songs or anything eise that is not recent
belonging to it. It seems a very new and perhaps
a rather tedious continent, where the emigrant
ships transport their prisoners—a country cold
for lack of the associations that make old countries
sacred and make them homely for their in-
habitants, so that even the infinite sky is looked
to as to a friendly ceiling. In the new continent
romance is not born : those who look to the sky
look to a friendless infinity. These French songs,
whilst reminding us that the French with their
domestic genius hate a new world and cannot
colonise, remind us too that the earlier settlements
they made in the new land were places where they
saved to themselves the memory of their gracious
and romantic France.
Red and white the garden roses
To my father’s house I bore them,
Hard by Rouen dwelleth he
(Fair are thy roses, white rose tree'.
Silent stood the house and lonely,
None to hear and none Io see
(Rose of the roses),
None to hear and none to see
(Fair are thy roses, white rose tree).
LA DAME'AU PAVOT”
BY W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON
The bürden of these songs
is a half realised home-sick-
ness, wrhich is too sacred for
more obvious expression than
it finds in these simple songs.
These have the imperishable
beauty of art, for beauty
outlives everything and re-
rnains to art. It might be
said that art is always a regret,
for it is beauty saved from
life, life passing all too
rapidly. It overtakes what is
beautiful in each monrent,
and turns it into a lasting
thing. In a few bars of music
a thousand living moments
that we had thought dead
are restored to us. Some
such captivation of the
essence of things is also the
basis of good illustration.
Those who teil us that books
should not be illustrated
must fail to understand this.
Admitting the evil powers of
indifferent illustrative work,
xoo
fancy far more than in many an elaborate canvas.
The drawing is carried far enough in it to lead our
imagination captive; if this doesn’t prove any-
thing eise it proves that as a work of art it is finished.
“Finished” is probably the word more often mis-
understood than any other in artistic language. If
one accepts art to mean something much more than
the imposition upon our senses of mere skill, then
one accepts only that art as finished which has
delivered its message, in the sense that it has
completely engaged our imaginative sympathy.
As far as he carries it, Mr. Graham Robertson’s
art is in a sense perfected. We shall appreciate its
value best by going with the artist to the sources
that have afforded him his happy inspiration. Let
us take his illustrations to the Songs of Old Canada.
Canada, in the light of this book, is a very much
misunderstood place. We are accustomed to
think of it as if there never coulcl have been any
old songs or anything eise that is not recent
belonging to it. It seems a very new and perhaps
a rather tedious continent, where the emigrant
ships transport their prisoners—a country cold
for lack of the associations that make old countries
sacred and make them homely for their in-
habitants, so that even the infinite sky is looked
to as to a friendly ceiling. In the new continent
romance is not born : those who look to the sky
look to a friendless infinity. These French songs,
whilst reminding us that the French with their
domestic genius hate a new world and cannot
colonise, remind us too that the earlier settlements
they made in the new land were places where they
saved to themselves the memory of their gracious
and romantic France.
Red and white the garden roses
To my father’s house I bore them,
Hard by Rouen dwelleth he
(Fair are thy roses, white rose tree'.
Silent stood the house and lonely,
None to hear and none Io see
(Rose of the roses),
None to hear and none to see
(Fair are thy roses, white rose tree).
LA DAME'AU PAVOT”
BY W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON
The bürden of these songs
is a half realised home-sick-
ness, wrhich is too sacred for
more obvious expression than
it finds in these simple songs.
These have the imperishable
beauty of art, for beauty
outlives everything and re-
rnains to art. It might be
said that art is always a regret,
for it is beauty saved from
life, life passing all too
rapidly. It overtakes what is
beautiful in each monrent,
and turns it into a lasting
thing. In a few bars of music
a thousand living moments
that we had thought dead
are restored to us. Some
such captivation of the
essence of things is also the
basis of good illustration.
Those who teil us that books
should not be illustrated
must fail to understand this.
Admitting the evil powers of
indifferent illustrative work,
xoo