International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

John Hassall

from any ends to which it is devoted that occu-
pies our attention here. More than any other
artist who has devoted himself to poster work,
Mr. Hassall has reduced the art to the simplest
terms for the purposes of printing and for instan-
taneous effect on the spectator. The Beggarstaff
Brothers often carried simplicity to a point beyond
the grasp of the ordinary spectator, expecting him
to track their line through its mysteriously-suggested
course. Now Mr. Hassall likes to give everybody
plain sailing and he doesn’t affect any subtleties; if
anything it is to the other extreme to which he
goes, he doesn’t let us forget the definite Controlling
outline, however spontaneous the action of his
figures. As good an example as we may see of his
poster work at its very best is the unpublished
advertisement for tobacco—with the stone breaker
sitting on the heap of stones. The character-study


“THE WITCIl” BY JOHN HASSALL

in the man’s face, his attitude significant of tired
strength, in themselves are a notable arlistic achieve-
ment. That which could only have been, one
would have thought, retained in a spontaneous
sketch, is here contained by lines that nowhere
shirk explanation of detail, and which retain that
convincing sense of finish which implies a selection
in its simplicity of lines impulsively found as
essential ones in the first sketch. It would be
difficult to eite a better example than this of Mr.
Hassall’s achievement. There is perhaps an incli-
nation not to value such a drawing as this as
highly as it should be. In these days when little
drawings are lithographed and numbered and no
end of pains taken to give them the value of
rarity to make them valuable to collectors,
in the hopes that years hence collectors will be
clinging to them, art such as this which is flung up on
to a board in every corner of the Street is in
no danger of excessive recognition. We get
too used to the good in it. But in a few
generations other things will be in its place,
and collectors will be trying to find these
things, artistically so characteristic of an
age that did everything with a certain noisy
despair. Mr. Hassall will take his place
then as typically representative of poster art
at the beginning of the twentieth Century,
and whatever the future of that art is, it will,
we cannot help thinking, be considered
characteristic and a living thing as populär art
of the time.
It is too early to predict what triumphs
the future holds for Mr. Hassall as a painter,
now that he is beginning to devote his atten-
tion closer topaint. In his paintings he has
not kicked away the ladder by which he
came; carried a little farther his methods are
identical with those in evidence in his
posters, and the same type of drawing is their
characteristic. Most of his paintings are
made in water-colour, which might almost
be said to be the medium in which artisti-
cally he thinks, and he displays in many of
his later paintings comprehension of its
resources, which is a distinctive feature of
his work. In his hands it assumes qualities
of depth and strength that are not frequently
found, and it is probably his manipulation
of deep and bold washes for his posters that
has given to his water-colour this strength.
There is little that is feminine, tentative, or
delicate anywhere in Mr. Hassall’s work.
Instead, his skill exhibits a breezy manliness.

20 x