International studio (30.1906/1907(1907))

Modern Decorative Art at Glasgow


PENCIL DRAWING : WHITBY

box to paint what must of necessity be unfamiliar,
but draw it, and in the process of drawing you
will have learnt so much of the peculiarities of the
district that you will be able to paint with greater
freedom and confidence. As an aid to the painter,
pencil-drawing is invaluable, and I am sure that
the artist who does not pay any heed to this means
of obtaining knowledge, and this discipline of his
hand and brain, can never really be of the first
order.
Go to the National Gallery and see the pencil
drawings by Turner : note
how he observes the salient
features of the scene he
draws, sometimes empha-
sising them with a wash of
colour. See the drawings
of Claude, how he has
trained himself in the di-
rection of a high sense of
style; and you will see in
David Cox, Rousseau and
others the value they placed
upon the use of drawing
from nature. The drawings
of Turner, Claude, and other
great landscape painters are
more interesting when you
associate them with the
primal factor which char-
acterises their pictures.
Pencil-drawing teaches us
to see at once what are

the leading characteristics
of the material, and rapidly
select what is essential for
our purpose. Sketching
with the point, like sketch-
ing from nature with colour,
forces one to see quickly
and appreciate at once the
big facts of nature ; it
disciplines the hand to
such an extent that one
learns to love the point
with the same enthusiasm
as the brush. There is a
delight in feeling that the
hand is a willing servant
of the mind, doing its bid-
ding without hesitation,
whether it be in the closest
analytical study of detail
or in the rapid drawing of
hundreds of miles of cumulus clouds.
Alfred East.

BY ALFRED EAST, A.R.A.

M

ODERN DECORATIVE ART
AT GLASGOW. SOME NOTES
ON MISS CRANSTON’S
ARGYLE STREET TEA HOUSE,
BY J. TAYLOR.
Nowhere has the modern movement in art been
entered upon more seriously than at Glasgow : the

PENCIL DRAWING : RINGWOOD

BY ALFRED EAST, A.R.A.
31