The Alexander Young Collection—-II. The Daubignys.




“a misty landscape’

BY C. F. DAUBIGNY

was occasionally uneven, but his most charac- charm which have gained for him a host ot
teristic examples—those by which we prefer to admirers and proclaim his individuality. Tech-
judge him—have an inherent attractiveness and nically, he was better equipped than any of
his confreres, and to the
artist the study of his work
would be a constant source
of assistance were he not so
seldom seen in the public
galleries.
To those who are not
very familiar with his work
the pictures by his hand
in Mr. Alexander Young’s
collection must come as
a revelation, and, as we
have already said, nowhere
else could he be seen to
anything like the same
advantage. The works of
Daubigny had a remark-
able attraction for Mr.
Young, and amongst the
fifty or sixty he acquired
were some of the finest
examples of the various
phases of his art. Many
of them were executed
during his best period,
between i860 and 1874,
after he had overcome the
defects which appear in
some of his earlier works,
and when his remarkable
powers were fully deve-
loped. His simplicity of
method, his breadth and
freedom of execution, his
fine feeling for tone values,
his spontaneity and direct-
ness are well exemplified
in this splendid series of
pictures.
From a purely decorative
point of view, perhaps the
finest Daubigny in the
collection is The Willow
Trees (page 99). It is
not altogether typical of
the artist’s best-known style,
but it possesses qualities
which mark it as a great
achievement. There is a
certain bigness and spon-
; inundation ” by c. f. daubigny taneity about the compos1-

“sunset”

BY C. F. DAUBIGNY

IOO