DOI issue:
No. 120 (February, 1907)
DOI article:Wood, T. Martin: Drawings and sketches by modern masters
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28250#0353
Drawings and Sketches by Moaern Masters
from the exaggerations of a later period. The
drawing of the head and the head-dress, the mass-
ing of the hair, all display that sense of beauty
and feeling for balance and proportion which were
instinctive with him. The face is a portrait of his
wife. The hands hold one of those curious instru-
ments which Rossetti delighted to invent.
It is strange to contrast this artist’s indwelling
mind with that of Whistler, his contemporary and
friend. The little drawings which we give by
Whistler are typical of his butterfly manner of
approaching Art, of moving in it lightly from one
flower to another, arrested here and there by a
revelation of beauty—of a mind finding rest in pur-
suit, and escaping from one mood to another with
ease. And this is more apparent in his drawings
and lithographs perhaps than in his paintings,
where he returns so often to the motif of the river.
Rossetti rarely drew with any seriousness the life
and people that accident arranged around him; the
notable exception to this is his famous sketch of
Tennyson reading “ Maud.” But Whistler
always desired to give expression to his
subtly observant mind. It is said that a
sheet of white paper could not be left
beside him but his fingers longed to
decorate it with pictures of people and
things in the room. Excepting the pastel
supplement, the drawings of his which
we reproduce came into existence on
a sheet of note paper in this sponta-
neous way. The direction which his
work took in his drawings, his etchings,
and lithographs, this responsiveness to
the outward and changing aspect of
things, foreshadowed itself early in the
sketches with which as a military pupil
he embroidered maps and plans before
he entered that antagonistic world of art
with battle plans of a more recondite
kind than those required in any army.
In the drawing by M. Rodin which
we reproduce, the objectiveness, the
roundness of the human form, as we
should expect in the drawings of a sculp-
tor, are keenly felt. Rodin’s drawing
suggests something which is tangibly
present, not, as in Whistler’s case, some-
thing which for the moment’s enjoyment
he let his eyes rest upon. The trace of
classicism in the Rodin drawing serves
to introduce too the name of Leighton,
whose work may indeed serve as a symbol
of all that is the very antithesis of
Whistler’s art, for Leighton was one of those
designers who arrange a tableau courting a sub-
jective beauty. Whistler, for his subject, looked
out of the window or into the room. Leighton
arranged something. Modern English art owes
much to Prof. Legros, who has guarded, as far as
in him lay, the traditions of the scholarship of
drawing; his work forms a link with the purer
aims of earlier art. In this mission he has several
disciples, amongst them Mr. C. H. Shannon,
though that artist in his lithographs and drawings
sometimes seems to waver between enjoyment of
Nature and the pedantry of conscious Art. What
at first seems like affectation in his work, proves
in the end not to be so. We can detect many
influences without finding the insincerity of imita-
tion. The past of Art is a stimulant to him, for
its influence upon him is imaginative, affecting
him only less than Nature.
Our illustrations include a profile study by Mr.
L. Alma-Tadema, R.A., of purity and delicacy of
PORTRAIT STUDY BY PROFESSOR A. LEGROS
(By permission of Hugh Lane, Esq.)
339
from the exaggerations of a later period. The
drawing of the head and the head-dress, the mass-
ing of the hair, all display that sense of beauty
and feeling for balance and proportion which were
instinctive with him. The face is a portrait of his
wife. The hands hold one of those curious instru-
ments which Rossetti delighted to invent.
It is strange to contrast this artist’s indwelling
mind with that of Whistler, his contemporary and
friend. The little drawings which we give by
Whistler are typical of his butterfly manner of
approaching Art, of moving in it lightly from one
flower to another, arrested here and there by a
revelation of beauty—of a mind finding rest in pur-
suit, and escaping from one mood to another with
ease. And this is more apparent in his drawings
and lithographs perhaps than in his paintings,
where he returns so often to the motif of the river.
Rossetti rarely drew with any seriousness the life
and people that accident arranged around him; the
notable exception to this is his famous sketch of
Tennyson reading “ Maud.” But Whistler
always desired to give expression to his
subtly observant mind. It is said that a
sheet of white paper could not be left
beside him but his fingers longed to
decorate it with pictures of people and
things in the room. Excepting the pastel
supplement, the drawings of his which
we reproduce came into existence on
a sheet of note paper in this sponta-
neous way. The direction which his
work took in his drawings, his etchings,
and lithographs, this responsiveness to
the outward and changing aspect of
things, foreshadowed itself early in the
sketches with which as a military pupil
he embroidered maps and plans before
he entered that antagonistic world of art
with battle plans of a more recondite
kind than those required in any army.
In the drawing by M. Rodin which
we reproduce, the objectiveness, the
roundness of the human form, as we
should expect in the drawings of a sculp-
tor, are keenly felt. Rodin’s drawing
suggests something which is tangibly
present, not, as in Whistler’s case, some-
thing which for the moment’s enjoyment
he let his eyes rest upon. The trace of
classicism in the Rodin drawing serves
to introduce too the name of Leighton,
whose work may indeed serve as a symbol
of all that is the very antithesis of
Whistler’s art, for Leighton was one of those
designers who arrange a tableau courting a sub-
jective beauty. Whistler, for his subject, looked
out of the window or into the room. Leighton
arranged something. Modern English art owes
much to Prof. Legros, who has guarded, as far as
in him lay, the traditions of the scholarship of
drawing; his work forms a link with the purer
aims of earlier art. In this mission he has several
disciples, amongst them Mr. C. H. Shannon,
though that artist in his lithographs and drawings
sometimes seems to waver between enjoyment of
Nature and the pedantry of conscious Art. What
at first seems like affectation in his work, proves
in the end not to be so. We can detect many
influences without finding the insincerity of imita-
tion. The past of Art is a stimulant to him, for
its influence upon him is imaginative, affecting
him only less than Nature.
Our illustrations include a profile study by Mr.
L. Alma-Tadema, R.A., of purity and delicacy of
PORTRAIT STUDY BY PROFESSOR A. LEGROS
(By permission of Hugh Lane, Esq.)
339