International studio (32.1907)

E. A. Hornel

collection, of Hornel’s Summer. Such splendour of
originality should have secured him a lifetime of
neglect and derision ; he has made no concessions,
yet here he is, comparatively young, and recognised
far and wide, bought and admired. Even his pen-
chant for children as subjects does not explain it, for
he despises the conventions of grace and prettiness
that surely touch the popular heart. There is
nothing the true Briton loves better on canvas than
a child—unless it be a horse or a dog—but it must
conform more or less to his ideals, which are not
Hornel’s. He paints the gamins of Kirkcudbright
as Murillo painted those of Seville, with the un-
compromising fidelity not of the satirist but of the
true nature-lover, for whom the unkempt, ragged
urchin concerned in the manufacture of mud-pies
is lovelier than the daintiest suburban miss in pink
muslin and artificial curls. There are still many
who turn in disgust from those frank records of
peasant children with faces lovely as rose-petals,
but oh, so unconventional ’ However, these are no

“AUTUMN’

longer in a majority, and Hornel may be regarded
as safely “arrived,” although he has not, like his
old-time comrade, Mr. George Henry, been stamped
with the Royal Academy’s hallmark. But that
distinction is not likely to come to one who recks
little of academies and societies, avoids London,
and regards even familiar Glasgow as a place to
be visited as seldom as possible.

Glasgow responds by believing implicitly in
Hornel; and Liverpool, which gave him his first
formal recognition by the purchase of Summer in
1892, is no less appreciative. Again, in 1904, it
bought one of his pictures, The Captive Butterfly,
for the city’s permanent collection ; and nobody
thought of objecting. Other public galleries in
which pictures by Hornel have a place are those
of Leeds, Bradford, Rochdale, Bury, Brighouse,
Toronto, Buffalo, U.S.A., and Ghent.

To look back at the newspaper records of the
Hornel dispute in 1892 helps one to realise the
progress made since then towards catholicity in
artistic judgment. The
papers were full of all
sorts of opinions, chiefly
hostile and contemptuous;
the recommendation to
buy Summer was referred
back by the City Council
to the Art Gallery Com-
mittee, and only Mr. Philip
Rathbone’s stubborn be-
lief in his opinion saved
the situation. It was
complicated by the opposi-
tion of Alderman Edward
Samuelson, Mr. Rath-
bone’s predecessor as
Chairman of the Art
Gallery Committee, to
whom, emerging from his
retirement in the Conway
Valley, the newer mani-
festations of art were start-
lingly and displeasingly
discordant with his mid-
Victorian ideals. His pro-
tests provoked a violent
attack in “The Speaker”
by Mr. George Moore,
who proved to his own
satisfaction that “ The
Alderman in Art ” was
almost as deadly as
by E. a. hornel “The Royal Academician