DOI Heft:
Nr. 126 (August 1907)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The paintings of Mr. Charles Sims
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28252#0113
Charles Sims
“THE VINE”
whatever he felt to be necessary for explaining the
character and significance of the incident depicted.
Through the whole of the work he has so far
produced the dominance of his temperament can
be clearly perceived; but in asserting this tem-
perament he has not, as painters with a strong
personality often do, warped facts into formal
agreement with a rigid preconception. He is
plainly most impressionable, most ready to see
and adopt what nature has to suggest; but he has
too much self-control, and perhaps too much self-
confidence, to allow these suggestions to create
any uncertainty in his mind. They guide him,
but they do not take possession of him so effec-
tually that he forgets his own personal artistic
purpose.
It is interesting, in proof of this, to compare
some of his more realistic canvases—like Water
Babies or The Nest, for instance—with such full-
blooded fantasies as The Vine and The Island
Festival, and to see how logically he has worked
out what he believes to be the object of his art.
The difference, after all, is only one of degree; it
is only a matter of expression. In his simpler pic-
tures he uses nature with more readiness to be
satisfied just with what she provides. In his
more complicated pictorial arrangements he selects
and adapts, never denying her authority, and never
going contrary to her teaching, but choosing out of
what she offers only so much as he requires to
BY CHARLES SIMS
perfect his design. It would not be easy to find
among modern artists one who better understands
the right application of naturalism, or who sees
more shrewdly how nature study will help to make
imaginative work credible.
But in estimating the value of his work full
credit must also be given him for his skill as a
craftsman. His pictures have no less authority as
technical achievements than as able and ingenious
inventions. He has been very soundly trained,
and he has obviously known how to profit by the
teaching he has received. His education began in
1890 at South Kensington, but in 1891 he went to
Paris and worked under Benjamin Constant and
Lefebvre, and in 1893 he entered the Royal
Academy Schools, where he remained for two
years. Since then he has added to his experiences,
for in 1903 he returned to Paris and studied for a
while under Baschet. The use he has made of
these varied educational opportunities is well re-
flected in the work he has done. He has become
an accomplished draughtsman and a facile painter,
free from either pedantry of manner or executive
carelessness. Ease of expression he has un-
doubtedly, but it is the ease that comes from a
thorough grounding in the necessary rudiments of
the painter’s craft, and from knowledge of the way
in which mechanical details can be controlled, and
can be made responsive to the artist’s intentions.
One other point must be noted—his freedom
97
“THE VINE”
whatever he felt to be necessary for explaining the
character and significance of the incident depicted.
Through the whole of the work he has so far
produced the dominance of his temperament can
be clearly perceived; but in asserting this tem-
perament he has not, as painters with a strong
personality often do, warped facts into formal
agreement with a rigid preconception. He is
plainly most impressionable, most ready to see
and adopt what nature has to suggest; but he has
too much self-control, and perhaps too much self-
confidence, to allow these suggestions to create
any uncertainty in his mind. They guide him,
but they do not take possession of him so effec-
tually that he forgets his own personal artistic
purpose.
It is interesting, in proof of this, to compare
some of his more realistic canvases—like Water
Babies or The Nest, for instance—with such full-
blooded fantasies as The Vine and The Island
Festival, and to see how logically he has worked
out what he believes to be the object of his art.
The difference, after all, is only one of degree; it
is only a matter of expression. In his simpler pic-
tures he uses nature with more readiness to be
satisfied just with what she provides. In his
more complicated pictorial arrangements he selects
and adapts, never denying her authority, and never
going contrary to her teaching, but choosing out of
what she offers only so much as he requires to
BY CHARLES SIMS
perfect his design. It would not be easy to find
among modern artists one who better understands
the right application of naturalism, or who sees
more shrewdly how nature study will help to make
imaginative work credible.
But in estimating the value of his work full
credit must also be given him for his skill as a
craftsman. His pictures have no less authority as
technical achievements than as able and ingenious
inventions. He has been very soundly trained,
and he has obviously known how to profit by the
teaching he has received. His education began in
1890 at South Kensington, but in 1891 he went to
Paris and worked under Benjamin Constant and
Lefebvre, and in 1893 he entered the Royal
Academy Schools, where he remained for two
years. Since then he has added to his experiences,
for in 1903 he returned to Paris and studied for a
while under Baschet. The use he has made of
these varied educational opportunities is well re-
flected in the work he has done. He has become
an accomplished draughtsman and a facile painter,
free from either pedantry of manner or executive
carelessness. Ease of expression he has un-
doubtedly, but it is the ease that comes from a
thorough grounding in the necessary rudiments of
the painter’s craft, and from knowledge of the way
in which mechanical details can be controlled, and
can be made responsive to the artist’s intentions.
One other point must be noted—his freedom
97