DOI issue:
No. 129 (November, 1907)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28253#0082
Studio-Talk
“THE GAME OF HEN AND CHICKENS”
of his work—work which is lyrical rather than
dramatic, and which is characterised by simplicity and
spontaneity, and by a deep and abiding sympathy.
Mr. Russell has a vivid sense of the mystery and
charm of Irish landscape, and his delicate percep-
tion is expressed in fluent colour phrases, in designs
that tremble with a frail beauty. His pictures are
haunting melodies in colour that embody the fleet-
ing expressions of blue mountains as they rise above
dim lakes, the inner radiance that glows beneath
the earth and sea, that hidden beauty, which, to
the poet, shines through
the garment of the actual
and seems to emerge from
the bare brown ridges with
their walls of loose stones,
from the dark pools set in
the midst of wide heather
fields, from the stretches
of lonely sea-shore over
which an eternal silence
seems to brood. Much
of the charm of Mr. Rus-
sell’s work comes from the
element of design in it.
In all his landscapes,
however slight in treat-
ment, one is conscious of
this quality of design as
a positive force. And
while, like many modern
artists, Mr. Russell is
chiefly concerned with his
interpretation of nature and
66
hardly at all with a realistic
presentation of it, he has
yet achieved something
which realist and impres-
sionist alike often miss—he
has succeeded in transfer-
ring to his canvases some-
thing of the evanescent
and mysterious beauty, so
elusive and yet so distinc-
tive, which clothes the hill-
sides of his native land.
E. D.
VIENNA. —A few
months ago the
art-world suffered
a heavy blow by
the death of Wilhelm
Bernatzik, one of Austria’s most prominent artists
of the modern school. The deceased painter was
one of the original founders of the Vienna Seces-
sion, and he was also among those who joined the
seceders from this body when the split was brought
about. After that event the artist lived a quiet
secluded life in the midst of his work, so much
so that often his friends neither saw nor heard
anything of him for months together. The recent
exhibition of his works at the Miethke Gallery
was arranged by his fellow seceders (that is the
Klimt Group, as they are now called), out of
“ IN DONEGAL
BY GEORGE RUSSELL
“THE GAME OF HEN AND CHICKENS”
of his work—work which is lyrical rather than
dramatic, and which is characterised by simplicity and
spontaneity, and by a deep and abiding sympathy.
Mr. Russell has a vivid sense of the mystery and
charm of Irish landscape, and his delicate percep-
tion is expressed in fluent colour phrases, in designs
that tremble with a frail beauty. His pictures are
haunting melodies in colour that embody the fleet-
ing expressions of blue mountains as they rise above
dim lakes, the inner radiance that glows beneath
the earth and sea, that hidden beauty, which, to
the poet, shines through
the garment of the actual
and seems to emerge from
the bare brown ridges with
their walls of loose stones,
from the dark pools set in
the midst of wide heather
fields, from the stretches
of lonely sea-shore over
which an eternal silence
seems to brood. Much
of the charm of Mr. Rus-
sell’s work comes from the
element of design in it.
In all his landscapes,
however slight in treat-
ment, one is conscious of
this quality of design as
a positive force. And
while, like many modern
artists, Mr. Russell is
chiefly concerned with his
interpretation of nature and
66
hardly at all with a realistic
presentation of it, he has
yet achieved something
which realist and impres-
sionist alike often miss—he
has succeeded in transfer-
ring to his canvases some-
thing of the evanescent
and mysterious beauty, so
elusive and yet so distinc-
tive, which clothes the hill-
sides of his native land.
E. D.
VIENNA. —A few
months ago the
art-world suffered
a heavy blow by
the death of Wilhelm
Bernatzik, one of Austria’s most prominent artists
of the modern school. The deceased painter was
one of the original founders of the Vienna Seces-
sion, and he was also among those who joined the
seceders from this body when the split was brought
about. After that event the artist lived a quiet
secluded life in the midst of his work, so much
so that often his friends neither saw nor heard
anything of him for months together. The recent
exhibition of his works at the Miethke Gallery
was arranged by his fellow seceders (that is the
Klimt Group, as they are now called), out of
“ IN DONEGAL
BY GEORGE RUSSELL