DOI Heft:
No. 131 (January, 1908)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The paintings of S. Melton Fisher
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28253#0189
S. Melton Fisher
The paintings of s. melton
FISHER. BY A. LYS BALDRY.
There is undoubtedly in the work which
Mr. Melton Fisher has done during the last few
years very plain proof of the value of delicate and
unforced sentiment as the foundation of serious
artistic achievement. His pictures offer a direct
denial to the popular belief that the illustration of
some incident or the relating of some story must
be regarded as essential in all pictorial effort, and
they assert in a manner which cannot be mistaken
the right of an artist who looks at life from an
individual standpoint to choose his own way of
interpreting the facts that are presented to him.
In what may be called illustrative painting the
subject is always more or less ready-made; it is
incapable of anything but minor modifications, and
the way in which it should be treated is chiefly
determined by other than aesthetic considerations.
It has a kind of literary purpose, an intention to
realise something already pictured in words and
fully described in all its main details; there is
little scope left to the painter for the exercise of
personal preferences or for the development of
original methods of expression.
But the man who bases his art not upon what
he can derive from the ideas of others, but upon
what is suggested to him by his own temperament,
is not only more genuinely inspired but has an in-
finitely better chance of arriving at results which are
of permanent importance. Heoffers artistic opinions
which claim respect as those of an independent
thinker who wishes to convey to others impressions
that have affected him vividly and have stimulated
definitely his imaginative faculties. These impres-
sions, presented as they are through the medium of
a personality, acquire the stamp of the artist’s
conviction, and take on the particular sentiment
which by instinct he prefers. They become, when
they are translated into a pictorial form, revelations
of his beliefs and expressions of his view of his
responsibilities as an art worker.
The belief that is revealed in Mr. Melton Fisher’s
paintings is an absolute faith in the power which
abstract beauty has to appeal to the imagination
and to satisfy the taste of the real lover of art.
He aims at an ideal and seeks to create an atmo-
“ LA BELLE AO BOIS DORMANT” BY S. MELTON FISHER
(By permission of Mrs. Eleanor Rawls Reader)
XXXIII. NO. 131.—JANUARY, 1908.
173
The paintings of s. melton
FISHER. BY A. LYS BALDRY.
There is undoubtedly in the work which
Mr. Melton Fisher has done during the last few
years very plain proof of the value of delicate and
unforced sentiment as the foundation of serious
artistic achievement. His pictures offer a direct
denial to the popular belief that the illustration of
some incident or the relating of some story must
be regarded as essential in all pictorial effort, and
they assert in a manner which cannot be mistaken
the right of an artist who looks at life from an
individual standpoint to choose his own way of
interpreting the facts that are presented to him.
In what may be called illustrative painting the
subject is always more or less ready-made; it is
incapable of anything but minor modifications, and
the way in which it should be treated is chiefly
determined by other than aesthetic considerations.
It has a kind of literary purpose, an intention to
realise something already pictured in words and
fully described in all its main details; there is
little scope left to the painter for the exercise of
personal preferences or for the development of
original methods of expression.
But the man who bases his art not upon what
he can derive from the ideas of others, but upon
what is suggested to him by his own temperament,
is not only more genuinely inspired but has an in-
finitely better chance of arriving at results which are
of permanent importance. Heoffers artistic opinions
which claim respect as those of an independent
thinker who wishes to convey to others impressions
that have affected him vividly and have stimulated
definitely his imaginative faculties. These impres-
sions, presented as they are through the medium of
a personality, acquire the stamp of the artist’s
conviction, and take on the particular sentiment
which by instinct he prefers. They become, when
they are translated into a pictorial form, revelations
of his beliefs and expressions of his view of his
responsibilities as an art worker.
The belief that is revealed in Mr. Melton Fisher’s
paintings is an absolute faith in the power which
abstract beauty has to appeal to the imagination
and to satisfy the taste of the real lover of art.
He aims at an ideal and seeks to create an atmo-
“ LA BELLE AO BOIS DORMANT” BY S. MELTON FISHER
(By permission of Mrs. Eleanor Rawls Reader)
XXXIII. NO. 131.—JANUARY, 1908.
173