International studio (34.1908)

Raeburn s
speaking, these may be divided into the direct and
the indirect; the former used by those whose tem-
perament disposes them to place their impressions
on the canvas at once, the latter by artists who seek
the same end by successive processes. Till quite
recently the technique of painting in these islands
had been mainly derived from the practice of
Italian and of Flemish masters. These influences,
nationalised, as one might say, in the triumphs of
Reynolds and Gainsborough, alike favoured the
less direct methods which dominated British art
till about 1850: and though Pre- Raphaelitism
inaugurated a new manner, it had little more in
common with the seventeenth-century precursors of
the simpler vision. It was the revelation of the
unity of lighting which came to Gluck and his
associates in 1849* that heralded the change,
and, as true relation of
tone on which the plein
air system rests is most
readily attained by direct
methods,| these soon
became the most potent
factor in the new tech-
nique. As this manner
of seeing and painting
gained ground, the long-
neglected painters who
had, in a greater or less
degree, anticipated the
modern movement were
recognised as masters.
Hence the increased
* “La Vie d un Artiste.”
Jules Breton. Paris, 1890,
pp. 200, 201. “ lie had
observed also that, in the
street, the lighting of things
was . . . simple and high-
toned ; and further, how
favourable such lighting was
au jeu des valeui s . . . and
also what style and charm
this unity gives to the cha-
racter of heads : and he—
Gluck—first called this plein
air. ”
+ “ Velasquez.” R. A. M.
Stevenson. London, 1900,
p. 108. “ M. Carolus-Duran
believed that if you do not
approach tone by direct
painting you will never know
what you can do, and will
never discover whether you
really feel any given relation,
or the values of any contrast-
ing surfaces.”

Technique
vogue of Velasquez and Hals, and the discovery
of Raeburn.
Various conjectures have been hazarded as to
how the young Scotsman came by a style so
unlike that of the painters with whose works he
must have been most familiar. The study of the
Doria Velasquez during his stay in Rome, 1785-7,
has been suggested as a contributing cause. Such
a theory hardly squares with the fact that the
manner we associate with him is seen full-fledged
in the portrait of Chalmers of Pittencriejf, painted
in 1776. But why puzzle over such a question ?
Is it not simpler to suppose that it came to him,
as to the other precursors, because his tempera-
ment disposed him to see things so ? In a negative
way his isolation in Edinburgh, where he was out
of touch with the stronger personalities in British


“MRS. SIMPSON” BY SIR H- RAEBURN, R.A-
( Collection of Wm. Me Ewan, Esq.)

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