DOI Heft:
No. 140 (October, 1908)
DOI Artikel:Some drawings by J. W. Waterhouse, R.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28255#0265
Drawings by J. IV.
OME DRAWINGS BY J. W.
WATERHOUSE, R.A.
To the real art lover, the man who can
appreciate the finer qualities of artistic achievement,
there is a particular fascination in the drawings
done by an artist of proved capacity. Work of
this character makes a strong appeal both to the
intelligence and the imagination of the serious
student because there is in it a special revelation
of the artist’s own conviction, and because it is
presented with a certain directness of statement
which makes this conviction plainly intelligible.
It has by virtue of its spontaneity a meaning which
is completely apparent, and it conveys simply and
without circumlocution a personal impression that
is all the stronger because it is not obscured by any
consideration for unnecessary details.
Oddly enough, the generality of modern collec-
tors do not seem to value
very highly the work in which
this personal impression is
most evident; they do not
respond, like the genuine art
lovers, to its fascination, and
apparently they do not enjoy
its specific qualities. What
collecting there is at the
present time is mainly pic-
ture buying, the acquisition
of those elaborated perform-
ances on which the artist has
expended prolonged labour
and in which he has often
sacrificed spontaneity in an
effort to attain a not always
desirable completeness. The
picture attracts the average
man because it has a subject,
and tells a story which can be
realised without any serious
strain upon the intelligence ;
and he finds also some satis-
faction in the reflection that
it has obviously cost the
artist who produced it a vast
amount of trouble. The
buyer feels that he is getting
his money’s worth, that the
sum he has to pay is a more
or less reasonable equivalent
for the time and energy ex-
pended by the painter, and
that there is a sufficient study in sanguine
XXXV. No. 140.—October, 1908.
Waterhouse, R.A.
commercial justification for the price put upon
the work.
But the drawing does not bear this stamp of
laborious effort; in the collector’s view it is but
a slight thing, easily done and too accidental in
its success to count as a serious achievement.
The comparative smallness of the price asked
for it is, too, a sign of unimportance; he cannot
imagine that anything inexpensive can be worth
possessing, for he knows no standard save the
commercial one, and his business instincts induce
him to believe that the value of an article is
in direct relation to the price which it will fetch
in the open market. To buy drawings which are
offered to him for a few pounds would be, he feels,
a kind of confession that he was wanting in busi-
ness principle; it would be almost a reflection on
his credit, and would suggest to men with minds
like his own that he was lapsing into aesthetic
BY J. W. WATERHOUSE, R.A.
247
OME DRAWINGS BY J. W.
WATERHOUSE, R.A.
To the real art lover, the man who can
appreciate the finer qualities of artistic achievement,
there is a particular fascination in the drawings
done by an artist of proved capacity. Work of
this character makes a strong appeal both to the
intelligence and the imagination of the serious
student because there is in it a special revelation
of the artist’s own conviction, and because it is
presented with a certain directness of statement
which makes this conviction plainly intelligible.
It has by virtue of its spontaneity a meaning which
is completely apparent, and it conveys simply and
without circumlocution a personal impression that
is all the stronger because it is not obscured by any
consideration for unnecessary details.
Oddly enough, the generality of modern collec-
tors do not seem to value
very highly the work in which
this personal impression is
most evident; they do not
respond, like the genuine art
lovers, to its fascination, and
apparently they do not enjoy
its specific qualities. What
collecting there is at the
present time is mainly pic-
ture buying, the acquisition
of those elaborated perform-
ances on which the artist has
expended prolonged labour
and in which he has often
sacrificed spontaneity in an
effort to attain a not always
desirable completeness. The
picture attracts the average
man because it has a subject,
and tells a story which can be
realised without any serious
strain upon the intelligence ;
and he finds also some satis-
faction in the reflection that
it has obviously cost the
artist who produced it a vast
amount of trouble. The
buyer feels that he is getting
his money’s worth, that the
sum he has to pay is a more
or less reasonable equivalent
for the time and energy ex-
pended by the painter, and
that there is a sufficient study in sanguine
XXXV. No. 140.—October, 1908.
Waterhouse, R.A.
commercial justification for the price put upon
the work.
But the drawing does not bear this stamp of
laborious effort; in the collector’s view it is but
a slight thing, easily done and too accidental in
its success to count as a serious achievement.
The comparative smallness of the price asked
for it is, too, a sign of unimportance; he cannot
imagine that anything inexpensive can be worth
possessing, for he knows no standard save the
commercial one, and his business instincts induce
him to believe that the value of an article is
in direct relation to the price which it will fetch
in the open market. To buy drawings which are
offered to him for a few pounds would be, he feels,
a kind of confession that he was wanting in busi-
ness principle; it would be almost a reflection on
his credit, and would suggest to men with minds
like his own that he was lapsing into aesthetic
BY J. W. WATERHOUSE, R.A.
247