International studio (40.1910)

Albert Goodwin, R.W.S.

ingenuity of design and no deliberate assertion of lets him see how she can vary inimitably her own
a dramatic purpose, but it has amply the charm of creations, and present them to him under ever-
nature's restfulness and peace. In each of these changing conditions. To remain blind to such
it is her mood and her sentiment that the artist has lessons would imply on his part a strange want
felt and adopted, and it is the influence she has of sensitiveness or a quite indefensible belief that
exercised over his temperament that gives character he knew better than his teacher, and certainly
and significance to his work. he neither lacks the power to respond to inspiring

So with all the other paintings which have been impressions nor is he oppressed by any conceit
selected for reproduction, each one has its plain about his capacity to do without nature's guidance,
intention and its evident sentiment, quite apart He can be exact enough when the occasion arises,
from any interest it may possess as a study of a as his beautifully precise and careful pencil draw-
locality. The Tower of London, Mont St. Michel, ings prove, but he can at the right moment be as
Boston, Lincolnshire, and Venice—a Sunset, are elusive as nature herself and as adaptable to the
merely the unnecessary names—or, at all events, demands made upon him. Therefore, amazingly
necessary only for purposes of identification— prolific artist as he is and markedly individual as
given to translations of nature which owe the whole his technical methods always are, he has been able
of their importance to the use the artist has made to avoid entirely that tendency to get stereotyped
of the suggestions she has laid before
him. The Torre dell' Annunziata,

Castettammare, Appledore and Thun t
are fascinating essentially because
their motives have been susceptible

of decorative adaptation and have .irs^sfe-^ t i;

impressed the artist by their possi- '/j/i ^ f \___ _n. » _„ jjf

bilities of conversion into rhythmical If/I -

designs. Even the Canterbury, with Bit';J i! Ij l( \\H f>>~ I'llI'f - ^i-®PiffSM'jl|-." .-"

its greater need of topographical %$M j! Ill lfi| ^'tfilf V' ftj

exactness, has not been denied its jjS^V * " =~ |f -'"-^.5 , ,

due measure of personal interpreta- , Jl .......-,,t.-:.;......... —..........

tion. In them all, indeed, it is not

the subject that has dominated . Vtyi'Sft.' f "v'! M" ■■

Mr. Goodwin, but Mr. Goodwin ^
who has controlled the subject, and
has made it temperamentally and gH

artistically what he pleased — or J0 . -s f"f~„,___

rather what he, as a lover and | '"-j f"'iit^^

student of nature, believed to be | .-T \ fa ' n

most surely in keeping with her . -'^^S^f^s S ^ tfa | 1

spirit and most strictly in con- f lit'' /j''^mI!'I' i I 11 iff (111 ^

formity to her intention. ' .j, sJfy, • If — — - \ jr ~~ _ ;_

There is the whole secret of his patSss^yl);—- —Ifr_

great success as an artist—he loves \ i,\j;,.;,.V'. •'

nature and studies her unceasingly.
He sees that to be a servile copyist
of concrete facts would be actually

disrespectful to her, because it *

would signify a feeble understand- ft^l^M T«l^J/!#7'

ing of her ways and at best a half- W^^m>I^Aim^^^
hearted appreciation of her teaching. iliiili I"Mf ^wWl n

She shows him how the literal reali- III |_

ties can be changed in aspect by tfj
the witchery of atmosphere, the illu-
sion of lighting, and the tenderness a page frqm mr_ aliiert goodwin-s sketch-book
or the majesty of aerial colour; she (By permission of the Fine Art Society)

94