DOI Heft:
Nr. 163 (September, 1910)
DOI Artikel:Baker, C. H. Collins: The paintings of Walter W. Russell
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19867#0252
Walter W. Russell
"THE RAINBOW" (I9IO)
BY WALTER W. RUSSELL
which admirably was represented in the Goupil which trees played the principal character. It is
Gallery Exhibition by pictures such as By the interesting, on reviewing the harvest of those years
Window and Girl on a Sofa, driving his pitch yet to mark by what steps he rose from a somewhat
higher, and curious for problems of refraction in petty treatment and too imitative s andpomt to
the shadows, he has abandoned the transparent for the grasp he ultimately reached of the essential
the opaque use of pigment. We will not attempt qualities of trees : their decorative massing, their
to strike a balance between the sacrifices entailed significant structure, the value of their silhouettes
by and the advantages of the latter method. and spaces, rather than the sharpness o their
Hitherto we have been considering the genre and greens, and the fussiness of innumerable leaves,
portraiture of Mr. Russell. Let us revert to his In those years he painted the series of village
earlier period and the steady growth of his landscape fetes champttres I have alluded to, m which
side, which has so finely culminated in his work of under the green silvery shade and in contrast
1910. Looking back, we see that in 1897 he went with the golden brilliance of sun-flooded foliage,
through a phase to which he did not recur for children in cool white picnic or laze away the
something like ten years-a phase of singularly high enchanted hours of childhood s summers. Those
Pitch. Working down at Southwold in that year, subjects that a popular painter had sugared and
he turned out beach pieces that in a way remind creamed with sentimental prettiness, Mr. Russell
one of Wilson Steer's similar subjects of some years saw with a draughtsman's and colounst s single-
earlier. Russell, however, did not achieve, indeed mindedness, delighting in the play o colour
did not attempt, the brilliant slightness and and the decorative possibiht.es afforded. 1 he
shimmering colour of the older artist's impressionist quiet and charming refinement of the children s
period. The next few years kept Russell mainly as one might say, a by-product, unconsciously
occupied, as far as landscape went, with subjects in produced.
r75
"THE RAINBOW" (I9IO)
BY WALTER W. RUSSELL
which admirably was represented in the Goupil which trees played the principal character. It is
Gallery Exhibition by pictures such as By the interesting, on reviewing the harvest of those years
Window and Girl on a Sofa, driving his pitch yet to mark by what steps he rose from a somewhat
higher, and curious for problems of refraction in petty treatment and too imitative s andpomt to
the shadows, he has abandoned the transparent for the grasp he ultimately reached of the essential
the opaque use of pigment. We will not attempt qualities of trees : their decorative massing, their
to strike a balance between the sacrifices entailed significant structure, the value of their silhouettes
by and the advantages of the latter method. and spaces, rather than the sharpness o their
Hitherto we have been considering the genre and greens, and the fussiness of innumerable leaves,
portraiture of Mr. Russell. Let us revert to his In those years he painted the series of village
earlier period and the steady growth of his landscape fetes champttres I have alluded to, m which
side, which has so finely culminated in his work of under the green silvery shade and in contrast
1910. Looking back, we see that in 1897 he went with the golden brilliance of sun-flooded foliage,
through a phase to which he did not recur for children in cool white picnic or laze away the
something like ten years-a phase of singularly high enchanted hours of childhood s summers. Those
Pitch. Working down at Southwold in that year, subjects that a popular painter had sugared and
he turned out beach pieces that in a way remind creamed with sentimental prettiness, Mr. Russell
one of Wilson Steer's similar subjects of some years saw with a draughtsman's and colounst s single-
earlier. Russell, however, did not achieve, indeed mindedness, delighting in the play o colour
did not attempt, the brilliant slightness and and the decorative possibiht.es afforded. 1 he
shimmering colour of the older artist's impressionist quiet and charming refinement of the children s
period. The next few years kept Russell mainly as one might say, a by-product, unconsciously
occupied, as far as landscape went, with subjects in produced.
r75