International studio (43.1911)

Recent Work by Frank Brangwyn, A.R.A.

from it the very important truth that the man who
wishes to come to the front by his own force of
character must be consistent in his pursuit of the
ideals which are natural to him—he cannot be
convincing unless he knows his own mind. If he
dallies with strange creeds, if he tries to warp his
inclinations into channels where they do not
instinctively run, if he makes vague experiments
with forms of art in which he does not sincerely
believe, he only wastes his energies and delays his
progress. lie must see definitely ahead the road
he intends to take, and he must fight his way
strenuously along it whatever may be the obstacles
he has to surmount. Indecision cannot but be
fatal to him ; it will destroy the vitality of his art,
and it will make unauthoritative his message to
the world.
Decidedly, Mr. Brangwyn cannot be accused of
having at any moment in his career failed in appre-
ciation of his personal responsibility as an artist.
Not many of our modern masters have so logically
proceeded, stage by stage, to the complete expres-
sion of an individual understanding : few have so
sincerely kept in view, through many busy years,
a deliberate intention to realise certain well-balanced
theories of practice. Now that we have presented
to us the work of what may not unfairly be called
his maturity, the work in which his earlier studies
are bearing their full fruit, we can judge how serious
has been his preparation and how great has been
his care to train himself in refinements of practice
and subtleties of taste. All sides of his art have
been developed together; in acquiring skill of
craftsmanship he has not
forgotten that his hand
must be the servant of his
mind, and that his judg¬
ment, his selective sense,
his aesthetic sentiment
needed equally to be dis¬
ciplined so that his execu¬
tive facility might not lead
him into merely clever
superficiality.
In the work he has pro¬
duced during the last few
years, there are undeniably
a largeness of sentiment
and a depth of feeling
which can be not less
admired than the brilliant
robustness of technique by
which it is distinguished.
He has passed the stage

when the struggle with the mechanism of art
hampers freedom of thought and checks sponta-
neity of expression; his hand has become so
responsive to his intentions that he can trust it to
record fully what is in his mind. He is a master,
too, of practically all the pictorial mediums, of oil
painting, water-colour, tempera, etching, and litho-
graphy, and his drawings are marvels of executive
freedom and suggestive power. The genius of each
medium he entirely respects; he does not try to
strain any of them beyond their correct capabili-
ties, but he uses sometimes one, sometimes
another, as circumstances may demand or as the
character of the particular piece of work on which
he is engaged may indicate. With such a breadth
of resource and with such a command over varie-
ties of mechanism he is never at a loss as to the
way in which he should treat his subjects, to each
one he can give unhesitatingly its appropriate
technical quality.
The examples here illustrated of his recent
achievement show something of his adaptability
and largeness of mind. They show, too, the per-
vading influence of that strong decorative instinct
which is to be reckoned as the chief motive force
in his art and as the main source of his inspira-
tion. Whatever may be the material he chooses
to handle, it is always with its decorative possi-
bilities that he concerns himself—always with the
opportunities it offers him for the working out of a
coherent scheme of design in which form, colour,
and light and shade help to build up a perfectly-
balanced pattern. His interest is almost entirely


DRAWING IN SANGUINE FOR DECORATIVE PAINTING IN THE CHURCH OF ST. AIDAN,
LEEDS. BY FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.

IO