DOI Heft:
Nr. 171 (May, 1911)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The art of Sir Ernest A. Waterlow, R. A., P. R. W. S.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43446#0270
Sir Ernest A. lEaterlo'W^ R.A., P.REE.S.
he adheres simply because they are natural
to him and reflect the characteristics of his
personality.
This fundamental sincerity which, more than
anything else, makes a work of art definitely
convincing, gives to all his paintings a charm
that can be very readily appreciated. In it
lies the secret of his success as an interpreter
of nature—his success in realising the quality
and character of the subjects he prefers and in
avoiding the dangers which lie in wait for the
painter who approaches nature with delicate
ideals and a dainty fancy. Perhaps there is no
direction in art which leads so easily to failure
as the one he has chosen, and none in which
discipline and self-control are more vitally
necessary. The border line between delicacy
and weakness, between elegance and artificiality,
is so narrow that it is only the strong man who
has himself surely in hand, who can hope to
keep always to the right track. To be vigorous
is, by comparison, an easy matter, a certain
amount of judicious accentuation, a measure
of appropriate exaggeration, can be managed
without any obvious falsification of Nature’s
facts and can be depended upon to give an air
of superficial mastery which will satisfy the
unthinking; but it is the painter who is not
sure of himself who resorts, as a rule, to devices
of this sort to enforce his appeal to the public.
He dare not run the risk of aiming at refine-
ment because his senses are not acute enough
to tell him when he is approaching the boundary
beyond which lie weakness and triviality.
However, Sir Ernest needs no artificial aids
to emphasise the significance of his art and
none to guard him from failure to realise his
intentions. Throughout his career he has
studied Nature with the closest observation of
those among her many aspects in which she
reveals especially her seductive graces and her
subtle beauties, those in which she is tender,
elusive, and infinitely charming; and his study
has been so intimate and minute that he is able
to interpret fitly and with a full measure of
meaning just those of her moods which to the
ordinary man seem too indefinite to come within
the scope of the painter’s craft. What he has
learned is that Nature even in her moments of
smiling quiescence is never vacuously dreaming,
that in its right degree her strength is just as
apparent when she is in repose as when she is
he adheres simply because they are natural
to him and reflect the characteristics of his
personality.
This fundamental sincerity which, more than
anything else, makes a work of art definitely
convincing, gives to all his paintings a charm
that can be very readily appreciated. In it
lies the secret of his success as an interpreter
of nature—his success in realising the quality
and character of the subjects he prefers and in
avoiding the dangers which lie in wait for the
painter who approaches nature with delicate
ideals and a dainty fancy. Perhaps there is no
direction in art which leads so easily to failure
as the one he has chosen, and none in which
discipline and self-control are more vitally
necessary. The border line between delicacy
and weakness, between elegance and artificiality,
is so narrow that it is only the strong man who
has himself surely in hand, who can hope to
keep always to the right track. To be vigorous
is, by comparison, an easy matter, a certain
amount of judicious accentuation, a measure
of appropriate exaggeration, can be managed
without any obvious falsification of Nature’s
facts and can be depended upon to give an air
of superficial mastery which will satisfy the
unthinking; but it is the painter who is not
sure of himself who resorts, as a rule, to devices
of this sort to enforce his appeal to the public.
He dare not run the risk of aiming at refine-
ment because his senses are not acute enough
to tell him when he is approaching the boundary
beyond which lie weakness and triviality.
However, Sir Ernest needs no artificial aids
to emphasise the significance of his art and
none to guard him from failure to realise his
intentions. Throughout his career he has
studied Nature with the closest observation of
those among her many aspects in which she
reveals especially her seductive graces and her
subtle beauties, those in which she is tender,
elusive, and infinitely charming; and his study
has been so intimate and minute that he is able
to interpret fitly and with a full measure of
meaning just those of her moods which to the
ordinary man seem too indefinite to come within
the scope of the painter’s craft. What he has
learned is that Nature even in her moments of
smiling quiescence is never vacuously dreaming,
that in its right degree her strength is just as
apparent when she is in repose as when she is