International studio (43.1911)

William Orpen, A.R.A., R.H.A.

The paintings of william
ORPEN, A.R.A, R.H.A. BY C. H.
COLLINS BAKER.
Mr. Orpen has never visibly been troubled by
one of the questions, at least, that embarrass so
many painters : the question of what is legitimately
pictorial, what is within the painter’s purview; the
vexed question, in short, of subject and sentimen-
talism. For his presiding destiny so settled it that
the possible rivalry of subject or anecdote with the
proper business of the painter simply does not exist
for him. Things have always struck him as design
or colour, or as action. If we were to discriminate
among his pictorial preferences we might conclude
that design interested him first, then colour, and
then again the problems of atmosphere and light.
This is not to say that he has not always shown a
draughtsmanship, that is—well, draughtsmanship,
and a distinct interest in the qualities of pigment.
It is merely to express a general feeling that fine
spacing, significant silhouette and rich gay colour
hold, among the outward symbols of his art, the
inmost place in his affections.
He lost no time in getting together an outfit for
his career. Born near Dublin
in 1878 Orpen started draw¬
ing in the Dublin School of
Art when but eleven. This
first instalment of his equip¬
ment was acquired under a
South Kensington regime, so
that, as was in less degree the
case with Mr. Steer and Mr.
Russell, his education had its
unregenerate, academic days.
In fact, he positively passed
some years in an atmosphere
that nowadays he might con¬
sider savoured of incense
burnt to Rimmon. In 1895
he came to London to the
Slade, already something of
a draughtsman, and in some
position to appreciate the
difference between South
Kensington education and
Gower Street’s. In paren¬
thesis I may note that to Mr.
Orpen’s sympathy with and
just use of the stump—assets
we may be sure he did not
pick up in the Slade—we owe
some remarkably pleasant
XLIII. No. 172.—June, 1911.

chalk drawings of children. His studentship at
the Slade coincided with, or rather materially added
brightness to, the particularly brilliant period of
that school, and in 1899, with his remarkable
Hamlet, he won the Composition prize. This
drawing, which is a distinctly individual distillation
from the various properties that appealed to him in
Rembrandt, Watteau, and Goya, is valuable to us
as evidence of two of his most marked gifts—his
feeling for large design and his satiric sense.
While in this latter vein Mr. Orpen attains, I think,
a more vital and penetrative insight into the
subtle and elusive composition of human nature
than in his professedly more serious mood. In
1899 he left the Slade School and made his
appearance in the New English Art Club’s Exhibi-
tion. From that date until the present he has
exhibited in that company nearly eighty pictures.
In 1904 he first appeared at Burlington House.
He became a member of “The New English” in
1900, an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1910.
A very healthy aspect of his remarkable activity
is its diversity, its agility in jumping to new ex-
periments and in investigating from fresh points or
view. At the same time he is not chargeable with


“MYSELF AND VENUS” (1910)

BY WILLIAM ORPEN, A.R.A.
253