International studio (44.1911)

William Nicholson

In his methods of execution he is consistently
brilliant, and yet there is not one of his pictures
which can be reproached as displaying mere
technical cleverness for its own sake. He is a
wonderful draughtsman, sensitive and yet robust,
fluent and yet accurate, and he can be by turns
almost academically precise and sketchily suggestive
without losing any of the charm of statement which
gives such a singular attractiveness to his canvases.
A very good illustration of his intelligence in
draughtsmanship is afforded in his picture Carlina,
which is not only admirable in its harmonious
arrangement of line but also delightful in its feeling
for beauties of modelling and subtle elegance of
contour. The long, lithe lines of the figure are
exquisitely treated with full appreciation of the
character of the model but without any hint on
the one hand of matter-of-fact realism or on the
other of over-idealisation.
These same fine qualities of draughtsmanship

distinguish equally his character studies—such
paintings as Nancy with the Mug, and Nancy in
the Feather Hat—which might so easily be made
merely caricatures by a little less attention to
technical refinements; and even a study so essen-
tially devoted to the presentation of uncom-
promising fact as The Landlord is given a curious
dignity by its sureness of drawing and large
simplicity of design. These qualities indeed are
never wanting in his art; they are as evident in
The Landlord or the two Nancy pictures as they
are in the simple, restrained, and serious portrait
The Little Baron, and they are as definitely
effective in his paintings of inanimate nature as
they are in his studies of the human subject.
To these paintings of inanimate nature' a very
important place must be assigned in the record of
Mr. Nicholson’s achievement. Busy as he is with
portraiture, and fond as he is of studying types of
humanity, he finds time to paint an ever-increasing
number of still-life pictures
which are worthy to rank
with the performances of the
greatest masters in this branch
of art. The Tulips and Bowl,
and the Cupids fighting for a
Rose, which are reproduced,
are characteristic examples of
his manner of handling such
motives, and they show how
he retains his largeness of
style and his splendid direct-
ness of method even when he
is dealing with material which
is apt to tempt the painter into
tricks of imitation and triviali-
ties of expression. His land-
scapes and open-air studies
—the First Communion Day
worthily illustrates this side
of his practice—are just as
seriously thought out and
brought just as logically
within the scope of his
aesthetic conviction. Indeed,
it can be said that no matter
what may be the subject upon
which he is engaged he never
relaxes his grasp of the great
principles by which his art is
directed; nothing is allowed
to count as unimportant; the
fact that he has chosen a sub-
ject seems to him sufficient to


BY WILLIAM NICHOLSON

FRANCIS AND CHRISTOPHER BACON ”
(Bv special, permission)

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