International studio (44.1911)

Edwin Alexander, A.R.S.AR.JE.S.

and backgrounds designed to throw into relief
their fine feathers, and when their heads are turned,
the movement is noted and extravagantly praised
again in art. We do not know how this has
affected the creatures themselves, but the reaction
upon the artists is visible. Only in exchange for
extravagant admiration have the less apparent
characteristics of animal life been shown more
fully to men; and there has sprung up a new kind
of animal picture in which such artists as Mr.
Edwin Alexander and Mr. Joseph Crawhall excel,
and in which the obvious is passed over in favour
of a studied deference to the thousand and one little
idiosyncrasies of manner upon which animals of the
same species rest their claims to an individuality.
As in these days such an elaboration of the know-
ledge of every part of life proceeds, to the end of
an enrichened sense of life altogether, art itself
increases its affluence, and the infinite possibilities
that yet further await it frame themselves into a
faith.
There is something surprising in the willing-
ness of man to sit, as described above, at the
feet of animals, but it is of a piece with the
humility with which every kind of knowledge
begins—and not only begins, for a reflection of it is
conveyed in a letter before the writer as he pens
these lines, in which Mr. Alexander briefly ex-
presses himself in regard to painting. “ The more

one goes on—or rather as one gets older,” he says,
“the less one cares to make definite statements.”
Of course where, in this respect, the artist refrains,
it is not for us to rush in, though we like making
definite statements. He continues : “ I feel more
inclined to try to learn from others than to attempt
to teach them ”—a sentiment not without charm
from one whose fluency of style in painting is so
enviable.
Apropos of Mr. Alexander’s first remark, just
quoted, we may state that the artist was born in
Edinburgh in 1870. It is interesting to note that
with the exception of a few months in Paris his art
education was also received at the School of Art
in Edinburgh, and since the age of sixteen he
has exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy, of
which he is an Associate. After his election to
the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colour just
over ten years ago, when he was barely thirty,
nearly all his work has been sent to the exhibitions
of these two societies. A sojourn of three years
in Egypt, the painter tells us. was one of the
strongest influences upon his outlook upon things,
though at the time production itself was almost
suspended.
One must not forget Mr. Alexander as landscape
painter, though in so far as the writer has had an
opportunity of studying his art in this aspect, each
scene had a general character which could best be


“ IONA
90

( The property of R. M. Lindsay, Esc]., Dundee)

BY EDWIN ALEXANDER