DOI Artikel:
Walker, A. Stodart: Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43448#0035
Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S.A.
acquaintance with the work of the French and
Dutch romanticists . . . and the training received
in Paris.” Whatever the influences, the revolution
began, and from the moment that the canvases of
Guthrie and his confederates began to appear the
result seemed inevitable. The point of view of the
discriminating public changed rapidly, not only in
its attitude towards art but towards nature. For
though art is not the imitator of nature, it is its
revealer. The human sight is no fixed quantity;
the uneducated vision is not a camera displaying
the complete truth. The artist is to the man of
common vision as a mystic medium through which
nature is transformed by whatever light the artist
possesses. He is akin to the poet who glorifies
the commonplace in the language of an inspired
seer. He is a Keats, a Burns, a Browning of the
brush, as different from Brown, Jones, and Robinson
as a play of FEschylus is from an Adelphi melo-
drama, or a novel of George Meredith from a
bookstall yellow-back. “I can’t see nature like
that,” remarked a philistine to Whistler. “ Don’t
you wish you could ? ” was the painter’s reply.
When Guthrie and his confreres first began to
paint, the ignorant cried out that this was not
nature, being unaware that they were as ignorant
of nature as they were of art. As soon as
the great painters reveal their secrets to
us, nature as well as art takes on a
different meaning. A man who has
studied the wonderful canvases of William
McTaggart can never look upon the sea
as he did before ; he who has intelligently
viewed a portrait by Sir James Guthrie
has learned a lesson in regarding
humanity which can never cease to affect
his vision.
Distinction in style, a reaching towards
naturalistic values in the shape of tone
and plein air, a minimising of the non-
essentials and a definite striving towards
the realisation of true pictorial elements
-—these were some of the ideals of Guthrie
and the new school. The bald transcrip-
tion of evident and unrelated facts, the
careful insertion of trivial and accidental
points, the painting of landscapes as if
they were interiors, without a complete
interrelation between earth and atmo-
sphere, no indivisible unity of the colour-
scheme throughout the picture, laying
down a portrait on a background having
no significance in the general scheme—
all this was put aside for the great aim of
presenting a design which met the eye as
a perfect symphony or an inspired lyric
meets the ear. There was nothing finick-
ing or petty; everything was full, deep,
significant. The new men went to
nature, not to catalogue or classify, but
to select, interpret, and clarify. Between
nature and the canvas they put the vision
and the personality of the seer and trans-
lated their images in the colossal cypher
of the colourist. Of course the ambition
often failed. There wras occasionally
found chaos instead of cosmos and there
THE M ARQUIS OF TULI.IBARD1 X E
BY SIR JAMES GUTHRIE
21
acquaintance with the work of the French and
Dutch romanticists . . . and the training received
in Paris.” Whatever the influences, the revolution
began, and from the moment that the canvases of
Guthrie and his confederates began to appear the
result seemed inevitable. The point of view of the
discriminating public changed rapidly, not only in
its attitude towards art but towards nature. For
though art is not the imitator of nature, it is its
revealer. The human sight is no fixed quantity;
the uneducated vision is not a camera displaying
the complete truth. The artist is to the man of
common vision as a mystic medium through which
nature is transformed by whatever light the artist
possesses. He is akin to the poet who glorifies
the commonplace in the language of an inspired
seer. He is a Keats, a Burns, a Browning of the
brush, as different from Brown, Jones, and Robinson
as a play of FEschylus is from an Adelphi melo-
drama, or a novel of George Meredith from a
bookstall yellow-back. “I can’t see nature like
that,” remarked a philistine to Whistler. “ Don’t
you wish you could ? ” was the painter’s reply.
When Guthrie and his confreres first began to
paint, the ignorant cried out that this was not
nature, being unaware that they were as ignorant
of nature as they were of art. As soon as
the great painters reveal their secrets to
us, nature as well as art takes on a
different meaning. A man who has
studied the wonderful canvases of William
McTaggart can never look upon the sea
as he did before ; he who has intelligently
viewed a portrait by Sir James Guthrie
has learned a lesson in regarding
humanity which can never cease to affect
his vision.
Distinction in style, a reaching towards
naturalistic values in the shape of tone
and plein air, a minimising of the non-
essentials and a definite striving towards
the realisation of true pictorial elements
-—these were some of the ideals of Guthrie
and the new school. The bald transcrip-
tion of evident and unrelated facts, the
careful insertion of trivial and accidental
points, the painting of landscapes as if
they were interiors, without a complete
interrelation between earth and atmo-
sphere, no indivisible unity of the colour-
scheme throughout the picture, laying
down a portrait on a background having
no significance in the general scheme—
all this was put aside for the great aim of
presenting a design which met the eye as
a perfect symphony or an inspired lyric
meets the ear. There was nothing finick-
ing or petty; everything was full, deep,
significant. The new men went to
nature, not to catalogue or classify, but
to select, interpret, and clarify. Between
nature and the canvas they put the vision
and the personality of the seer and trans-
lated their images in the colossal cypher
of the colourist. Of course the ambition
often failed. There wras occasionally
found chaos instead of cosmos and there
THE M ARQUIS OF TULI.IBARD1 X E
BY SIR JAMES GUTHRIE
21