DOI Artikel:
Walker, A. Stodart: Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43448#0038
Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S. A.
always in a low and full tone, and such a method
eliminates the possibilities of eclectic searching as
practised by such men as Mr. Sargent, Mr. Orpen,
or Mr. Lavery. It may appear to some that Sir
realisation of the subtle light and shade of the human
face. But in the portrayal of the character by
means of paint, Sir James Guthrie is on his highest
plane when dealing with old men. Here force and
James Guthrie’s very intellectual strength may be
a handicap to any excursions into experiment such
as are dear to Mr. Sargent, who while the master
of Guthrie in lustrous colour, in brushwork, which
delicacy unite in gracious and dignified harmony,
and in his John Maclachlan and James Caldwell we
realise the beauty and sublimity of old age as they
have not been interpreted by any modern painter,
seems inevitable, it is so determined, and in grandeur
of line, yet is inferior to the Scotsman in insight into
the subtleties of character, in the power of inter-
preting the delicate shades of intellectual force, in
poetic dignity of treatment on the one hand and in
refinement of tone and colour and the masterly
and with a scholarly sympathy that Raeburn seldom
achieved, and most of his contemporaries never.
We can well remember standing along with one
of our oldest and most distinguished painters,
trained in a school very different to that of Sir
James Guthrie, before the picture of James Caldwell
juxtaposition of pigments on the other. So subtle
and profound is this power in the hands of Sir James
Guthrie that it gives the impression that the picture
has slowly grown into beautiful being, instead of
springing into complete life as Pallas out of the
when it was first exhibited in Edinburgh. “ I am
grateful to Providence,” he said, “that I have been
privileged to live long enough to see that portrait.”
There are many who regret that Guthrie has
ceased altogether from giving us examples of his
head of Jove. Mr. Sargent
gives you the impression as if
he were painting an action,
Sir James Guthrie as if he
were painting a state of the
mind, and in the nature of
things the latter must give the
impression of duration.
In his more recent work,
such as the J/rx. Craig Sellar,
we get a clarity and a brilliance
in the flesh tints that were
missing even in such a
masterly portrait as the Mrs.
John Findlay oj Ab er I our, in
which there still remain traces
of an early tendency to a slight
muddiness of texture in the
portrayal of the shadows of
the human face. In this
sense o( purity and clarity of
paint as standing in contra-
distinction to the soap and
rouge tints of some of our
fashionable portraitists, the
Lady Helen Munro Ferguson
(July number) is a noteworthy
example, as is The Lord
Dunedin, which though lack-
ing the lustrous shadows which
make his Marquis of Tulli-
bardine worthy to be classed
with a fine Rembrandt, is yet
a step forward from that
painting in its delicate
24
MISS I.ORNA GUTHRIE
BY SIR JAMES GUTHRIE
always in a low and full tone, and such a method
eliminates the possibilities of eclectic searching as
practised by such men as Mr. Sargent, Mr. Orpen,
or Mr. Lavery. It may appear to some that Sir
realisation of the subtle light and shade of the human
face. But in the portrayal of the character by
means of paint, Sir James Guthrie is on his highest
plane when dealing with old men. Here force and
James Guthrie’s very intellectual strength may be
a handicap to any excursions into experiment such
as are dear to Mr. Sargent, who while the master
of Guthrie in lustrous colour, in brushwork, which
delicacy unite in gracious and dignified harmony,
and in his John Maclachlan and James Caldwell we
realise the beauty and sublimity of old age as they
have not been interpreted by any modern painter,
seems inevitable, it is so determined, and in grandeur
of line, yet is inferior to the Scotsman in insight into
the subtleties of character, in the power of inter-
preting the delicate shades of intellectual force, in
poetic dignity of treatment on the one hand and in
refinement of tone and colour and the masterly
and with a scholarly sympathy that Raeburn seldom
achieved, and most of his contemporaries never.
We can well remember standing along with one
of our oldest and most distinguished painters,
trained in a school very different to that of Sir
James Guthrie, before the picture of James Caldwell
juxtaposition of pigments on the other. So subtle
and profound is this power in the hands of Sir James
Guthrie that it gives the impression that the picture
has slowly grown into beautiful being, instead of
springing into complete life as Pallas out of the
when it was first exhibited in Edinburgh. “ I am
grateful to Providence,” he said, “that I have been
privileged to live long enough to see that portrait.”
There are many who regret that Guthrie has
ceased altogether from giving us examples of his
head of Jove. Mr. Sargent
gives you the impression as if
he were painting an action,
Sir James Guthrie as if he
were painting a state of the
mind, and in the nature of
things the latter must give the
impression of duration.
In his more recent work,
such as the J/rx. Craig Sellar,
we get a clarity and a brilliance
in the flesh tints that were
missing even in such a
masterly portrait as the Mrs.
John Findlay oj Ab er I our, in
which there still remain traces
of an early tendency to a slight
muddiness of texture in the
portrayal of the shadows of
the human face. In this
sense o( purity and clarity of
paint as standing in contra-
distinction to the soap and
rouge tints of some of our
fashionable portraitists, the
Lady Helen Munro Ferguson
(July number) is a noteworthy
example, as is The Lord
Dunedin, which though lack-
ing the lustrous shadows which
make his Marquis of Tulli-
bardine worthy to be classed
with a fine Rembrandt, is yet
a step forward from that
painting in its delicate
24
MISS I.ORNA GUTHRIE
BY SIR JAMES GUTHRIE