DOI Artikel:
Baldry, Alfred Lys: The paintings of Arthur Hacker, R.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43450#0188
Arthur Hacker, R.A.
his migration to Paris he went with his friend
Solomon J. Solomon on a tour through Spain to
Madrid, where he lingered for a while studying the
works of the great Spanish masters, and then on
through Seville and the coast towns of Spain to
Gibraltar, whence he crossed to Tangier. This
tour occupied altogether five months, and it added
greatly to the store of impressions which was to
serve in years to come as the foundation of his
best production. It was not his only trip through
countries which appeal vividly to a painter’s fancy;
there were subsequent occasions on which he
visited Morocco, Algiers, and even more remote
districts of Northern Africa, and wandered south,
almost to the borders of the Sahara.
These excursions beyond the boundaries of
European civilisation did not, however, imme-
diately affect the character of his work. He had
begun with domestic genre, with pictures of homely
sentiment, and during the early eighties these
occupied him almost entirely. But towards the end
of the eighties the effect of his study of the light
and colour of North Africa began to be perceptible
in his pictures. He painted little, it is true, that
actually represented the life in that part of the
world, but he completely changed the motives of
his work, and he changed also the quality of his
colour and tone. His canvases became more
luminous, more delicate, and more subtly har-
monised, without at the same time losing any of
the strength of statement which distinguished his
earlier productions. Indeed, with the expanding
of his ambitions and with the enlarging of the
boundaries of his practice came a surer grasp of
artistic essentials and a fuller recognition of his
responsibilities as a craftsman.
The picture which marked most definitely the
alteration in his point of view was the Pelagia and
Philammon, his first serious painting of the nude
figure. It had a marked degree of originality, and
it was singularly successful in its management of
tender tones of gentle, silvery colour and in its
admirably confident draughtsmanship. Another
and even more important figure composition, the
“ THE COWSHED
176
BY ARTHUR HACKER, R.A.
his migration to Paris he went with his friend
Solomon J. Solomon on a tour through Spain to
Madrid, where he lingered for a while studying the
works of the great Spanish masters, and then on
through Seville and the coast towns of Spain to
Gibraltar, whence he crossed to Tangier. This
tour occupied altogether five months, and it added
greatly to the store of impressions which was to
serve in years to come as the foundation of his
best production. It was not his only trip through
countries which appeal vividly to a painter’s fancy;
there were subsequent occasions on which he
visited Morocco, Algiers, and even more remote
districts of Northern Africa, and wandered south,
almost to the borders of the Sahara.
These excursions beyond the boundaries of
European civilisation did not, however, imme-
diately affect the character of his work. He had
begun with domestic genre, with pictures of homely
sentiment, and during the early eighties these
occupied him almost entirely. But towards the end
of the eighties the effect of his study of the light
and colour of North Africa began to be perceptible
in his pictures. He painted little, it is true, that
actually represented the life in that part of the
world, but he completely changed the motives of
his work, and he changed also the quality of his
colour and tone. His canvases became more
luminous, more delicate, and more subtly har-
monised, without at the same time losing any of
the strength of statement which distinguished his
earlier productions. Indeed, with the expanding
of his ambitions and with the enlarging of the
boundaries of his practice came a surer grasp of
artistic essentials and a fuller recognition of his
responsibilities as a craftsman.
The picture which marked most definitely the
alteration in his point of view was the Pelagia and
Philammon, his first serious painting of the nude
figure. It had a marked degree of originality, and
it was singularly successful in its management of
tender tones of gentle, silvery colour and in its
admirably confident draughtsmanship. Another
and even more important figure composition, the
“ THE COWSHED
176
BY ARTHUR HACKER, R.A.