DOI Artikel:
Hind, Charles Lewis: An American landscape painter: W. Elmer Schofield
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0296
W. Elmer Schofield
Moreover I had promised to write an appreciative
little article on the art and life of my friend Scho-
field, and I didn’t want to make myself angry ar-
raigning a typical “ Cosmos ” foolish statement to
the effect that one of the causes of the present
chaotic condition of the art of the painter in England
is “ the undue importance given to landscape.”
“Undue importance,” I can hear the landscape
painters of Great Britain murmur ; “ what we suffer
from is undue neglect.”
W. Elmer Schofield is not an Englishman. He
is an American, born in 1867 at Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, who spends much of his time in
England, finding it pleasant and profitable. He
cannot complain of neglect. “ Who’s Who ”
contains many lines of small type detailing a number
of American public galleries which are the fortunate
owners of his pictures, with a list of the gold and
silver medals awarded to him. His recreation
is not given. His recreation I should say is
painting. At St. Ives, where we first met, I
never encountered him on the golf links or on
the tennis ground, but he was always to be found
any day in any weather happy as a boy, vigorous
as a footballer, painting the colour, movement, and
majesty of some Cornish cove, such a wild, brilliant
cove as is here reproduced in colour.
He is an open-air man, wholesome, healthy,
hearty, and his art, sane and straightforward,
reflects his temperament. Were I to talk to him
of Meryon’s sense of guilty secrets in decaying
buildings; of a dim and delicate inward dream
by Matthew Maris; of the subtle decadency of
moments with Gustave Moreau, Schofield would,
I think, spring to the open door and start forth
on a ten-mile tramp, or rush away to splash on
a six-foot canvas. He is for “ the wind on the
heath, brother,” the free limbs of life, the big
movement and the big line in nature, vast rivers
and vaster spaces, the outlook of Walt Whitman
and Adam Lindsay Gordon, not of Blake or W. B.
Yeats. Among his compatriots he is as near to
the vigorous banner of Winslow Homer as he is
far from the tenderly tinctured oriflamme of
Twachtman. His art is virile and outstepping,
crisp and candid, and I should not wonder if he
THE BASIN, BOULOGNE
282
BY W. ELMER SCHOFIELD
Moreover I had promised to write an appreciative
little article on the art and life of my friend Scho-
field, and I didn’t want to make myself angry ar-
raigning a typical “ Cosmos ” foolish statement to
the effect that one of the causes of the present
chaotic condition of the art of the painter in England
is “ the undue importance given to landscape.”
“Undue importance,” I can hear the landscape
painters of Great Britain murmur ; “ what we suffer
from is undue neglect.”
W. Elmer Schofield is not an Englishman. He
is an American, born in 1867 at Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, who spends much of his time in
England, finding it pleasant and profitable. He
cannot complain of neglect. “ Who’s Who ”
contains many lines of small type detailing a number
of American public galleries which are the fortunate
owners of his pictures, with a list of the gold and
silver medals awarded to him. His recreation
is not given. His recreation I should say is
painting. At St. Ives, where we first met, I
never encountered him on the golf links or on
the tennis ground, but he was always to be found
any day in any weather happy as a boy, vigorous
as a footballer, painting the colour, movement, and
majesty of some Cornish cove, such a wild, brilliant
cove as is here reproduced in colour.
He is an open-air man, wholesome, healthy,
hearty, and his art, sane and straightforward,
reflects his temperament. Were I to talk to him
of Meryon’s sense of guilty secrets in decaying
buildings; of a dim and delicate inward dream
by Matthew Maris; of the subtle decadency of
moments with Gustave Moreau, Schofield would,
I think, spring to the open door and start forth
on a ten-mile tramp, or rush away to splash on
a six-foot canvas. He is for “ the wind on the
heath, brother,” the free limbs of life, the big
movement and the big line in nature, vast rivers
and vaster spaces, the outlook of Walt Whitman
and Adam Lindsay Gordon, not of Blake or W. B.
Yeats. Among his compatriots he is as near to
the vigorous banner of Winslow Homer as he is
far from the tenderly tinctured oriflamme of
Twachtman. His art is virile and outstepping,
crisp and candid, and I should not wonder if he
THE BASIN, BOULOGNE
282
BY W. ELMER SCHOFIELD