DOI issue:
No. 190 (December, 1912)
DOI article:Book Reviews
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0412
Book Reviews
marines—represent any “school,” that school is
unknown or ignored today by nearly all our
painters. “Nature” and “conscientious study”
—does a generation of aspirants for tricky
“effects” and smart “impressions” think of these
in connection with painting? One can almost
fancy some of our contemporary exhibitors say-
ing: “Draw? Oh, no, I don’t draw; I paint”—
and if they do not say it they think it, even if they
realize what a mighty serious and important thing
“drawing” was to the men of the old school.
Richards should have been reckoned as the
logical successor of Inness and Wyant, excepting
that, unlike those two great landscapists, he did
not paint by formula. No matter how good the
formula may be, it is dangerous and detrimental
when it forms the basis of any work of art. Win-
slow Homer, generally considered one of our
greater marine painters, undoubtedly loved the
sea, and while he came very near to understanding
it, one cannot help feeling that he regarded it
more as a stage setting than as subject. It was the
background for some rendering of nautical genre.
In Mr. Morris’ intimate memoir of the life and
work of William T. Richards, one could have
wished, perhaps, a view of art on the part of the
biographer as broad and deep as that of his sub-
ject—there are no inaccuracies, but Richards’
work was of such import that even the largeness
and vitality of his character, which Mr. Morris
has shown in the sympathetic light of a warm
friendship, must seem almost secondary.
It is true enough that to understand paintings
we must understand the painter, and with Rich-
ards this was certainly true. Those who knew him
only on canvas knew a master painter and missed
a never-to-be-forgotten friend. Those who knew
him first as a friend, have, perhaps, been prone to
overlook his remarkable power as a painter. Free
of all studio “patter” and jargon of “tones,”
“values” and “technique” (though a master of
all), many people could not believe that the quiet,
genial man could be a really great painter without
talking about painting.
Mr. Richards’ art was a thing to him too vital
to bring into casual conversation—not his opinion
of his art, but the feeling so nearly akin to humility
with which he approached the ever-changing
phenomena of nature.
To the very end he was, to himself, still trying
to grasp his subject; he never fell back on a
“style,” or let his painting fall into the fatal rut
of self-assured mannerisms or “tricks.” And he
never felt that he had solved entirely the prob-
lems he loved and of whose rendering he was an
acknowledged master.
Yet all this Mr. Morris suggests, if he does not
actually define it, and his life of William T. Rich-
ards must come as a welcome memoir as well to
those who knew Mr. Richards in name or in per-
son, as to a younger generation which is in a fair
way to accept as landscape and marine painting
the canvases of those who now fill the public eye
in the galleries.
From “Richards: Masterpieces of the Sea,” J. B. Lippincott & Co.
ON THE JERSEY COAST
BY W. T. RICHARDS
XL VIII
marines—represent any “school,” that school is
unknown or ignored today by nearly all our
painters. “Nature” and “conscientious study”
—does a generation of aspirants for tricky
“effects” and smart “impressions” think of these
in connection with painting? One can almost
fancy some of our contemporary exhibitors say-
ing: “Draw? Oh, no, I don’t draw; I paint”—
and if they do not say it they think it, even if they
realize what a mighty serious and important thing
“drawing” was to the men of the old school.
Richards should have been reckoned as the
logical successor of Inness and Wyant, excepting
that, unlike those two great landscapists, he did
not paint by formula. No matter how good the
formula may be, it is dangerous and detrimental
when it forms the basis of any work of art. Win-
slow Homer, generally considered one of our
greater marine painters, undoubtedly loved the
sea, and while he came very near to understanding
it, one cannot help feeling that he regarded it
more as a stage setting than as subject. It was the
background for some rendering of nautical genre.
In Mr. Morris’ intimate memoir of the life and
work of William T. Richards, one could have
wished, perhaps, a view of art on the part of the
biographer as broad and deep as that of his sub-
ject—there are no inaccuracies, but Richards’
work was of such import that even the largeness
and vitality of his character, which Mr. Morris
has shown in the sympathetic light of a warm
friendship, must seem almost secondary.
It is true enough that to understand paintings
we must understand the painter, and with Rich-
ards this was certainly true. Those who knew him
only on canvas knew a master painter and missed
a never-to-be-forgotten friend. Those who knew
him first as a friend, have, perhaps, been prone to
overlook his remarkable power as a painter. Free
of all studio “patter” and jargon of “tones,”
“values” and “technique” (though a master of
all), many people could not believe that the quiet,
genial man could be a really great painter without
talking about painting.
Mr. Richards’ art was a thing to him too vital
to bring into casual conversation—not his opinion
of his art, but the feeling so nearly akin to humility
with which he approached the ever-changing
phenomena of nature.
To the very end he was, to himself, still trying
to grasp his subject; he never fell back on a
“style,” or let his painting fall into the fatal rut
of self-assured mannerisms or “tricks.” And he
never felt that he had solved entirely the prob-
lems he loved and of whose rendering he was an
acknowledged master.
Yet all this Mr. Morris suggests, if he does not
actually define it, and his life of William T. Rich-
ards must come as a welcome memoir as well to
those who knew Mr. Richards in name or in per-
son, as to a younger generation which is in a fair
way to accept as landscape and marine painting
the canvases of those who now fill the public eye
in the galleries.
From “Richards: Masterpieces of the Sea,” J. B. Lippincott & Co.
ON THE JERSEY COAST
BY W. T. RICHARDS
XL VIII