DOI article:
Finberg, Alexander Joseph: Mr. J. Walter West's landscapes
DOI article:Frantz, Henri: The Rouart collection, 2, The works of Daumier
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43452#0201
The Rouart Collection.—The Works of Daumier
“ON THE ARDOCH, PERTHSHIRE” (OIL)
BY J. WALTER WEST. R.W.S.
power of finely observed tone and colour, but unless
the artist shows in his work an appreciation also of
the subtleties and intricacy of natural forms, he
misses some of the chief beauties of his subject-
matter.
At any rate I think all careful observers will
agree with me that our pleasure in landscape
painting is enhanced by evidence of the artist’s
knowledge of form and structure. It is true that
Ruskin pushed this demand to absurd extremes
when he demanded that a landscape painter
should devote himself to studies proper only to the
geologist and botanist. But between these two
extremes—the ridiculous scientific claims of a
Ruskin and the looseness and formlessness of
much modern landscape work—there seems to me
to be a middle path. All Turner’s art, even his
later work, with all its marvels of glorious colour
and all its looseness and suggestiveness, was based
primarily upon an untiring study of form. The
pencil throughout his long life was his favourite
medium for sketching and note-taking. The fact
that Mr. Walter West has chosen to work on the
same lines seems to me to account for the large
measure of success he has already achieved and to
promise well for his future. A. J. F.
188
pHE ROUART COLLECTION: II.
, —THE WORKS OF DAUMIER.
1 BY HENRI FRANTZ.
As I have already indicated in my first article
on the Rouart Collection, this great art collector,
while possessing one of the most varied collections
of works by masters of the nineteenth century
which have ever been seen, had at the same time
decided predilections for certain artists, and occu-
pied himself in forming ensembles of works by
them giving a most complete idea of all their varied
styles and of all their inspirations. Such was the
case with the works of Corot, and the same applies
also to those of Honore Daumier.
But there is even greater interest in studying
this last named master in the Rouart Collection,
for it is much more rare to find a number of this
great artist’s works grouped together, and also
because our public galleries are much less rich in
works by Daumier than in pictures by Corot. It
must be remembered that this master, the power
of whose work and whose talent at once so clear
and so luminous ought, one would have imagined,
to have made an immediate appeal, remained as a
matter of fact for a long time unknown. In vain
“ON THE ARDOCH, PERTHSHIRE” (OIL)
BY J. WALTER WEST. R.W.S.
power of finely observed tone and colour, but unless
the artist shows in his work an appreciation also of
the subtleties and intricacy of natural forms, he
misses some of the chief beauties of his subject-
matter.
At any rate I think all careful observers will
agree with me that our pleasure in landscape
painting is enhanced by evidence of the artist’s
knowledge of form and structure. It is true that
Ruskin pushed this demand to absurd extremes
when he demanded that a landscape painter
should devote himself to studies proper only to the
geologist and botanist. But between these two
extremes—the ridiculous scientific claims of a
Ruskin and the looseness and formlessness of
much modern landscape work—there seems to me
to be a middle path. All Turner’s art, even his
later work, with all its marvels of glorious colour
and all its looseness and suggestiveness, was based
primarily upon an untiring study of form. The
pencil throughout his long life was his favourite
medium for sketching and note-taking. The fact
that Mr. Walter West has chosen to work on the
same lines seems to me to account for the large
measure of success he has already achieved and to
promise well for his future. A. J. F.
188
pHE ROUART COLLECTION: II.
, —THE WORKS OF DAUMIER.
1 BY HENRI FRANTZ.
As I have already indicated in my first article
on the Rouart Collection, this great art collector,
while possessing one of the most varied collections
of works by masters of the nineteenth century
which have ever been seen, had at the same time
decided predilections for certain artists, and occu-
pied himself in forming ensembles of works by
them giving a most complete idea of all their varied
styles and of all their inspirations. Such was the
case with the works of Corot, and the same applies
also to those of Honore Daumier.
But there is even greater interest in studying
this last named master in the Rouart Collection,
for it is much more rare to find a number of this
great artist’s works grouped together, and also
because our public galleries are much less rich in
works by Daumier than in pictures by Corot. It
must be remembered that this master, the power
of whose work and whose talent at once so clear
and so luminous ought, one would have imagined,
to have made an immediate appeal, remained as a
matter of fact for a long time unknown. In vain