International studio (50.1913)

A Poet-Painter of Palestine


Owned, by Chicago Art Institute
THE TWO DISCIPLES
AT THE TOMB

Received Harris Prize
BY H. O. TANNER

the Khedive during one of his trips to Egypt, or of
Rabbi Wise of this city. A landscape may tempt
him, but it will be seen only by his poetic vision.
He is never in any sense a realist or a symbolist,
and his work is untouched by the decorative
tendency of today, which is gradually showing
itself in the art of all the world. Only the Orient,
and particularly Palestine, as a setting for his
Biblical subjects, has been his inspiration. Moon-
light scenes appeal to him the most.
Daylight does not attract Mr. Tanner, unless as
it affects his religious subjects as a background.
His work is never direct, but obtained by a series
of glazes. As his manipulation is process work,
he usually has fifteen or twenty canvases on hand
at once, in different stages of completion.
Mr. Tanner is an experimenter with pigments,
and has been working out new methods for the
past two years. He finds that his results are
more permanent, when working slowly, thus giving
each glaze layer sufficient time to dry and harden.
His present style is much changed. Not only has
he a greater breadth of vision, but his effects are
cooler, grayer in tone and higher in key, not as
black and brown in the shadows, or hot in color,
as formerly. Thus his new canvases have a more
spiritual, dreamlike quality. They are more poet-
ical and show a great advance from earlier efforts.

Fifteen years ago his Christ at the Tomb of Lazarus
was hailed with great admiration, not only by his
fellow-compatriots but by the French nation as
well, and it was purchased by the state for the
Luxembourg Museum. Viewed now, after a num-
ber of years, andjafter a close study of his present
output, it does not hold by comparison.
On being questioned, Mr. Tanner says that the
ultimate effect of the new movement in art will
be a good one. It will lift up the color scheme,
induce greater individuality and freedom, and
afford a looser and more open and spontaneous
handling of pigments. He believes in acquiring
new ideas from all schools and methods. Post-
impressionism is discarding all laws and is anar-
chistic in its beliefs. The pendulum now swings
far to the extreme, but the ultimate end will be
a good one.
His last exploration has been to Tetuan, in the
interior of Morocco. In Tangier the artist spent
nearly three months making studies and oppos-
ing the prejudices he found in Jew and Mahom-
medan alike against posing.
Few return after a first visit to Tangier, yet
Lavery, the well-known member of the Glasgow
school, is an exception, and owns a house there, as
well as a beautiful studio. A few Frenchmen (the
talented and lamented Henri Reignault was one
of these) are also tempted by the beauty of that
unspoiled seaport town, with its entrancing

Owned by Mr. Wm. Berg, of Seattle
A JERUSALEM JEW BY H. O. TANNER


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