International studio (50.1913)

Patrick IP. Adam, R.S.A.


“mrs. cumming’s drawing-room”
BY PATRICK W. ADAM, R.S.A.
( Owned by Dr. A. Ctimming)

In Reflections: Lord McLaren's House Mr. Adam
meets Mr. Lorimer more directly in the scheme of
finding a mirror in polished floors and walls made
highly refractive by direct and suffused light. This
in many ways is the artist’s chej d'oeuvre. The
sense of substance is profound, the texture of each
object in the canvas being certain and individual.
The distribution of the lighting is masterly, and
is achieved by no mere trick. It expresses the
artist at his apotheosis. In contrast to this master-
piece we may place another fine interior, Mrs. Black-
wood Porter’s Drawing-Room in North Berwick,
where a study is made of that corner of the room
where the force of the sunlight is faintest and
merely sufficient to supply effective lighting for the
superb drawing of picture-frame, furniture, and china.
174

In these interiors Mr. Adam has been content to
deal only with variations of sunlight. He has, so far
as we are aware, essayed none of the intermixtures
of natural and artificial light so dexterously under-
taken by Mr. Lorimer, where the combination
of moonlight, firelight, and gaslight is rendered
with unerring skill—as in such a picture as the
Fete de Grand-Mere in the Luxembourg. No doubt
these experiments will arrest the attention of Mr.
Adam sooner or later.
Like most Scotsmen Mr. Adam is a fine colourist.
His colours are lustrous and vivid, yet they never
“shriek.” Not so broadly handled as by M.
Blanche, the colour is never anaemic or muddy
and is seldom painted in a very low tone. The
decorative sense is good, if not exactly brilliant,


“reflections: lord mci.aren’s house’"
BY PATRICK W. ADAM, R.S.A.