DOI Artikel:
Salaman, Malcolm C.: The pictorial art of Mr. Fred Stratton
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43455#0037
Fred Stratton
foliage speak by the supernatural apparition of
nymphs and fauns, even as the bard believes
he hears the voices of spirits in the whisper
of winds passing through the trees. But these
figures, whether those of nymphs or of simple
fishers, are always a complemental part of the
scene; the incarnation of an emotion the artist has
felt; so true it is that in art the subject is naught,
and that its whole value is in the impression it can
communicate.” Now, that might very well have been
written of Mr. Fred Stratton painting the Sussex
woodlands, and interpreting in beautiful pictures
the emotions their lovely witcheries have aroused in
him, when the lambent joy and glory of sunlight or
the stilly twilight has transfigured the trees and
the glades, peopling’them with exquisite fantasies.
For never were our English woodlands—and Mr.
Stratton has seen no others—painted with more of
the true intuitions of poetry. Of this artist it
might be justly said, as Leigh Hunt said of Keats,
that he never beholds a tree without seeing
the Dryad. Look at the original and fascinating
Forest Ecstasy, reproduced here—this is as genuine
an inspiration as any that painter ever put upon
canvas. Let his own words describe its origin.
“ It is an attempt to arouse the emotion that 51
felt when standing under the trees on a brilliant
summer day. It was all so beautiful that I asked
myself, ‘What should I do if there were more
than this ? If Pan should begin to pipe ! I should
go mad with joy, become ecstatic.’ Then I
imagined the woods alive with troops of happy,
healthy nymphs and semi-humans dancing through
the sunshine, and I felt a positive ecstasy.”
But with such a conception ready to his hand,
Mr. Stratton did not go slap-dash at his canvas, in
the approved fashion of the moment, content to
convey a rhythmic impression of something that
might possibly be guessed to mean a dance in the
sunlight, but at any rate would serve for a decora-
tive pattern. His methods have a pride of thorough-
ness they inherit, perhaps, .from an older tradition,
which yet, because of the
vitalising emotion, keeps
his art in line with the art
that is always alive. He
set about designing and
painting a picture that
should express his concep-
tion with the best art and
craft at his command.
And, after his usual cus-
tom, he made innumerable
sketches, studies and
finished drawings from
nature—every figure being
carefully drawn in the
nude from life, even
though draperies should
be added for the sake of
colour — and then he
painted the whole picture
more or less from memory,
the memory constantly re-
freshed, for he lives always
in close and intimate touch
with nature.
This picture, and the
others reproduced here,
may be regarded as typical
of Mr. Stratton’s pic-
torial attitude towards the
world, which is that of
the poet and the romantic
impressionist rather than
“ti-ie diver”
Ail painting by fred stratton
22
foliage speak by the supernatural apparition of
nymphs and fauns, even as the bard believes
he hears the voices of spirits in the whisper
of winds passing through the trees. But these
figures, whether those of nymphs or of simple
fishers, are always a complemental part of the
scene; the incarnation of an emotion the artist has
felt; so true it is that in art the subject is naught,
and that its whole value is in the impression it can
communicate.” Now, that might very well have been
written of Mr. Fred Stratton painting the Sussex
woodlands, and interpreting in beautiful pictures
the emotions their lovely witcheries have aroused in
him, when the lambent joy and glory of sunlight or
the stilly twilight has transfigured the trees and
the glades, peopling’them with exquisite fantasies.
For never were our English woodlands—and Mr.
Stratton has seen no others—painted with more of
the true intuitions of poetry. Of this artist it
might be justly said, as Leigh Hunt said of Keats,
that he never beholds a tree without seeing
the Dryad. Look at the original and fascinating
Forest Ecstasy, reproduced here—this is as genuine
an inspiration as any that painter ever put upon
canvas. Let his own words describe its origin.
“ It is an attempt to arouse the emotion that 51
felt when standing under the trees on a brilliant
summer day. It was all so beautiful that I asked
myself, ‘What should I do if there were more
than this ? If Pan should begin to pipe ! I should
go mad with joy, become ecstatic.’ Then I
imagined the woods alive with troops of happy,
healthy nymphs and semi-humans dancing through
the sunshine, and I felt a positive ecstasy.”
But with such a conception ready to his hand,
Mr. Stratton did not go slap-dash at his canvas, in
the approved fashion of the moment, content to
convey a rhythmic impression of something that
might possibly be guessed to mean a dance in the
sunlight, but at any rate would serve for a decora-
tive pattern. His methods have a pride of thorough-
ness they inherit, perhaps, .from an older tradition,
which yet, because of the
vitalising emotion, keeps
his art in line with the art
that is always alive. He
set about designing and
painting a picture that
should express his concep-
tion with the best art and
craft at his command.
And, after his usual cus-
tom, he made innumerable
sketches, studies and
finished drawings from
nature—every figure being
carefully drawn in the
nude from life, even
though draperies should
be added for the sake of
colour — and then he
painted the whole picture
more or less from memory,
the memory constantly re-
freshed, for he lives always
in close and intimate touch
with nature.
This picture, and the
others reproduced here,
may be regarded as typical
of Mr. Stratton’s pic-
torial attitude towards the
world, which is that of
the poet and the romantic
impressionist rather than
“ti-ie diver”
Ail painting by fred stratton
22