DOI article:
Salaman, Malcolm C.: The water-colour drawings of James McBey
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43455#0112
James McBey s Water-Colours
The water-colour draw-
ings OF JAMES McBEY. BY
MALCOLM C. SALAMAN.
It had been Mr. McBey’s constant practice to
sketch in oils ever since, as a boy, he had found
out for himself the technique of oil-painting, and he
had even extended this practice to portraiture; but
water-colours he had scarcely attempted to use until
he went to Morocco in the winter of 1912. There,
in Tetuan and Tangier, sketching his subjects in pen
and ink, after his usual etching-like manner, he
added water-colour washes, leaving the white paper
to speak for the pervading whiteness of the Moorish
buildings in the hot glare of sunshine, and so found
he could make his colour-studies more expeditiously
and effectually than with oils. These spontaneous
impressions, vivid with all the character and colour
of the scenes, yet after all mere sketches, Mr. Mc-
Bey had intended only as notes and studies for the
etchings that were to be the permanent records of
his visit to Morocco ; but a representative of Messrs.
Colnaghi and Obach, chancing to see them, dis-
cerned their appeal for collectors. His discernment
was justified by the immediate demand for as many
of these sketches as Mr. McBey could spare, and
this encouraged the artist, during his summer
wanderings in Holland, in his native Aberdeenshire,
and on the Suffolk coast, to carry his tinted pen-
and-ink drawings further than the mere sketch.
The recent exhibition in Messrs. Colnaghi and
Obach’s gallery was the happy result.
Ten representative examples of the drawings ex-
hibited are shown here in reproduction, two in
colours and the rest in monochrome, and in these
it will be seen how unaffectedly individual is his
point of view, how fresh and personal is, not only
his vision, but his manner of expression. Happy
invariably in the selection of his pictorial motive, he
seems instinctively to distinguish at once the salient
features of his subject, and to draw these with a dis-
tinctive and spontaneous unity of impression, and
essential vitality, controlled always by an original
sense of design. These drawings, therefore, which
I feel he has done for the pure delight of doing
them, appeal to me with the charm of artistic
surprise which very soon gives place to the sense of
inevitability. One recognises the pictorial motive,
one sees how the essential lines of the subject must
have appealed to the instinctive etcher and natural
draughtsman that Mr. McBey is, and how the
atmospheric aspect has charmed him with its simple
harmonies of tone in some arresting moment of
light; then one realises at once that his vision has
\ h
“CHILDREN FISHING IN A canal” by JAMES MCBEY
( This and the following reproductions are by permission of Messrs. Colnaghi and Obach)
97
The water-colour draw-
ings OF JAMES McBEY. BY
MALCOLM C. SALAMAN.
It had been Mr. McBey’s constant practice to
sketch in oils ever since, as a boy, he had found
out for himself the technique of oil-painting, and he
had even extended this practice to portraiture; but
water-colours he had scarcely attempted to use until
he went to Morocco in the winter of 1912. There,
in Tetuan and Tangier, sketching his subjects in pen
and ink, after his usual etching-like manner, he
added water-colour washes, leaving the white paper
to speak for the pervading whiteness of the Moorish
buildings in the hot glare of sunshine, and so found
he could make his colour-studies more expeditiously
and effectually than with oils. These spontaneous
impressions, vivid with all the character and colour
of the scenes, yet after all mere sketches, Mr. Mc-
Bey had intended only as notes and studies for the
etchings that were to be the permanent records of
his visit to Morocco ; but a representative of Messrs.
Colnaghi and Obach, chancing to see them, dis-
cerned their appeal for collectors. His discernment
was justified by the immediate demand for as many
of these sketches as Mr. McBey could spare, and
this encouraged the artist, during his summer
wanderings in Holland, in his native Aberdeenshire,
and on the Suffolk coast, to carry his tinted pen-
and-ink drawings further than the mere sketch.
The recent exhibition in Messrs. Colnaghi and
Obach’s gallery was the happy result.
Ten representative examples of the drawings ex-
hibited are shown here in reproduction, two in
colours and the rest in monochrome, and in these
it will be seen how unaffectedly individual is his
point of view, how fresh and personal is, not only
his vision, but his manner of expression. Happy
invariably in the selection of his pictorial motive, he
seems instinctively to distinguish at once the salient
features of his subject, and to draw these with a dis-
tinctive and spontaneous unity of impression, and
essential vitality, controlled always by an original
sense of design. These drawings, therefore, which
I feel he has done for the pure delight of doing
them, appeal to me with the charm of artistic
surprise which very soon gives place to the sense of
inevitability. One recognises the pictorial motive,
one sees how the essential lines of the subject must
have appealed to the instinctive etcher and natural
draughtsman that Mr. McBey is, and how the
atmospheric aspect has charmed him with its simple
harmonies of tone in some arresting moment of
light; then one realises at once that his vision has
\ h
“CHILDREN FISHING IN A canal” by JAMES MCBEY
( This and the following reproductions are by permission of Messrs. Colnaghi and Obach)
97