DOI Artikel:
Salaman, Malcolm C.: The water-colour drawings of James McBey
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43455#0115
James Me Bey s Water-Colours
the right the artist has caught the reflection of a
woman’s face watching him at his work, a vivid and
original touch. Pumping Mills is a drawing that,
for vitality of suggestive presentment and masterly
felicity of design, is worthy, I think, to take its place
in any collection of drawings by the masters.
There is not a detail that is not finely observed and
set down in its place with absolute rightness ; the
air is still in the afterglow of sunset; the windmills
have ceased to work, and those two cows on the
right bank, how actually alive they are ! Enkhuisen
Harbour is a very engaging sunset scene with some
delicate passages of colour, notably the green side
of the canal-boat cabin, with the girl in pink
and the child in the white pinafore, against the
yellow gravel of the quay. Mr. McBey has evi-
dently drawn the boat with enjoyment, as indeed
he seems to draw every kind of water-craft. Was
he not born and bred among boats, ^o that for him,
as he says, the unforgivable sin is to draw a boat
badly ? Note the figures on the opposite shore of
the canal, standing out against the horizon, how
they suggest the further expanse of waters beyond—
the Zuyder Zee, as a matter of fact. Old Houses,
Enkhuisen, with its orange-red tiled roofs in a glow
of hot sunshine, is as delightful in colour as it is
interesting in design ; and the luminous effect of
Canal in Dordrecht shows Mr. McBey as a brilliant
and genuine colourist, while the suggestive draughts-
manship is masterly. Masterly too is the drawing
of the figure in Man Cutting a Ditch. This typical
Dutch labourer in his blue blouse, with the sun hot
upon him, cutting along the edge of the ditch
preparatory to cleaning out the overgrowth of vege-
tation, is as live a piece of draughtsmanship as one
of Millet’s tillers of the land; he is not only digging
actually at the moment, but every line suggests
that this has been the daily labour of his life.
Children Fishing is delightful, for the figures of the
children, and for the atmospheric treatment of the
early morning light, with the damp rising from the
meadows across the canal. There are others of the
Dutch subjects that I wish could have been included
among our examples, such as the fine Zaandam ; the
saw-mill interiors with the human activity among the
logs ; The Demolition of the Zandstraat, Rotterdam,
a particularly live drawing; Dordrecht; A Cloudy
Day,dashing and vigorous, and the breezy Schiedam-,
but the drawings on the Suffolk and Scotch coasts are
equally important, and they are characteristically
represented by The White Boat, Walkerswick, and
Scotch Fishing Village. In both of these, boats are
the appealing motive, boats as locally typical as the
atmosphere that surrounds them. And with what
comprehensive truth of vision, what delicate power
of expression, the artist has given to these pictorial
life ! Much may yet be expected from this gifted
young artist, who is scarcely yet out of his twenties.
“MAN CUTTING a DITCH” by JAMES .MCBEY
IOO
the right the artist has caught the reflection of a
woman’s face watching him at his work, a vivid and
original touch. Pumping Mills is a drawing that,
for vitality of suggestive presentment and masterly
felicity of design, is worthy, I think, to take its place
in any collection of drawings by the masters.
There is not a detail that is not finely observed and
set down in its place with absolute rightness ; the
air is still in the afterglow of sunset; the windmills
have ceased to work, and those two cows on the
right bank, how actually alive they are ! Enkhuisen
Harbour is a very engaging sunset scene with some
delicate passages of colour, notably the green side
of the canal-boat cabin, with the girl in pink
and the child in the white pinafore, against the
yellow gravel of the quay. Mr. McBey has evi-
dently drawn the boat with enjoyment, as indeed
he seems to draw every kind of water-craft. Was
he not born and bred among boats, ^o that for him,
as he says, the unforgivable sin is to draw a boat
badly ? Note the figures on the opposite shore of
the canal, standing out against the horizon, how
they suggest the further expanse of waters beyond—
the Zuyder Zee, as a matter of fact. Old Houses,
Enkhuisen, with its orange-red tiled roofs in a glow
of hot sunshine, is as delightful in colour as it is
interesting in design ; and the luminous effect of
Canal in Dordrecht shows Mr. McBey as a brilliant
and genuine colourist, while the suggestive draughts-
manship is masterly. Masterly too is the drawing
of the figure in Man Cutting a Ditch. This typical
Dutch labourer in his blue blouse, with the sun hot
upon him, cutting along the edge of the ditch
preparatory to cleaning out the overgrowth of vege-
tation, is as live a piece of draughtsmanship as one
of Millet’s tillers of the land; he is not only digging
actually at the moment, but every line suggests
that this has been the daily labour of his life.
Children Fishing is delightful, for the figures of the
children, and for the atmospheric treatment of the
early morning light, with the damp rising from the
meadows across the canal. There are others of the
Dutch subjects that I wish could have been included
among our examples, such as the fine Zaandam ; the
saw-mill interiors with the human activity among the
logs ; The Demolition of the Zandstraat, Rotterdam,
a particularly live drawing; Dordrecht; A Cloudy
Day,dashing and vigorous, and the breezy Schiedam-,
but the drawings on the Suffolk and Scotch coasts are
equally important, and they are characteristically
represented by The White Boat, Walkerswick, and
Scotch Fishing Village. In both of these, boats are
the appealing motive, boats as locally typical as the
atmosphere that surrounds them. And with what
comprehensive truth of vision, what delicate power
of expression, the artist has given to these pictorial
life ! Much may yet be expected from this gifted
young artist, who is scarcely yet out of his twenties.
“MAN CUTTING a DITCH” by JAMES .MCBEY
IOO