DOI issue:
No. 205 (March, 1914)
DOI article:Haswell, Ernest Bruce: The Society of Western Artists, 1913 - 1914
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43455#0372
The Society of IT estern Artists
Exhibition of Western Artists, 1913-1914
THE CLOUD BY L. H. MEAKIN
The society of western art-
ists, 1913-1914
BY ERNEST BRUCE HASWELL
It too often happens that to reflect
analytically upon art is to reflect after the manner
of the mirrors in the temple of Smyrna, which
represent the fairest images as deformed. But
there is a truth of vision that is the result of fre-
quent short visits, and with this has come the
realization that in the 1913 exhibition of the
Society of Western Artists, there is not an “excep-
tional” canvas. Now this is indeed a relief, in a
day when the craze for cleverness, brilliancy and
stunning performance seems to have got hold of
us. Here is a group of painters, pure and simple,
keenly alive to the suggestions of light and atmo-
sphere, the pictorial quality of facts, the capabili-
ties of whatever can display the especial powers of
the medium in which they work. As usual, the
landscape predominates. Sincerely painted bits
of gorgeously tinted shore and hill, shimmering
sands and amethyst peaks lend a pomp of colour to
this year’s exhibition.
Leading this pageant of colour are the canvases
of Forsyth and Meakin. William Forsyth this
year reveals more than ever the wealth of his
resources. Bold, free and strong, as well as sym-
pathetic, his landscapes run the whole scale of reds
and yellows, shading into rich browns.
As some rare human friends, the canvases of
L. H. Meakin seem always at their best. More
than ever he has concerned himself with colour. It
is not the colour of that mountain side that he tells
us in A n Effect of Rain, nor the greyness of that
cloud within a cloud, but of colour in its infinite
combinations. This he does in a manner indi-
vidual and poetic—attempting no striking pic-
torial effects, but dealing with the more delicate
and fleeting aspects of nature with reticence,
tenderness and truth.
Full of richly harmonic beauty is A Pool, by
Clifton A. Wheeler, overshadowed by trees through
whose tangled branches an occasional gleam of
retreating sunlight filters. His In the Garden,
another canvas done in an entirely different spirit,
is clever, but not altogether satisfactory.
Two distinctly different notes are struck by
Hurley and Anderson. The radiant glow of joy-
ous sunshine on shrubbery and trees and distant
figures in light attire have been very effectively set
down by Martinus Anderson, in two pictures of
xv
Exhibition of Western Artists, 1913-1914
THE CLOUD BY L. H. MEAKIN
The society of western art-
ists, 1913-1914
BY ERNEST BRUCE HASWELL
It too often happens that to reflect
analytically upon art is to reflect after the manner
of the mirrors in the temple of Smyrna, which
represent the fairest images as deformed. But
there is a truth of vision that is the result of fre-
quent short visits, and with this has come the
realization that in the 1913 exhibition of the
Society of Western Artists, there is not an “excep-
tional” canvas. Now this is indeed a relief, in a
day when the craze for cleverness, brilliancy and
stunning performance seems to have got hold of
us. Here is a group of painters, pure and simple,
keenly alive to the suggestions of light and atmo-
sphere, the pictorial quality of facts, the capabili-
ties of whatever can display the especial powers of
the medium in which they work. As usual, the
landscape predominates. Sincerely painted bits
of gorgeously tinted shore and hill, shimmering
sands and amethyst peaks lend a pomp of colour to
this year’s exhibition.
Leading this pageant of colour are the canvases
of Forsyth and Meakin. William Forsyth this
year reveals more than ever the wealth of his
resources. Bold, free and strong, as well as sym-
pathetic, his landscapes run the whole scale of reds
and yellows, shading into rich browns.
As some rare human friends, the canvases of
L. H. Meakin seem always at their best. More
than ever he has concerned himself with colour. It
is not the colour of that mountain side that he tells
us in A n Effect of Rain, nor the greyness of that
cloud within a cloud, but of colour in its infinite
combinations. This he does in a manner indi-
vidual and poetic—attempting no striking pic-
torial effects, but dealing with the more delicate
and fleeting aspects of nature with reticence,
tenderness and truth.
Full of richly harmonic beauty is A Pool, by
Clifton A. Wheeler, overshadowed by trees through
whose tangled branches an occasional gleam of
retreating sunlight filters. His In the Garden,
another canvas done in an entirely different spirit,
is clever, but not altogether satisfactory.
Two distinctly different notes are struck by
Hurley and Anderson. The radiant glow of joy-
ous sunshine on shrubbery and trees and distant
figures in light attire have been very effectively set
down by Martinus Anderson, in two pictures of
xv