International studio (53.1914)

John Lavery, R.S.A., A.R.A.

treasures of the Glasgow Corporation Gallery. His
equestrian study of Mr. Graham may also be re-
called. But of this latter aspect of the painter’s
talent the greatest tour de force is The Amazon, a
portrait of his daughter on a superb Arab, dominat-
ing a far-flung Moorish landscape. We have also
the Equestrienne which the artist has long retained
in his own possession, out of legitimate affection
for an effort of which he ought to be rightly proud.
In the picture In Morocco we have also another
study of a horse, which in its drawing and colour
treatment reveals graphically Mr. Lavery’s power of
escaping from the dead formalism so long associated
with animal-painting. Like Mr. Crawhall, Mr.
Lavery not only portrays animal life, but the
personal equation of each
individual animal.

but with reverence for the great craft in which he
has been hailed as an accredited expositor. He
has not attempted what Matthew Arnold called “a
laborious moral deliverance,” but he has in all
seriousness, with a sense of responsibility, delivered
his message in paint without selling his artistic soul
either to an academy or to a coterie. Though
he has passed the halfway house, yet there is youth
in his brush, which is emphasised by his rare
canvas In Morocco, the veritable apotheosis of all he
feels, knows and thinks of life and colour in
Tangier. It is a fitting monument for his long
artistic career and an earnest of what we may
expect in the future, a future as full of promise as
in the springtime “at the golden gates of morning.”

Mr. Lavery’s work has
been, with one exception,
entirely confined to oils.
That one exception is a
water-colour done in the
far-off Glasgow days, and
he has not used that
medium since. One thing
remains for him to do—
that is, to paint a purely
Scottish landscape. He
must approach the country
in which he was trained
as he has approached
Morocco and Switzerland,
and the result we are con-
vinced would be a valuable
and interesting contribu-
tion to the country of land-
scape painters.
Beginning with Guthrie,
Walton, Roche, Crawhall,
I). Y. Cameron and others
of the Glasgow School as
a revolutionary against a
stereotyped academic tra-
dition, Mr. Lavery has
never allowed himself to
run riot in extravagances.
Fully aware of the serious-
ness of the art of which
he is a disciple as well as
a master, he has neither
humoured his reputation,
nor played pranks with it.
He has expressed himself
not only in terms of himself,


i4

“mrs. kennard” (191+j

BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A., A.R.A.