DOI Artikel:
Marriott, Charles: The paintings of Miss Hilda Fearon
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43457#0048
The Paintings of Hilda Fearon
The paintings of miss
HILDA FEARON. BY
CHARLES MARRIOTT.
Looking at the work of Miss Hilda Fearon, and
ignoring for the moment its obvious merits of truth,
sincerity and freshness, one is conscious of a de-
tachment other than artistic and a coolness, if not
coldness, distinct from that resulting from the
preference for cool schemes of colour. Her
pictures are, so to speak, a little frosty in their
manner. Their characteristic subject—an interior
with figures—makes this more apparent. A person
of ordinary sensibility coming into a room is aware,
almost before he takes in the identity of individuals,
of the moral or emotional atmosphere between them.
It is hardly necessary to say that emotional, here,
does not mean sentimental. There is a common
feeling of some sort; something that distinguishes
a roomful of people from persons in a room. In
a picture by Miss Fearon this common feeling is
comparatively lacking ; the identity of individuals
women. If the means of expression in painting were
a natural gift this broad distinction would be as
immediately apparent as is the distinction between
the physical characteristics—the voices, for example
—of men and women. It is the enormous difficulty
of the technique of painting that obscures the
distinction. In learning their craft both men and
women tend to lose, at any rate for a time, their
distinguishing characteristics; but, owing to their
smaller physical capacity, the temporary conceal-
ment of personality is greater for women than for
men. Everybody who has come in close contact
with male and female art students has observed that
the latter are generally more completely absorbed in
their work than the former. At a glance one would
say that the women are more industrious, but that
is only part of the truth. Owing to their greater
physical strength the men are able to carry on their
work and still keep in touch with their personalities
as men and individuals with human interests outside
the studio; but, in becoming serious students of
art, the women, for the moment, cease to be women.
is more apparent than the
emotional atmosphere be-
tween them. Even when
some family relationship is
indicated by the choice of
types, her people are
“strangers yet.” The
reason might be lack of
sensibility or unusual re-
serve or coldness of tem-
perament in the painter,
but it is probably nothing
more than the fact that she
is a woman.
This sounds like a
paradox, because women
are generally warmer and
more intimate than men in
their reactions to life. But
between reactions to life
and their expression in art
lie all the difficulties and
accidents of technique.
The saying that there is no
sex in art is true, if at all,
only of craftsmanship. Art
is the expression of human
personality, and, allowing
that the means of expression
are the same for both sexes,
it remains broadly true that
men are men and women
“green and silver”
BY HILDA FEARON
27
The paintings of miss
HILDA FEARON. BY
CHARLES MARRIOTT.
Looking at the work of Miss Hilda Fearon, and
ignoring for the moment its obvious merits of truth,
sincerity and freshness, one is conscious of a de-
tachment other than artistic and a coolness, if not
coldness, distinct from that resulting from the
preference for cool schemes of colour. Her
pictures are, so to speak, a little frosty in their
manner. Their characteristic subject—an interior
with figures—makes this more apparent. A person
of ordinary sensibility coming into a room is aware,
almost before he takes in the identity of individuals,
of the moral or emotional atmosphere between them.
It is hardly necessary to say that emotional, here,
does not mean sentimental. There is a common
feeling of some sort; something that distinguishes
a roomful of people from persons in a room. In
a picture by Miss Fearon this common feeling is
comparatively lacking ; the identity of individuals
women. If the means of expression in painting were
a natural gift this broad distinction would be as
immediately apparent as is the distinction between
the physical characteristics—the voices, for example
—of men and women. It is the enormous difficulty
of the technique of painting that obscures the
distinction. In learning their craft both men and
women tend to lose, at any rate for a time, their
distinguishing characteristics; but, owing to their
smaller physical capacity, the temporary conceal-
ment of personality is greater for women than for
men. Everybody who has come in close contact
with male and female art students has observed that
the latter are generally more completely absorbed in
their work than the former. At a glance one would
say that the women are more industrious, but that
is only part of the truth. Owing to their greater
physical strength the men are able to carry on their
work and still keep in touch with their personalities
as men and individuals with human interests outside
the studio; but, in becoming serious students of
art, the women, for the moment, cease to be women.
is more apparent than the
emotional atmosphere be-
tween them. Even when
some family relationship is
indicated by the choice of
types, her people are
“strangers yet.” The
reason might be lack of
sensibility or unusual re-
serve or coldness of tem-
perament in the painter,
but it is probably nothing
more than the fact that she
is a woman.
This sounds like a
paradox, because women
are generally warmer and
more intimate than men in
their reactions to life. But
between reactions to life
and their expression in art
lie all the difficulties and
accidents of technique.
The saying that there is no
sex in art is true, if at all,
only of craftsmanship. Art
is the expression of human
personality, and, allowing
that the means of expression
are the same for both sexes,
it remains broadly true that
men are men and women
“green and silver”
BY HILDA FEARON
27