International studio (54.1914/1915)

Gerald Festus Kelly

A STUDENT OF CHARACTER:
GERALD FESTUS KELLY. BY
W. S. MAUGHAM.
The observer of life, listening in studios and
at cafe tables to the conversation of painters,
must have heard often with ironic amusement their
contention that it is only the judgment of painters
upon painting which has any value. They insist
upon the importance of technique and are im-
patient of the criticism of those who have no
practical knowledge of it. No one would make
the preposterous claim that only a writer could
judge the excellence of “ Vanity Fair,” and yet
the technique of writing is no less complicated
than that of any other of the arts. Of late an
exaggerated importance has been attached to
technique, and those who practise a particular art
have sought to make it into
a mystery. Some years ago,
owing to the influence of a
popular and not undistin-
guished writer, there was
a great interest in tech¬
nique as such, and people
troubled themselves with
a needless accuracy; they
spoke of steam-engines in
the terms of the mechani¬
cian and of flowers in the
terms of the botanist : they
made themselves not only
unintelligible but tedious.
Art-critics, a timid race
anxious to be right — as
though to be right were
more important than to be
sincere—have stuffed them¬
selves with the jargon of
the studios, and have
judged pictures as though
they were painters. But
since the technique of
painting is very difficult the
painter will be inclined to
attach too great conse¬
quence to it, and the part
of the critic is to remind
him that technique is no
more than a means. Good
grammar may be expected
from a writer, and he should
be able to set down plainly
and neatly what he wishes
LIV. No. 215.—January

to say; he need not be praised for these qualities,
and their lack of essential importance is shown by
the fact that some very great writers have not pos-
sessed them. Charles Dickens wrote often very bad
grammar, and Honore de Balzac was frequently
diffuse and clumsy. It cannot be different in
painting. You have the right to expect that a
painter’s values should be correct, and I see no
more reason to congratulate him on the fact that
he draws well than to congratulate a public speaker
on the fact that he enunciates clearly. In none
of this does art consist. A work of art must offer
two much more important things, namely, enter-
tainment and emotion.
I know little of the technique of painting, and
care less, and in this short study of Mr. Gerald
Kelly’s art I have nothing to say about that side
of his work. I have called him “a student of


“ ROSA MARIA ”
1915

OIL PAINTING BY GERALD FESTUS KELLY