International studio (57.1915/1916)

The Art of Law ton Parker

hardly be a better representation of
the man. Its suggestion of move-
ment is entirely unconventional,
yet the picture possesses something
of the dignity of the old masters.
Its large simplicity and its broad
planes of light and dark are well
suited to such an official portrait,
and are among the qualities which
make it the equal of the best por-
trait work of any living American
master. As it hangs in Hutchinson
Commons in the University of Chi-
cago, it is strikingly effective from
all parts of the hall.
Always a student, even when a
finished master, Parker could not
rest content with being a mere por-
trait painter, and hence his move a
few years ago to Giverny and his
rush of enthusiasm for painting
the figure, draped and nude, out of
doors. And this most difficult
theme he has readily mastered, as
was to be expected from his sound
training and his wide experience.
It is a somewhat new kind of
impressionism which has been prac-
tised in recent years at Giverny by
Parker and other Americans. For


AMARYLLIS

BY LAWTON PARKER

although the little village on the Seine is the home
of Monet, the founder of impressionism, this
American movement in Giverny is not connected
with that great master, and differs somewhat in
method from his. Simply because Parker does
not see nature in the way of the French impres-
sionists, he does not adopt their method of paint-
ing in broken colour. To him nature in her
lights, hues, forms and various appearances is
fused and blended into a gracious and harmonious
whole. He, therefore, prepares his colours on the
palette, matching his greens to those of nature, his
blues to her blues; and his results justify his
methods. For while rendering warm sunlight,
cool shadows and the brilliant hues of foliage and
flowers, he also suggests the luminosity of nature
and the softening influence of the atmosphere.
Parker has preserved his own individuality here
as elsewhere. His pictures of the figure out-of-
doors have not the garishness and spottiness of the
works of some of the Impressionists, nor the cold-
ness and lack of finish of others. Neither have his

nudes any touch of the crudeness so frequent in
these days when the model is too much in evidence.
In the fresh and sparkling painting, Youth and
Spring, the direct rays of the sun, mingling with
those reflected from the water, double the difficul-
ties of the subject. At the same time, the naive
little figure bent gracefully to one side is made
brilliant by the surrounding foliage. In this and
similar studies our artist is intensely interested in
the effect of atmosphere and of neighbouring
colour masses upon human flesh. Paraphrasing a
passage from Leonardo da Vinci, our artist says:
“ Give me mud and let me place what I will beside
it, and I’ll give you the flesh of Venus.” He
studies the varying qualities of sunlight according
to the weather, the season, the hour and paints as
in Youth and Spring, when looking toward the
sun, or as in Sylvia when looking across its rays,
but very seldom with them.
In Summer Sun Spots, the sun shining directly
overhead pierces the foliage here and there, and
casts disks of light on the soft flesh. In this pic-

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