DOI Heft:
Nr. 232 (June 1915)
DOI Artikel:Gibson, Frank F.: A Girtin Collection
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43461#0344
A Girt in Collection
“ HELMSLEY CASTLE ” BY THOMAS GIRTIN
his ideas were expressive but not creative. Yet
at the same time his imagination was keenly alive
to fine impressions. The Valley of the Aire and
the Tynemouth are only two of many examples of
this, and also of his pure landscape work in which
he seized the effects of light and shadow so well.
It was the same thing when he noted the most
impressive and interesting view of a ruin or even
a simple street. Fine as he invariably was with
architectural subjects, and sympathetically as he
treated the bridges, cathedrals, and abbeys of
England, he was perhaps at his best when he
realised his impressions of natural landscape, and
recorded the grand effects of light and shade upon
rocky hills, undulating moorlands, and the sea
coasts of England and Scotland, with a breadth,
simplicity, and yet a regard for truth, which had
never been equalled before, and have rarely been
surpassed in its way since, except by Turner, whose
art, of course, had far greater range. Girtin’s art
was more spontaneous, and at the same time less
intellectual and less creative than that of his great
rival, but it was more certain within its own
limits, and in a way more perfect because it was
composed of fewrer elements.
It seems a pity that Girtin spent so much time on
his panorama of London, a work which was not
successful financially, and that he did not devote
himself more to oil painting, of which there is only
one recorded example by him—the Bolton Bridge
shown at the Academy in 1801, where it was much
admired at the time. Some of his drawings, one
cannot help thinking, would have been still more
successful if carried out in oil. The Old Wooden
Bridge, which in size is almost too large for a
water-colour, and the Bridgenorth, now in the
British Museum, are both examples in point.
It is useless now to speculate what he might
have accomplished had he lived longer. The
marvel is, how in his short life he acquired the
power of becoming a master so soon, and how he
accomplished such a great quantity of work, the
quality of which is so excellent. His career was
like that of Shelley, or Keats; and surely the
name and reputation of Thomas Girtin will live
for ever in the annals of landscape painting.
220
“ HELMSLEY CASTLE ” BY THOMAS GIRTIN
his ideas were expressive but not creative. Yet
at the same time his imagination was keenly alive
to fine impressions. The Valley of the Aire and
the Tynemouth are only two of many examples of
this, and also of his pure landscape work in which
he seized the effects of light and shadow so well.
It was the same thing when he noted the most
impressive and interesting view of a ruin or even
a simple street. Fine as he invariably was with
architectural subjects, and sympathetically as he
treated the bridges, cathedrals, and abbeys of
England, he was perhaps at his best when he
realised his impressions of natural landscape, and
recorded the grand effects of light and shade upon
rocky hills, undulating moorlands, and the sea
coasts of England and Scotland, with a breadth,
simplicity, and yet a regard for truth, which had
never been equalled before, and have rarely been
surpassed in its way since, except by Turner, whose
art, of course, had far greater range. Girtin’s art
was more spontaneous, and at the same time less
intellectual and less creative than that of his great
rival, but it was more certain within its own
limits, and in a way more perfect because it was
composed of fewrer elements.
It seems a pity that Girtin spent so much time on
his panorama of London, a work which was not
successful financially, and that he did not devote
himself more to oil painting, of which there is only
one recorded example by him—the Bolton Bridge
shown at the Academy in 1801, where it was much
admired at the time. Some of his drawings, one
cannot help thinking, would have been still more
successful if carried out in oil. The Old Wooden
Bridge, which in size is almost too large for a
water-colour, and the Bridgenorth, now in the
British Museum, are both examples in point.
It is useless now to speculate what he might
have accomplished had he lived longer. The
marvel is, how in his short life he acquired the
power of becoming a master so soon, and how he
accomplished such a great quantity of work, the
quality of which is so excellent. His career was
like that of Shelley, or Keats; and surely the
name and reputation of Thomas Girtin will live
for ever in the annals of landscape painting.
220