DOI Heft:
Nr. 233 (July, 1916)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: Mr. Arthur Wardle's pastel paintings
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43462#0124
Arthur IPardles Pastel Paintings
“INDIAN LEOPARD”
BY ARTHUR WARDLE
reputation so steadily by a succession of notable
achievements that his position in British art is
wholly secure and the value of his work is fully
recognised to day. This position he owes to no
lucky accident; it has been assigned to him by
general consent because he has proved himself
worthy to occupy it and because he has not shirked
any of the laborious preparation by which the man
who begins by serving an apprenticeship progresses
until he is qualified to lead as a master. Only by
prolonged and well applied experience could he
have done what he has ; only by persistent deter-
mination could he have overcome the many diffi-
culties which surround the exacting branch of art
practice that he has chosen to follow ; only by years
of hard and trying work could he have gained the
facility and the certainty which give distinction to
every phase of his production.
But it is sufficient now to look at such perform-
ances as his Leopards Resting or the Leopard on
the Alert to realise what are the results of the years
of study he has spent upon his subject. And it is
evident that only an artist who had taught himself
to look with exceptional precision at what is before
him could have grasped animal character as surely
as he has in studies like the Rhodesian Lion, the
Polar Bears, the Puma, and the Snarling Lion, or
in others again like the digress Rating, the Head
of a Lioness, and the Himalayan Tiger, which are
singularly happy in their summing up of a moment-
ary condition of the animal mind. These records
are more than things seen; they are felt and
understood, and they have that subtle spirit which
comes only in the interpretation of an artist who is
himself in sympathy with the curious personalities
which are presented to him. No artist could paint
as Mr. Wardle does if he did not love and respect
animals and feel for and with them.
After all, it is just that which makes the painter
of animals a success or a failure in his profession.
If he starts with a preconception of what animals
ought to be and deals with them according to a
fixed convention, he can never be really convincing ;
but if he has the courage to set himself aside and
let them teach him what he ought to know—and
if he has the power to put what he knows into
pictorial form—the highest kind of achievement is
within his reach. Mr. Wardle has had this courage,
and the pictorial power he indisputably possesses :
that is the secret of his success. A. L. Baldry.
SALIDA PL
“INDIAN LEOPARD”
BY ARTHUR WARDLE
reputation so steadily by a succession of notable
achievements that his position in British art is
wholly secure and the value of his work is fully
recognised to day. This position he owes to no
lucky accident; it has been assigned to him by
general consent because he has proved himself
worthy to occupy it and because he has not shirked
any of the laborious preparation by which the man
who begins by serving an apprenticeship progresses
until he is qualified to lead as a master. Only by
prolonged and well applied experience could he
have done what he has ; only by persistent deter-
mination could he have overcome the many diffi-
culties which surround the exacting branch of art
practice that he has chosen to follow ; only by years
of hard and trying work could he have gained the
facility and the certainty which give distinction to
every phase of his production.
But it is sufficient now to look at such perform-
ances as his Leopards Resting or the Leopard on
the Alert to realise what are the results of the years
of study he has spent upon his subject. And it is
evident that only an artist who had taught himself
to look with exceptional precision at what is before
him could have grasped animal character as surely
as he has in studies like the Rhodesian Lion, the
Polar Bears, the Puma, and the Snarling Lion, or
in others again like the digress Rating, the Head
of a Lioness, and the Himalayan Tiger, which are
singularly happy in their summing up of a moment-
ary condition of the animal mind. These records
are more than things seen; they are felt and
understood, and they have that subtle spirit which
comes only in the interpretation of an artist who is
himself in sympathy with the curious personalities
which are presented to him. No artist could paint
as Mr. Wardle does if he did not love and respect
animals and feel for and with them.
After all, it is just that which makes the painter
of animals a success or a failure in his profession.
If he starts with a preconception of what animals
ought to be and deals with them according to a
fixed convention, he can never be really convincing ;
but if he has the courage to set himself aside and
let them teach him what he ought to know—and
if he has the power to put what he knows into
pictorial form—the highest kind of achievement is
within his reach. Mr. Wardle has had this courage,
and the pictorial power he indisputably possesses :
that is the secret of his success. A. L. Baldry.
SALIDA PL