International studio (60.1916/1917)

Modern Art in Leeas


“CLAIR DE LUNE” BY HENRI LE SIDANER

ascendancy over the English painters of his genera-
tion. His Head of a Peasant, Head of a Young
Girl, and Children in a Wood recall Bastien-
Lepage in their literal imitation of Nature. This
imitation then became tempered by a singular
poetical quality—thanks to the influence of Millet,
who appears to have been the next object of
Mr. George Clausen’s admiration—an admiration
infinitely more legitimate and at the same time
a better source of inspiration. Several of the
landscapes bring to mind the Barbizon master
by similarity of subject, by the simplicity of the
figures and the stylised interpretation of the
peasant. An interior Twilight shows Clausen
freed from all extraneous influence. It is a
charming picture, harmonious in composition and
fine in sentiment. It marks the triumph of a
painter who in his landscapes has striven to resolve
the modern problems of light and plein-air.
It is not by atmospheric qualities that another
master of English landscape, Buxton Knight, is
distinguished—an artist unknown, I believe, out-
side England, and whose reputation even in
England seems to have been quite local, limited
chiefly to the North, and especially Yorkshire,
where collectors have given him a preponderating

and perhaps unduly conspicuous place. The.
Wilson collection contains about a score of his
canvases, one of which at least can incontestably be
acclaimed as a chef d? oeuvre. Buxton Knight, who
was a very prolific worker, appears to have been one
of those unequal painters whom one ought to see at
their best while taking care to avoid the mistake
of regarding them as mediocre on the strength of
their ordinary productions. Speaking generally,,
his chief recommendation is his colour, rather
conventional though it was occasionally. He
possesses a real sense of grandeur, yet nevertheless,
he manages to relegate interest to the four corners
of his pictures, while at other times he spoils a
good result by figures added as an afterthought.
Still, in spite of these defects and the browns,
which age many of his works, one feels to be in
the presence of a master of landscape painting,
distinguished by robustness and versatility, and
above all by that sentiment of grandeur which is
the mark of all true masters.
Another painter of Yorkshire who deserves to
be better known is Mr. Mark Senior. The Wilson
Collection has several of his works which are to
be admired, notably A Flemish Washhouse. This,
canvas, broadly treated and rich in impasto,.

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