DOI Heft:
No. 14 (May, 1894)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: Albert Moore, [2] (concluded)
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17190#0063
Albert Moore
felt sure that no uncertainty nor insufficient grasp
of technical requirements would remain to hamper
him in giving full expression to his ideas. These
studies were minute, closely observed, and marked
by absolute fidelity to Nature, plain statements of
the hard facts of his picture. They were the
phrases and sentences by the combination of which
he intended to put into an intelligible form his
poetic imaginings. They were terse, idiomatic, and
apposite, full of significance and needing only the
welding process which would bring them into proper
juxtaposition one with another, and the final polish
which would impart to them the graces of style.
This process of polishing and amendment was
the one in which the artistic individuality of Albert
Moore made itself especially felt. Upon the solid
basis of fact with which his studies provided him,
his next step was to construct a cartoon embodying
the observations he had made in his preliminary
work with the added refinements which his know-
ledge of Nature taught him to be essential. In
this cartoon he settled all the debateable points of
his picture, determined all the questions of compo-
sition, line arrangement, and placing of accessories,
and made all those changes of form and pro-
portion which he saw to be necessary to bring
modern humanity up to Nature's standard of per-
fection. This mixture of amplification and revision
gave to his work its specific character, that touch
of personality which made it less the production of
a photographic realist than the expression of the
convictions held by an artist whose view of life was
not merely superficial. In this cartoon he was
able, without distorting or misrepresenting essential
facts, to give free rein to his craving for beauty of
type and pose, to eliminate everything which
tended in any way to lower the standard of his
work, and to readjust every jarring or incongruous
BY ALBERT MOORE
detail. He was even able, by painting upon
tracing paper stretched over the cartoon, to settle
as well all the details of his colour scheme, to fix
the necessary relation of area between the different
coloured surfaces, to decide all the subtle questions
of balance by degree of brilliancy; and, in fact, to
perfect, before touching his canvas, the whole
scheme and arrangement of his picture.
49
FOUR OF A SET OF DESIGNS FOR IVORY PLAQUES, FOR INLAY IN A SERVING-TABLE
felt sure that no uncertainty nor insufficient grasp
of technical requirements would remain to hamper
him in giving full expression to his ideas. These
studies were minute, closely observed, and marked
by absolute fidelity to Nature, plain statements of
the hard facts of his picture. They were the
phrases and sentences by the combination of which
he intended to put into an intelligible form his
poetic imaginings. They were terse, idiomatic, and
apposite, full of significance and needing only the
welding process which would bring them into proper
juxtaposition one with another, and the final polish
which would impart to them the graces of style.
This process of polishing and amendment was
the one in which the artistic individuality of Albert
Moore made itself especially felt. Upon the solid
basis of fact with which his studies provided him,
his next step was to construct a cartoon embodying
the observations he had made in his preliminary
work with the added refinements which his know-
ledge of Nature taught him to be essential. In
this cartoon he settled all the debateable points of
his picture, determined all the questions of compo-
sition, line arrangement, and placing of accessories,
and made all those changes of form and pro-
portion which he saw to be necessary to bring
modern humanity up to Nature's standard of per-
fection. This mixture of amplification and revision
gave to his work its specific character, that touch
of personality which made it less the production of
a photographic realist than the expression of the
convictions held by an artist whose view of life was
not merely superficial. In this cartoon he was
able, without distorting or misrepresenting essential
facts, to give free rein to his craving for beauty of
type and pose, to eliminate everything which
tended in any way to lower the standard of his
work, and to readjust every jarring or incongruous
BY ALBERT MOORE
detail. He was even able, by painting upon
tracing paper stretched over the cartoon, to settle
as well all the details of his colour scheme, to fix
the necessary relation of area between the different
coloured surfaces, to decide all the subtle questions
of balance by degree of brilliancy; and, in fact, to
perfect, before touching his canvas, the whole
scheme and arrangement of his picture.
49
FOUR OF A SET OF DESIGNS FOR IVORY PLAQUES, FOR INLAY IN A SERVING-TABLE