DOI Heft:
No. 25 (April, 1895)
DOI Artikel:On some drawings by Tony Grubhofer
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17294#0020
Some Drawings by Tony Grubhofer
and compare the values suggested
with the values of Nature, or even the
forms with those of actual clouds, we
ar2 driven to confess that the Japanese
symmetrical whirls and curling lines
are hardly more conventional. True
that the Austrian artist has based his
convention directly on Nature—in
other ways he has tried to define the
forms of real clouds by arbitrary lines,
while the Japanese artist would very
possibly have used a certain pattern
only remotely derived from cloud-
shapes. Yet even this distinction,
which may be easily granted, is only
apparent when you set such work as
that of Albert Diirer, or the classical
school of Japan, against the modern
school of Europe, or of Hokusai and
his followers. Whether you represent
the sun as a sharply defined circle
with symmetrical radiating lines, or
whether you endeavour to suggest it
by masses of cloud, represented by
parallel lines and the orb itself by a
"near salzburg" from a sketch in lead pencil and ink white space, unless you imitate the
one chanced to have been with him at the
time he was working ; and if this be true
where colour is employed, it becomes
infinitely more so when that most im-
portant element is lacking; so that in
place of attempting to describe more
fully Grubhofer's work, we may consider
the style he has chosen to follow.
These drawings show how limited, after
all, is the convention of landscape ren-
dered into black and white. An analysis
of the various styles of portraiture and
decorative work treated in line or in
monochrome wash might easily- fill a
volume. Indeed, the treatment of figure
subjects alone is well-nigh as endless in
its variety as human nature itself; but
when you turn to landscape, which is
chiefly a question of colour, you find
that all the great artists have limited
themselves to certain conventions, which
are really symbols of the things imitated
rather than portraits of them.
Take, for instance, cloud-forms repre-
sented in line. In the drawing of Burg
Enn we see a peculiarly happy suggestion ^C^H fr*ir*lp
of clouds. But if we analyse the lines, " lovrana, near abazzia " from a sketch in lead pencil
TO
and compare the values suggested
with the values of Nature, or even the
forms with those of actual clouds, we
ar2 driven to confess that the Japanese
symmetrical whirls and curling lines
are hardly more conventional. True
that the Austrian artist has based his
convention directly on Nature—in
other ways he has tried to define the
forms of real clouds by arbitrary lines,
while the Japanese artist would very
possibly have used a certain pattern
only remotely derived from cloud-
shapes. Yet even this distinction,
which may be easily granted, is only
apparent when you set such work as
that of Albert Diirer, or the classical
school of Japan, against the modern
school of Europe, or of Hokusai and
his followers. Whether you represent
the sun as a sharply defined circle
with symmetrical radiating lines, or
whether you endeavour to suggest it
by masses of cloud, represented by
parallel lines and the orb itself by a
"near salzburg" from a sketch in lead pencil and ink white space, unless you imitate the
one chanced to have been with him at the
time he was working ; and if this be true
where colour is employed, it becomes
infinitely more so when that most im-
portant element is lacking; so that in
place of attempting to describe more
fully Grubhofer's work, we may consider
the style he has chosen to follow.
These drawings show how limited, after
all, is the convention of landscape ren-
dered into black and white. An analysis
of the various styles of portraiture and
decorative work treated in line or in
monochrome wash might easily- fill a
volume. Indeed, the treatment of figure
subjects alone is well-nigh as endless in
its variety as human nature itself; but
when you turn to landscape, which is
chiefly a question of colour, you find
that all the great artists have limited
themselves to certain conventions, which
are really symbols of the things imitated
rather than portraits of them.
Take, for instance, cloud-forms repre-
sented in line. In the drawing of Burg
Enn we see a peculiarly happy suggestion ^C^H fr*ir*lp
of clouds. But if we analyse the lines, " lovrana, near abazzia " from a sketch in lead pencil
TO