Studio: international art (5.1895)

Some Drawings by Tony Grubhofer

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portfolio of works by famous
etchers; for instance, in com-
pany with a bigoted decorator,
one of those who believe con-
ventional interpretation of
Nature is the only saving
quality that transforms bare
facts into art. The chances
are that he would pick out
instantly certain men of all
schools who shared this in-
stinct, and contemptuously
dismiss others that entirely
lacked it. It is curious to
find that one who has it so
strongly as Grubhofer, when "near salzburg" from a sketch in pen and ink

he is working in line, seems to

lose it altogether when he is handling the brush, to the pattern-maker or to the artist of the so-
The two interiors, full as they are of interest from called Pre-Raphaelite school which lacks any name
their subjects, and, for all that concerns the present more distinctive than the unfortunate adjective
argument, equally fine as pictures, appeal in vain "decorative."

Here it is not the place to
defend the school of line
against the school of values,
still less to declare that any
particular convention in black
and white is alone worthy, and
all the rest of no account. But
the masters of European etch-
ing, the masters of Japan—in
short, the artists who have
made black and white an art
by itself, and not a merely
colourless replica of an oil or
water-colour sketch —■ have
almost all felt the value of the
line in landscape as pre-em -
nently the important aim to
work for.

At first sight it may seem
curious that subjects in which
it might reasonably be argued
no actual " lines" existed,
should be thus conventional-
ised to afford extreme pleasure.
A little reflection, however,
will show that in such draw-
ings as these, or etchings by
Mr. Whistler or Mr. Short, or
1 pen-drawings by Mr. Joseph
> _ i\ iw^V Pennell (to pick a few names
flKfkJ-oiw J at random), you forget the

absence of colour entirely. It

burg enn " from a sketch in pen and ink is not that colour is ignored,

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