Studio: international art (5.1895)

Some Portraits of this Season

phrase no longer does injustice to Mr. Shannon, the other, the Sargent, puts before us with unfor-
But we should be obliged to transform it altogether gettable vividness a young man of the period,
—to reform it all away—before it had any bearing amiable, intelligent, an amateur—a characteristic,
on Mr. Watts's portraiture, of which not so much and very far I am sure from a discreditable
the " appearance " of the sitter, but his deep soul, product, of our nineteenth century's latest day.
is the aim. The achievements, how different ! Yes : but re-

in the present Academy, no two works are more member also, how different the aims !

I will make another
contrast, and will, for a
moment, pit Mr. Shan-
non's delightful rendering
of Miss Winifred Pember
against Mr. Cope's less
picturesque but very
manly treatment of a less
picturesque theme, the
Rev. William Rogers—
"Hang-Theology-Rogers"
—as certain of the ac-
quaintance of that vener-
able cleric are apt to call
one whose intellectual
power, eminent rectitude
and social gift are wont
to be more apparent than
any theological straitness,
or even depth. The
power and keenness and
geniality of this beloved
one of Society, this enfant
gate of the hard East End
in which he had worked
so long, are made ad-
mirably evident in Mr.
Cope's penetrating and
realistic treatment. The
Miss Pember expresses
once again what is per-
haps the best-known side
of Mr. Shannon's talent :
a Reynolds-like appreci-
ation of feminine grace—
shall I not say, as well, " a
Gainsborough - like " ? —
for, lacking no doubt some-

strongly contrasted than two which I shall name, thing of Sir Joshua's solidity, does not Mr. Shannon
by Richmond and by Sargent. The work by lack too that master's somewhat obvious artifice ?
Richmond is the portrait of Lady Pembroke. The One is apt to find and praise, in Mr. Shannon,
Sargent with which I especially contrast it—though traces of Gainsborough's more lightly-worn elegance,
any Sargent would make the contrast striking—is But certainly in the Miss Pember, by methods of
the portrait of Mr. Graham Robertson. The one, his own, Mr. Shannon suggests character—realises
the Richmond, expresses in terms of deliberate a distinct personality, albeit it is one of necessity
style—in methods, it may be, not quite unwillingly less marked than that of Mr. Cope's most striking
conventional—a permanent and noble grace. And subject. Picturesqueness, which Mr. Shannon
120

PORTRAIT OF HIS HONOUR JUDGE LLOYD BY W. W. OULESS, R.A.