DOI Heft:
No. 34 (January, 1896)
DOI Artikel:Wedmore, Frederick: The New English Art Club
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17295#0229
the professed adherents of two or three intelligent I recollect, in a full-page that was delightful to
sects. But putting the pure Philistine out of the behold, is represented this year by work extremely
question altogether—he who swarms in presence of varied, proving its maker's alertness and his flexi-
commercial and conventional productions, and of bility ; but none of it, I take it, quite so engaging
great names—there is a very large public, not as the thing we reproduced last year. And yet,
wholly dull, not wholly lacking in sensitiveness or after having said this, one almost relents in
appreciation, which would take some interest in the presence of so beautiful a thing as The Waterfall.
exhibitions of the New English Art Club, did but How difficult it is to paint running water ; to
suggest water's liquid cool-
ness and its glancing lights !
And how admirably, after
all, that has been done by
Mr. Steer this year ! Then,
his portrait, too, of Mr.
Havard Thomas—an excel-
lent subject, by-the-bye, for
the intense directness of the
treatment he has given it.
One may not like it much
at first. One ends by think-
ing it a triumph of pure
realism — as complete a
human document as Le
Bon Bock of Manet, though
with a very different, perhaps
even a much less skilled,
method of brushwork.
Then there is Mr. Henry,
who was excellent last winter
— as our pages bear witness
— and wrho is excellent again
this season. Is he best in
Deal Harbour ? Interest-
ing and tender, no doubt,
but not, I think, altogether
most accomplished. His
most unquestionable success
is again Boulogne ; but this
time it is a water-colour.
I have read somewhere that
that Boulogne Harbour is
done under the influence of
Mr. Brabazon — that so
tasteful, so delicate artist,
whose visions of the Val
the New English Art Club decide to give them of d'Aosta and the Marne please us in this very
its best, and of its best alone. gallery ; but is it not rather that the method of
Several of the more substantial and engaging their work finds a common origin, that Mr. Brabazon
pictures in this winter's show are by the very people and Mr. Henry have alike drunk at an inspiriting
whose works were reproduced in The Studio source, from none other, I mean, than the Turnerian
pages when I wrote upon the winter show of twelve fountain ? Turner, when he dealt hardly with
months since. Mr. Steer, for instance, whose quite form at all, but when all his lines had charm and
exquisite work—work with an interest eminently all his light had magic—Turner, one takes it, is
pictorial, full of style and charm—was reproduced, the source of this so genuine, so agreeable inspira-
214
A STUDY BY WALTER RUSSELL
sects. But putting the pure Philistine out of the behold, is represented this year by work extremely
question altogether—he who swarms in presence of varied, proving its maker's alertness and his flexi-
commercial and conventional productions, and of bility ; but none of it, I take it, quite so engaging
great names—there is a very large public, not as the thing we reproduced last year. And yet,
wholly dull, not wholly lacking in sensitiveness or after having said this, one almost relents in
appreciation, which would take some interest in the presence of so beautiful a thing as The Waterfall.
exhibitions of the New English Art Club, did but How difficult it is to paint running water ; to
suggest water's liquid cool-
ness and its glancing lights !
And how admirably, after
all, that has been done by
Mr. Steer this year ! Then,
his portrait, too, of Mr.
Havard Thomas—an excel-
lent subject, by-the-bye, for
the intense directness of the
treatment he has given it.
One may not like it much
at first. One ends by think-
ing it a triumph of pure
realism — as complete a
human document as Le
Bon Bock of Manet, though
with a very different, perhaps
even a much less skilled,
method of brushwork.
Then there is Mr. Henry,
who was excellent last winter
— as our pages bear witness
— and wrho is excellent again
this season. Is he best in
Deal Harbour ? Interest-
ing and tender, no doubt,
but not, I think, altogether
most accomplished. His
most unquestionable success
is again Boulogne ; but this
time it is a water-colour.
I have read somewhere that
that Boulogne Harbour is
done under the influence of
Mr. Brabazon — that so
tasteful, so delicate artist,
whose visions of the Val
the New English Art Club decide to give them of d'Aosta and the Marne please us in this very
its best, and of its best alone. gallery ; but is it not rather that the method of
Several of the more substantial and engaging their work finds a common origin, that Mr. Brabazon
pictures in this winter's show are by the very people and Mr. Henry have alike drunk at an inspiriting
whose works were reproduced in The Studio source, from none other, I mean, than the Turnerian
pages when I wrote upon the winter show of twelve fountain ? Turner, when he dealt hardly with
months since. Mr. Steer, for instance, whose quite form at all, but when all his lines had charm and
exquisite work—work with an interest eminently all his light had magic—Turner, one takes it, is
pictorial, full of style and charm—was reproduced, the source of this so genuine, so agreeable inspira-
214
A STUDY BY WALTER RUSSELL