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#0232
New English Art Club
tion. The Turner, that is to say, in chief, of the a dark mantelpiece, while around her the wall
last ten years of a prolonged and busy life—a or some accessories of furniture gleam golden-
life, let it be said, that shows the characteristics of brown.
greatness in nothing more than this, that to the In a place where force is so much valued as at the
very end the world was fresh for him, and pleasure NewEnglish Art Club, where the immediate impres-
keen, and appreciation unabated. sion counts for so much, and the external reality of
The "Early Victorian" caprices,fantasies, or what things is esteemed so eminently, a portrait like
you will, of Mr. Rothenstein have been, I think, Mr. Charles Furse's portrait of the late Master of
decried unduly. They have disappeared for the Selwyn College, Cambridge, is apt to be under-
time being—in this winter's show there are none rated. And its tone, indeed, is very low : it wants
of them—but they will crop up again, it is more relief in some respects ; it is well-nigh monochro-
than probable, when further appreciation may be matic. But yet in its more serious and profounder
"A SEPTEMBER MORNING" BY ARTHUR TOMSON
extended to their imaginative side. And that has
definite value. But, for the present, Mr. Rothen-
stein appears purely as an exhibitor of portraits—
a careful little drawing of Mr. Swinburne, and two
vigorous and persuasive pieces in oil—with the
blacks a little too black, the contrasts marked, it
may be excessively, and with not too much as yet
of the subtle charm of colour, but still energetic,
forcible, and individual things.
Broad and energetic and forcible besides is
Mr. Walter Russell's Study, a veracious and en-
joyable presentation of a young woman of suffi-
cient comeliness, leaning, darkly draped, against
grasp of a character complex, benignant, refined,
and meditative, it is refreshingly admirable: a
record of distinction made by one on whom the
seed of that distinction did not fall as " on stony
ground," was not as though it had never been.
In simple execution we have several young por-
trait painters who can do it, may be, as well as Mr.
Furse ; but we have very few who have the gift of
lifting themselves, as he does, to the height of their
best themes. And, in talking of technique alone,
Mr. Furse cannot be said to fail. The sense of
" values " is in the treatment of the foreground
hand and the big plain ivory paper-knife it grasps
217
tion. The Turner, that is to say, in chief, of the a dark mantelpiece, while around her the wall
last ten years of a prolonged and busy life—a or some accessories of furniture gleam golden-
life, let it be said, that shows the characteristics of brown.
greatness in nothing more than this, that to the In a place where force is so much valued as at the
very end the world was fresh for him, and pleasure NewEnglish Art Club, where the immediate impres-
keen, and appreciation unabated. sion counts for so much, and the external reality of
The "Early Victorian" caprices,fantasies, or what things is esteemed so eminently, a portrait like
you will, of Mr. Rothenstein have been, I think, Mr. Charles Furse's portrait of the late Master of
decried unduly. They have disappeared for the Selwyn College, Cambridge, is apt to be under-
time being—in this winter's show there are none rated. And its tone, indeed, is very low : it wants
of them—but they will crop up again, it is more relief in some respects ; it is well-nigh monochro-
than probable, when further appreciation may be matic. But yet in its more serious and profounder
"A SEPTEMBER MORNING" BY ARTHUR TOMSON
extended to their imaginative side. And that has
definite value. But, for the present, Mr. Rothen-
stein appears purely as an exhibitor of portraits—
a careful little drawing of Mr. Swinburne, and two
vigorous and persuasive pieces in oil—with the
blacks a little too black, the contrasts marked, it
may be excessively, and with not too much as yet
of the subtle charm of colour, but still energetic,
forcible, and individual things.
Broad and energetic and forcible besides is
Mr. Walter Russell's Study, a veracious and en-
joyable presentation of a young woman of suffi-
cient comeliness, leaning, darkly draped, against
grasp of a character complex, benignant, refined,
and meditative, it is refreshingly admirable: a
record of distinction made by one on whom the
seed of that distinction did not fall as " on stony
ground," was not as though it had never been.
In simple execution we have several young por-
trait painters who can do it, may be, as well as Mr.
Furse ; but we have very few who have the gift of
lifting themselves, as he does, to the height of their
best themes. And, in talking of technique alone,
Mr. Furse cannot be said to fail. The sense of
" values " is in the treatment of the foreground
hand and the big plain ivory paper-knife it grasps
217