Studio: international art (7.1896)

Royal Society of Painter-Etchers

in the way that Mr. C. O. Murray's High Street,
Oxford, fails to be successful, by excess of effort
after success. He has been so anxious to do
justice to his composition, so desirous of giving
their full value to every line and form, each one
sought out with the closest care and devotion, that

great doorway, which is the central object in this
etching, are managed excellently, and only so much
of the elaborate architectural ornament as is needed
to suggest the richness of the workmanship is
expressed. The lightness of the artist's handling
and the delicacy of the line he uses contribute

he has worked himself into a condition of over
anxiety, and has lost all repose and unity. As it
is, his drawing has little of the charm of Oxford,
because it misses the dignity and quietness of the
place. Really Mr. Murray has produced a diagram
of pinnacles, buttresses and mouldings, rather than
a study of an effect in which all these details take
their right places, and are kept in proper subordin-
ation. A pleasanter view of the obligations of
detail drawing is that taken by Mr. C. J. Watson
in his St. Trophhnns, Arks. The curves of the
168

greatly to the beauty of his interpretation. Two
other etchings, by Mr. W. Monk, which are archi-
tectural only because they deal with a building,
deserve attention. They are really studies of light
and shade ; but they are also interesting because
they illustrate the last stages in the history of a
London theatre, the Old Prince of Wales's, which,
under the regime of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft,
was at one time famous. The suggestion which
they give of neglect and decay has in it something
pathetic,