Studio: international art (9.1897)

H. H. La Thangue and his Work

or from the impetus given by an intelligent manner number of capable students whose names are now
of study of which Mr. La Thangue still speaks well-known as artists, Loudan and Forbes again
gratefully, it happens that quite a number of from Dulwich, James Charles, J. E. Christie, T.
Dulwich boys of this period have made their mark Stirling Lee, Gunning King, and Maurice Greiffen-
as painters—Mount Loudan, T. F. Goodall, Stan- hagen.

hope Forbes, Horace and Melton Fisher. La The school ot the Royal Academy is a strange,
Thangue, however, was none too robust in health, so far as I know, a unique institution. The mem-
and had to be taken away from school at rather an hers of the Academy take turns of a month apiece
early age. He was allowed to run loose for a in the teaching of the students. It is claimed as a
couple of years, when, his bent towards art be- merit of the system that the student, free from the
coming confirmed, he turned his steps to the domination of any single master, is able to cul-
tivate his genius in his own
way. On the other hand,
most of us who have gone
through the schools have
experienced more perplexity
than wisdom in the multitude
of counsellors. Each strange
visitor teaches a new method
during the month of his at-
tendance. As there are some
seventy visitors at one time
or another, and only ten
working months in the year,
the student may never receive
the instruction of the same
professor on two occasions.
Mr. La Thangue, like most
of us, was often puzzled with
the strange juxtapositions of
counsel imparted from month
to month by the Academi-
cians. One would recom-
mend a first painting of
green, another of brown for
final glazings, a third would
require the student to imitate
the colour of the model from
the first painting. I daresay
the methods were all good
enough, but the student has
no time to become proficient
in any one of them. The

"UNDER THE APPLE-TREES " FROM A PAINTING BY H. H. LA THANGUE . . . c

perplexities 01 the system

{By permission of the Mayor and Corporation of Bradford.) jQ ^ memQry

than the benefits ; and when

schools of South Kensington, then perhaps at their one looks back upon a course of instruction at the
lowest ebb of efficiency. The barren system re- Royal Academy, it is difficult to understand how one
volted the young painter, and, after a brief stay, he has made any progress whatever. It is probably native
became a student of the Lambeth School of Art, vigour which carries one through, and as this con-
then in considerable vogue. From this school he spicuously abounded in Mr La Thangue's case he
attained in due course his studentship at the Royal developed himself with such success that he obtained
Academy, and here began his more serious study, in 1879 the gold medal, which is the highest honour
having as his contemporaries a considerable bestowed upon its students by the Academy.
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