Studio: international art (11.1897)

Fritz Tkaulow

equivalents suffice for this. Interest must he patient study, are demanded of a painter before
aroused first of all. Who can be sure, when he he can succeed in grasping—however inade-
[ooks upon even the most delightful piece of quately—the secret of these effects, these special
nature, that the pleasure is derived exelusively from phases of his art. What have the greatest masters
what his eyes behold? A landscape charms us, of all time done but spend their lives in repeat-
not by its own beauties alone, but by means of a ing the same picture, or rather in looking at
thousand other things which carry the imagination Truth ever from the same angle? One should
far beyond this or that particular scene." ponder long over an artist's work before passing

I have thought it well to make these prefatory judgment upon it. Thaulow's, for instance, which
remarks in order that the reader may the better to the superficial observer may seem monotonous,
understand the genius of the artist to whom I am is, on the contrary, bubbling over with rich and
about to refer—Fritz Thaulow. Not that his work abundant variety. Through the medium of the
needs explaining; it asserts itself too clearly and three subjects he particularly affects—the running
too frankly to render any such thing necessary. water, the snow, and the night scene—he has
But what I have said may perhaps be of assistance expressed the most delicate and lovely things,
in enabling one to gain a more intimate apprecia- It is like the expansion of a musical theme, an
tion of his personality. opening phrase wrhich develops and expands until

Fritz Thaulow is the painter of the Stream, it finally swells into the richest "concourse of
the Snow and the Night. From out the infinite, sweet sounds."

the innumerable aspects of Nature's garden, he Thaulow has no superior in rendering the real
has chosen these; and
these, it may be supposed,
have caused him the

keenest emotion. Most of | m * * , , fj

all their mystery must have
attracted him, and their
various manifestations
must be in directest com-
munion with his feelings
and his nerves. Irresist-
ible fancies there are wrhich
sway us and bear us along
as by magic. All true
artists have felt their influ-
ence. Slaves at first, they
have at last conquered
their masters, and turned
them to practical service.
They have become pos-
sessed of Nature's secrets,
one by one ; and in their
revelation of these secrets
we learn to know the
artists themselves.

The ignorant public
often reproaches an artist
with his fondness for cer-
tain effects, certain aspects
of Nature whieh he delights
in reproducing; and this
is simply because the great
majority of people are
incapable of.realising what

an amount of effort, what "riviere en normandie " from a pastel by fritz thaulow