DOI Heft:
No. 52 (July, 1897)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: George Chester: the last of the old landscape school
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18389#0119
George Chester
so splendid, should have found himself in after
years influenced strongly by the atmosphere of
robust naturalism which had been created by these
great painters. His art was essentially a product
of a period when the motive of all the best pic-
torial production was the desire to realise through
individuality of treatment those poetic aspects of
Nature which appealed to each artist as most worthy
of record. There was then little subservience to
school dogmas. Each worker did what he felt
would best express his view, and painted what he
saw instinctively rather than what his professor or
the leader of his set told him to see. The whole
tone of aesthetic opinion was healthy and frank, and
it encouraged those men who desired to be original
in the inclination to acquire their knowledge at first
hand.
Perhaps in Mr. Chester's case something of his
sturdy independence was owing to the fact that he
took up the painter's profession without the usual
preparatory study in an art academy. Originally he
had an idea of becoming a government official, and
during the first years of manhood he was waiting
for an appointment which influential friends had
undertaken to procure for him. Finally, when he
was about twenty-three years old, he was offered
the Governorship of Sierra Leone. This, however,
he refused, inspired by a not unnatural dislike for
exile in a country where the white man's chance of
long life is notoriously slight. No doubt his re-
fusal was also greatly influenced by the fact that
he had just at that time married the wife who was
destined to be his devoted companion for more
than sixty years.
However, this abandonment of the original plan
which he had formed for an official career made
necessary the choice of some other profession, and
it was then that he thought of becoming an artist.
By his marriage he was brought into contact with
Ansdell, the animal painter, whose wife was related
to Mrs. Chester; and at Ansdell's studio he be-
came acquainted with a number of prominent art
workers, among them Mr. Frith, Augustus Egg,
Elmore, H. O'Neil, John Phillip, Creswick, Bridell,
and Lee. It struck him after a while that he might
find his vocation in the practice of art, and as he
watched his friends at work he resolved to experi-
ment with a view to finding out what were his
102
so splendid, should have found himself in after
years influenced strongly by the atmosphere of
robust naturalism which had been created by these
great painters. His art was essentially a product
of a period when the motive of all the best pic-
torial production was the desire to realise through
individuality of treatment those poetic aspects of
Nature which appealed to each artist as most worthy
of record. There was then little subservience to
school dogmas. Each worker did what he felt
would best express his view, and painted what he
saw instinctively rather than what his professor or
the leader of his set told him to see. The whole
tone of aesthetic opinion was healthy and frank, and
it encouraged those men who desired to be original
in the inclination to acquire their knowledge at first
hand.
Perhaps in Mr. Chester's case something of his
sturdy independence was owing to the fact that he
took up the painter's profession without the usual
preparatory study in an art academy. Originally he
had an idea of becoming a government official, and
during the first years of manhood he was waiting
for an appointment which influential friends had
undertaken to procure for him. Finally, when he
was about twenty-three years old, he was offered
the Governorship of Sierra Leone. This, however,
he refused, inspired by a not unnatural dislike for
exile in a country where the white man's chance of
long life is notoriously slight. No doubt his re-
fusal was also greatly influenced by the fact that
he had just at that time married the wife who was
destined to be his devoted companion for more
than sixty years.
However, this abandonment of the original plan
which he had formed for an official career made
necessary the choice of some other profession, and
it was then that he thought of becoming an artist.
By his marriage he was brought into contact with
Ansdell, the animal painter, whose wife was related
to Mrs. Chester; and at Ansdell's studio he be-
came acquainted with a number of prominent art
workers, among them Mr. Frith, Augustus Egg,
Elmore, H. O'Neil, John Phillip, Creswick, Bridell,
and Lee. It struck him after a while that he might
find his vocation in the practice of art, and as he
watched his friends at work he resolved to experi-
ment with a view to finding out what were his
102