DOI Heft:
No. 55 (October, 1897)
DOI Artikel:Little, James Stanley: Frank Brangwyn and his art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18390#0020
Frank Brangwyn and his Art
Wc must be prepared, however, to find the alloy of absolutely no relationship. During the East two
baser metals in the gold Of the artistic temperament. decades we have had enough and to spare of affecta-
[n his adolescence the artist craves popular applause ; tion and calculating eccentricity. By employing these
maybe, too, he aspires to grow rich in this world's a modicum of talent has enabled many a clever prac-
goods. Until this alloy is expelled, the artist cannot titioner to masquerade as a heaven-born genius,
he said to be entitled, in the full sense, to the name Art has suffered; the true artist has suffered. He
he claims ; for the artist's only concern is to satisfy has been pushed aside. But the turn of those un-
himself, and to be permitted to give concrete ex- scrupulous tradesmen of the brush, who in this age
pression to those abstract conceptions of the beauti- of commercialism have arrived at the psychological
ful which, born with him, are a part of his very moment, has been served. They have prospered
being. I am confident that the true artist can never exceedingly. The nutriment due to true artists has
be a self-exploiter. The dignity of his high calling filled their bellies, while the men whose right it was
makes this impossible to him. He nurtures his in- have gone empty away.
dividuality, but he does not endeavour to impose It is clear, then, that the mischief of charlatanism
himself upon his contemporaries. in art, like all frauds, is far reaching. It has caused
Among the many devices to which the self-ex- the innocent to suffer with the guilty. Men whose
ploiters in the ranks of painters have resorted, none individuality was so marked as to insure that
has been found more generally effectual than the their productions should stand out wherever
pose of eccentricity. This, again, is often mistaken they were exhibited ; whose originality was so strik-
by the unthinking, and by those who cannot think, ing that it produced a positive arrest—I will not
for originality, though between the two there is say shock—upon first encountering its manifesta-
I
FROM A PAINTING BY FRANK BRANGWYN
{In the Possession of C. Gill, Esq.)
Wc must be prepared, however, to find the alloy of absolutely no relationship. During the East two
baser metals in the gold Of the artistic temperament. decades we have had enough and to spare of affecta-
[n his adolescence the artist craves popular applause ; tion and calculating eccentricity. By employing these
maybe, too, he aspires to grow rich in this world's a modicum of talent has enabled many a clever prac-
goods. Until this alloy is expelled, the artist cannot titioner to masquerade as a heaven-born genius,
he said to be entitled, in the full sense, to the name Art has suffered; the true artist has suffered. He
he claims ; for the artist's only concern is to satisfy has been pushed aside. But the turn of those un-
himself, and to be permitted to give concrete ex- scrupulous tradesmen of the brush, who in this age
pression to those abstract conceptions of the beauti- of commercialism have arrived at the psychological
ful which, born with him, are a part of his very moment, has been served. They have prospered
being. I am confident that the true artist can never exceedingly. The nutriment due to true artists has
be a self-exploiter. The dignity of his high calling filled their bellies, while the men whose right it was
makes this impossible to him. He nurtures his in- have gone empty away.
dividuality, but he does not endeavour to impose It is clear, then, that the mischief of charlatanism
himself upon his contemporaries. in art, like all frauds, is far reaching. It has caused
Among the many devices to which the self-ex- the innocent to suffer with the guilty. Men whose
ploiters in the ranks of painters have resorted, none individuality was so marked as to insure that
has been found more generally effectual than the their productions should stand out wherever
pose of eccentricity. This, again, is often mistaken they were exhibited ; whose originality was so strik-
by the unthinking, and by those who cannot think, ing that it produced a positive arrest—I will not
for originality, though between the two there is say shock—upon first encountering its manifesta-
I
FROM A PAINTING BY FRANK BRANGWYN
{In the Possession of C. Gill, Esq.)