DOI Heft:
No. 57 (December 1897)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: The coloured prints of Mr. W. P. Nicholson
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18390#0225
The Coloured Prints of Mr. IV. P. Nicholson
FROM A COLOURED PRINT BY W. P. NICHOLSON
(" Aii Alphabet" IV. Heinemann)
only continues it, yet it would seem as if the coat were
as distinctly made out as the head. Your intellect
assures you that from the waist to the head there is
nothing but blank immensity of space; but your
instinct detaches the torso of the figure as posi-
tively as if it were silhouetted against a white back-
ground.
The art of leaving out is the proof of perfect
acquaintance with the art of putting in. You may
put in a few truths and a hundred falsities, and the
result will be like most facts, a mixture of wrong
and right. If, however, you leave out all but a few
hints, these must be aimed at the bull's eye, so
that no one can be misguided. Mr. Nicholson
states the few facts he cares to supply with straight-
forward vigour, the rest he leaves to the observer.
Not that- his pictures are prize puzzles ; but, like
many simple axioms, they satisfy the unlearned
and the philosopher equally.
No little of the attractiveness of his woodcuts is
due to the added colour, but as some of his earlier and
unpublished work proves, it is not this which gives
them their singular charm and veracity. And this
veracity is not merely arithmetical completeness.
The less demonstrable "Art" is there, and the
personality of expression which is inseparable from
good art is also there in ample quantity. Another
quality not absolutely essential to art, but very
rarely absent, is humour, and Mr. Nicholson's
humour is frank and virile. He is no decadent
with morbid suggestiveness, no ultra-precious
" symbolist " or intensely Gothic person. All these
have their place in the scheme of things, and in
some moods—perverted maybe—they give some
of us real pleasure. But at others, a healthy de-
light in flesh and blood, an open-air view of life
demands less highly-spiced fare. Then a Velasquez
or a Holbein arouses enthusiastic praise, and at
such times the fine steadiness of Mr. Nicholson's
woodcuts satisfies even a greedy appetite.
The portrait of Her Majesty the Queen, the first
of the now famous series published in The New
Review, which won instant fame for its author, has
been the subject of a well-deserved eulogy by Mr.
Joseph Pennell, so generous and thorough that it is
needless to add a word. It is true that a few worthy
people still regard it askance as a caricature, but
these same people admire many atrocious chromo-
lithographs of the venerable monarch, and are ap-
parently blind to the true vulgarity of their favourite
representations of the great Queen. The simple fact
remains that to many people not unfamilar with the
greatest works of art, this portrait is the most stately
and the most reverent of any they have seen. The
isolation of the figure, its dignity and its domesti-
city, reveal the two aspects which have made our
FROM A COLOURFI) PRINT BY W. V. NICHOLSON
{"An Alphabet.'" IV. Heinemann)
181
FROM A COLOURED PRINT BY W. P. NICHOLSON
(" Aii Alphabet" IV. Heinemann)
only continues it, yet it would seem as if the coat were
as distinctly made out as the head. Your intellect
assures you that from the waist to the head there is
nothing but blank immensity of space; but your
instinct detaches the torso of the figure as posi-
tively as if it were silhouetted against a white back-
ground.
The art of leaving out is the proof of perfect
acquaintance with the art of putting in. You may
put in a few truths and a hundred falsities, and the
result will be like most facts, a mixture of wrong
and right. If, however, you leave out all but a few
hints, these must be aimed at the bull's eye, so
that no one can be misguided. Mr. Nicholson
states the few facts he cares to supply with straight-
forward vigour, the rest he leaves to the observer.
Not that- his pictures are prize puzzles ; but, like
many simple axioms, they satisfy the unlearned
and the philosopher equally.
No little of the attractiveness of his woodcuts is
due to the added colour, but as some of his earlier and
unpublished work proves, it is not this which gives
them their singular charm and veracity. And this
veracity is not merely arithmetical completeness.
The less demonstrable "Art" is there, and the
personality of expression which is inseparable from
good art is also there in ample quantity. Another
quality not absolutely essential to art, but very
rarely absent, is humour, and Mr. Nicholson's
humour is frank and virile. He is no decadent
with morbid suggestiveness, no ultra-precious
" symbolist " or intensely Gothic person. All these
have their place in the scheme of things, and in
some moods—perverted maybe—they give some
of us real pleasure. But at others, a healthy de-
light in flesh and blood, an open-air view of life
demands less highly-spiced fare. Then a Velasquez
or a Holbein arouses enthusiastic praise, and at
such times the fine steadiness of Mr. Nicholson's
woodcuts satisfies even a greedy appetite.
The portrait of Her Majesty the Queen, the first
of the now famous series published in The New
Review, which won instant fame for its author, has
been the subject of a well-deserved eulogy by Mr.
Joseph Pennell, so generous and thorough that it is
needless to add a word. It is true that a few worthy
people still regard it askance as a caricature, but
these same people admire many atrocious chromo-
lithographs of the venerable monarch, and are ap-
parently blind to the true vulgarity of their favourite
representations of the great Queen. The simple fact
remains that to many people not unfamilar with the
greatest works of art, this portrait is the most stately
and the most reverent of any they have seen. The
isolation of the figure, its dignity and its domesti-
city, reveal the two aspects which have made our
FROM A COLOURFI) PRINT BY W. V. NICHOLSON
{"An Alphabet.'" IV. Heinemann)
181