DOI Heft:
No. 58 (January, 1898)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: Mr. Gerald Moira's paintings and bas-relief decoration
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18390#0273
Mr. Moira s Paintings and Pas-Reliefs
"THE COMING OF GUINEVERE." CARTOON FOR THE TROCADERO DECORATION BY GERALD MOIRA
danger. Within professional circles technique is instinct is thus favoured. In music especially we
nearly always overrated—first, because only other find, in a large majority of cases, that great corn-
experts can appreciate the difficulties fully; and posers have been the sons of capelmeisters and
secondly, because a large number of craftsmen organists. Perhaps it would be difficult to discover
(made, not born artists) who can only express in their many instances of the painters of easel-pictures
art what has been taught them, are apt to under- being the sons of painters. Yet in design it is not
value all that comes by instinct, and to declare rare to find the talent of the sire re-echoed in the
that pedantic scholarship is equivalent to art. genius of his offspring.
Naturally, unless it was self-evident that Mr. Mr. Moira is one of the younger men who con-
Gerald Moira had escaped the danger of early pro- front the problem of brilliant pigments. The cold
fessional environment, it would be infelicitous to atmosphere of the plein-air school, the carefully-
allude here to the cramping influence it sometimes considered "values" of the Impressionists, the
wields. There can be no doubt, on the other deliberately lowered tone of other styles, do not
hand, that early acquaintance with the mechanism attract them. They would seem to have studied
of any art is of enormous value when an artist by the Primitives, the missal painters, and early
Flemish school, no less
. than the colour prints of
Japan. Put while they
boldly attack harmonies in
positive colours, they are
not satisfied with a mere
mosaic of local tints, like
those that, as a rule, de-
lighted the earliest Primi-
tives. They try to make
their harmonies in orange
and ultramarine, in blood-
reds and iridescent blue-
greens as complete as the
more subtle chords of a
Corot or the restrained
splendour of a Titian. That
they always succeed is not
fjfff/'^ f ■ ' . '~*"f\f \ -t^' quite so certain. Indeed,
^ JS.V '* " \ \j , their very effort is a pain
to some well-intentioned
critics, whose eyes have
HAWKING." CARTOON FOR THE TROCADERO DECORATION UN' GERALD MOIRA 1)0011 aCCUStOHied to the
... 227
"THE COMING OF GUINEVERE." CARTOON FOR THE TROCADERO DECORATION BY GERALD MOIRA
danger. Within professional circles technique is instinct is thus favoured. In music especially we
nearly always overrated—first, because only other find, in a large majority of cases, that great corn-
experts can appreciate the difficulties fully; and posers have been the sons of capelmeisters and
secondly, because a large number of craftsmen organists. Perhaps it would be difficult to discover
(made, not born artists) who can only express in their many instances of the painters of easel-pictures
art what has been taught them, are apt to under- being the sons of painters. Yet in design it is not
value all that comes by instinct, and to declare rare to find the talent of the sire re-echoed in the
that pedantic scholarship is equivalent to art. genius of his offspring.
Naturally, unless it was self-evident that Mr. Mr. Moira is one of the younger men who con-
Gerald Moira had escaped the danger of early pro- front the problem of brilliant pigments. The cold
fessional environment, it would be infelicitous to atmosphere of the plein-air school, the carefully-
allude here to the cramping influence it sometimes considered "values" of the Impressionists, the
wields. There can be no doubt, on the other deliberately lowered tone of other styles, do not
hand, that early acquaintance with the mechanism attract them. They would seem to have studied
of any art is of enormous value when an artist by the Primitives, the missal painters, and early
Flemish school, no less
. than the colour prints of
Japan. Put while they
boldly attack harmonies in
positive colours, they are
not satisfied with a mere
mosaic of local tints, like
those that, as a rule, de-
lighted the earliest Primi-
tives. They try to make
their harmonies in orange
and ultramarine, in blood-
reds and iridescent blue-
greens as complete as the
more subtle chords of a
Corot or the restrained
splendour of a Titian. That
they always succeed is not
fjfff/'^ f ■ ' . '~*"f\f \ -t^' quite so certain. Indeed,
^ JS.V '* " \ \j , their very effort is a pain
to some well-intentioned
critics, whose eyes have
HAWKING." CARTOON FOR THE TROCADERO DECORATION UN' GERALD MOIRA 1)0011 aCCUStOHied to the
... 227