DOI Heft:
No. 64 (July, 1898)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The work of Bertram Priestman
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21969#0107
Bertram Priest man
bition at Knightsbridge. In all these he has
asserted that faith in romanticism, and that belief
in abstract suggestion of Nature, which are the
fundamental principles of his artistic creed ; and
he has never allowed himself to forget the obli-
gations imposed upon him by his early training.
He has a high ideal, and a very sincere intention
to be true to it dominates him. He is to be
accounted fortunate, perhaps, in the opportunities
offered him of establishing his beliefs before he
began his training in the mechanical side of his
work; but none the less is credit due to him for
the firm resolution which has kept him from
wandering, in a spirit of thoughtless experiment,
into paths which are dangerously fascinating to
artists of less sincerity.
It is worth while noting, too, that his decision
to follow a particular line has not in any way led
him into fixity of practice. There is nothing like
monotony in manner, and there is no sign of
narrowness in choice of subject, to be perceived in
the pictures which he has produced duiing the last
ten years. Between the reality of Cutting Worsels
and The Old Chalk Pit, and the subtle suggestion
of On the South Coast and Waiting for the Ferry,
there is the widest possible distinction; and the
study of Nature revealed in A Hazy Day on the
Rochester River and Toiving Home is quite unlike,
in its expression, what appears in such exhibited
works as his Meadowlands and Captured. He has,
in fact, done what an artist who hopes for per-
manent fame should always do, provided himself
with a set of principles that are susceptible of
adaptation to the treatment of the widest range
of material. His manner of looking at Nature will
serve him well whatever may be the subject he
chooses to regard; and nothing, within reasonable
limits, that he selects will baffle him in his ambition
to grasp and record her elusive charm. And the
reason of this lies in the fact that he has so saturated
himself with considerations of style that nothing
would commend itself to him as paintable which
did not present those characteristics which belong
especially to the type of art in which he believes.
“CUTTING WORSELS
86
BY BERTRAM PRIESTMAN
bition at Knightsbridge. In all these he has
asserted that faith in romanticism, and that belief
in abstract suggestion of Nature, which are the
fundamental principles of his artistic creed ; and
he has never allowed himself to forget the obli-
gations imposed upon him by his early training.
He has a high ideal, and a very sincere intention
to be true to it dominates him. He is to be
accounted fortunate, perhaps, in the opportunities
offered him of establishing his beliefs before he
began his training in the mechanical side of his
work; but none the less is credit due to him for
the firm resolution which has kept him from
wandering, in a spirit of thoughtless experiment,
into paths which are dangerously fascinating to
artists of less sincerity.
It is worth while noting, too, that his decision
to follow a particular line has not in any way led
him into fixity of practice. There is nothing like
monotony in manner, and there is no sign of
narrowness in choice of subject, to be perceived in
the pictures which he has produced duiing the last
ten years. Between the reality of Cutting Worsels
and The Old Chalk Pit, and the subtle suggestion
of On the South Coast and Waiting for the Ferry,
there is the widest possible distinction; and the
study of Nature revealed in A Hazy Day on the
Rochester River and Toiving Home is quite unlike,
in its expression, what appears in such exhibited
works as his Meadowlands and Captured. He has,
in fact, done what an artist who hopes for per-
manent fame should always do, provided himself
with a set of principles that are susceptible of
adaptation to the treatment of the widest range
of material. His manner of looking at Nature will
serve him well whatever may be the subject he
chooses to regard; and nothing, within reasonable
limits, that he selects will baffle him in his ambition
to grasp and record her elusive charm. And the
reason of this lies in the fact that he has so saturated
himself with considerations of style that nothing
would commend itself to him as paintable which
did not present those characteristics which belong
especially to the type of art in which he believes.
“CUTTING WORSELS
86
BY BERTRAM PRIESTMAN