Studio: international art (14.1898)

James Clark

the scenes of his pictorial dramas were to be
laid.

So, in quest of the knowledge he required, he
betook himself to Jerusalem in August 1886, and
found himself at once fascinated by the character-
istic features of the place. The wealth of material
available for the illustrator of Biblical subjects
struck him most forcibly, and the richness of the
colour and the vigour of the light and shade effects
which resulted from the local atmospheric condi-
tions vividly appealed to his artistic sense. The
East, as he saw it, was emphatically a centre of
technical inspiration, suggesting infinite pictorial
possibilities, and the more closely he studied and
observed its character the more deeply was he in-
fluenced by its charm. During his stay in Jeru-

STUDY

salem he painted a picture—Mary and Martha—
which was shown at the Academy on his return to
England, and then followed a series of subjects of
the same type—The Lost Piece of Silver, Rachel and
Leah, A Nazarene Mother, Rebekah at the Well,
The Widow’s Mite, and others—in which his in-
timacy with the various aspects of Palestine was
convincingly revealed.

Ten years later he paid a second and longer visit
to the East. On the first occasion he had gone to
satisfy himself, to make sure of facts about which
he was in doubt; but his second stay was made to
collect material for the illustration of an important
edition of the Bible which has not as yet been
issued. This commission was a gratifying acknow-
ledgment of his authoritative position among the
Eastern specialists, a testi-
mony to the thoroughness
with which he had studied
and mastered the details
by which the point of
Biblical pictures needs
to be enforced. Wisely
enough he set himself to
examine the inner life of
the people who have pre-
served, even to the present
day, the primitive habits
and customs which dis-
tinguished the Jewish race
two thousand years ago.
He made himself at home
in Bedouin tents, he mixed
with the country folk, and
was present at many a
council of grave and rever-
end elders; he wandered
about the district which
lies between Damascus on
the east and Cairo on the
west, sketching in many
places on the banks of the
Jordan, on the shores of
the Dead Sea, and in the
fertile hills beyond the
river, which extend to the
great desert that divides
Palestine from the Eu-
phrates Valley. He became
equally familiar with the
bazaars of Damascus and
the streets of Jerusalem,
with the mountains of
by james clark Lebanon and the rocky

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