Studio: international art (16.1899)

THE STUDIO

WILFRID BALL, ETCHER the weightier medium, they will be debarred from
AND WATER-COLOUR attempting many subjects that are extremely worthy
PAINTER. of pictorial record; and they turn, as a matter of

course, to a technical process which widens their
In the practice of water- scope and adds opportunities of real moment. Out
colour painting the English School has always of this feeling has grown the custom, which is really
occupied a position quite peculiar to itself, one characteristic of our school, of making in practice
that is scarcely to be paralleled in the art history of a distinction between different classes of material,
any other country. Not only is the number of and of using oil or water-colour alternatively ac-
artists amongst us who devote themselves to this cording to the nature of the motive selected for
class of production very large indeed, but there is illustration. No master could be better quoted
also in the range of their performance a remarkable in evidence of this custom of selection than Turner,
variety and comprehensiveness of expression. His canvases were very different both in manner
Water-colour, as they handle it, lends itself to all and in intention from the exquisite drawings which
sorts of pictorial purposes, and makes its value as he produced in such profusion during his amazingly
an executive medium felt in ways that are curiously fertile life; and he never made the mistake of
different. No set and definite mode of working is striving to give form to his imaginings by the aid of
common to those members of our school who find inappropriate technicalities. The magnificent tone
in this technical device their most useful oppor- contrasts and rich colour harmonies that were so im-
tunities; each man has his own fashion of applying pressive when he handled them in oils would have
its essential principles so as to turn them to account been opaque, dull, and unconvincing if he had been
in the manner best calculated to lead him in the so ill advised as to attempt to present them in water-
direction he desires, and full advantage is taken by colour; and similarly the exquisite refinement of his
the more thoughtful workers of the pleasant pecu- studies of pearly atmosphere, and of aerial colour in-
Harities of the medium itself. finitely gradated, would have become weak and com-

The special popularity of water-colours with both monplace if he had tried to render them by solid
the producers and purchasers of art work in this painting instead of transparent washes. He knew
country is probably to be explained on the ground instinctively what was the right way of working,
of a particular agreement between the subtleties and made his choice with unvarying discretion,
of the craft and those of the
atmospheric conditions that
prevail in this part of the
world. This method of work
lends itself curiously well to
the realisation of open-air
effects. It gives, as nothing
else will, the delicacy and
luminosity of daylight, and
the gentle gradations of
colour that result from the
aerial varieties of our cli-
mate. Our artists, or at
all events a large section of
them, know that the limita-
tions of oil painting are
such that, if they occupy
themselves exclusively with "a misty evening" from a water-colour by wilfrid ball

XVI. No. 71.—February, 1899. 3