DOI Heft:
No. 85 (April, 1900)
DOI Artikel:Ford, Harriet: The work of Mrs. Adrian Stokes
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19784#0163
The Work of Mrs. Adrian Stokes.
association ; or perhaps we are grateful that the
books we used, the illustrations which fell into
our hands, were the beginning of a just apprecia-
tion. While talking to Mrs. Stokes one day she
became personal upon this matter of early associa-
tion. For her own part she recognises in her
experience the influence of certain definite things.
Two of them stand out more vividly than the
rest. One is a volume of Grimm's "Fairy Tales,"
given to her as a child, with illustrations of
sufficient artistic quality, quaintness of humour,
and fineness of line not to be harmful: " It
might have been so much worse," says Mrs.
Stokes. The other, and the more important,
is the fact of having lived in a Catholic country.
The Catholic ceremonial appealed strongly to
the aesthetic part of her mind, so much so that
the feeling for, and delight in, colour, with a
dash of mysticism in her later work, have had
their origin in the pleasure derived from the pro-
cessions, the lights and the vestments of the Church.
With the resthetic enjoyment came the efiort 01
expression. Marianne Stokes is of the fortunate
ones who find their metier early, and who never
swerve from their allegiance to it. Her earliest re-
collections are connected with an old lady wearing
grey curls who humoured her delight in a pencil.
In due course the local art schools were followed
by a visit to Munich. The chances of effective
art training for women in Munich at that time
were few. There were no schools open to
them. All they could do was to take a studio,
two or three girls together, and ask some artist to
visit them. Generally, on the professor's part it
was not altogether serious. He came, he praised,
he pointed out a superficial fault or two, he went
away. For the rest, the student wrestled with
technical problems by herself—as, indeed, falls to
the lot of most students. But the encouragement
was not always great. To a quick-witted, earnest-
minded girl the feeling of being treated with a
somewhat perfunctory gentleness and con-
association ; or perhaps we are grateful that the
books we used, the illustrations which fell into
our hands, were the beginning of a just apprecia-
tion. While talking to Mrs. Stokes one day she
became personal upon this matter of early associa-
tion. For her own part she recognises in her
experience the influence of certain definite things.
Two of them stand out more vividly than the
rest. One is a volume of Grimm's "Fairy Tales,"
given to her as a child, with illustrations of
sufficient artistic quality, quaintness of humour,
and fineness of line not to be harmful: " It
might have been so much worse," says Mrs.
Stokes. The other, and the more important,
is the fact of having lived in a Catholic country.
The Catholic ceremonial appealed strongly to
the aesthetic part of her mind, so much so that
the feeling for, and delight in, colour, with a
dash of mysticism in her later work, have had
their origin in the pleasure derived from the pro-
cessions, the lights and the vestments of the Church.
With the resthetic enjoyment came the efiort 01
expression. Marianne Stokes is of the fortunate
ones who find their metier early, and who never
swerve from their allegiance to it. Her earliest re-
collections are connected with an old lady wearing
grey curls who humoured her delight in a pencil.
In due course the local art schools were followed
by a visit to Munich. The chances of effective
art training for women in Munich at that time
were few. There were no schools open to
them. All they could do was to take a studio,
two or three girls together, and ask some artist to
visit them. Generally, on the professor's part it
was not altogether serious. He came, he praised,
he pointed out a superficial fault or two, he went
away. For the rest, the student wrestled with
technical problems by herself—as, indeed, falls to
the lot of most students. But the encouragement
was not always great. To a quick-witted, earnest-
minded girl the feeling of being treated with a
somewhat perfunctory gentleness and con-