Studio: international art (19.1900)

71ie PVork of Mrs. Adrian Stokes.

descension, not too much being demanded of her,
added insult to injury. In the case in point,
however, Mrs. Stokes speaks with gratitude of the
kindness and helpfulness of her professors, and
the years spent in Munich produced excellent
results. A facility, a dexterity in the management
of materials was gained, and beyond that a good
deal of practice in the making of pictures; a
very different thing indeed from the manipulation
of pigments. It is with a quaint charm of humour
that Mrs. Stokes describes her Munich days.
Depending much upon her own resources, this
picture-making answered the double purpose of
study and of pot boiling. A dealer agreed to
take her work. Every month a little picture was
painted. It was generally some study of children,
some fleeting, humorous idea or arrangement
in light and shade, or colour. All the thought
was concentrated in realising upon canvas some-
thing seen. The painter's energies were engrossed
with the study of technique—the alphabet, in
fact, of the language by which she was later to
speak. Pleasant, charming no doubt many of
them were, these little pictures, showing already
a happy appreciation of pictorial qualities. The
Munich picture galleries were a constant source
of enlightenment ; the inspiration drawn from
them was all towards naturalistic expression.
"Nature is so beautiful" then as now, to Mrs.
Stokes. It was an excellent beginning, self-
reliant and vigorous.

Then came Paris. A picture more important
and more fortunate than the rest opened the way.
There she learnt the meaning of line, the search
for values, for tone. Vague and vapoury ideas
of art gave place, under a merciless system, to
hard-headed logic, a looseness of method to a just
and positive observation. The young, and often
misplaced, enthusiasm of the student is not
always cheered by the professorial prophecy, Vous
arriverez, but it fell to Mrs. Stokes' lot. A couple
of years spent in France—about ten months of it
in Paris—were followed by her coming with her
husband to England. Since then most of her
work has been shown in the annual London
exhibitions. It is not my intention to attempt here
anything in the nature of an exhaustive and detailed
criticism of Mrs. Stokes' work, but any notice of her
methods must take into account the apparent con-
tradiction between the work she did some years ago
and that which she is now doing. The first picture
exhibited by her in Burlington House, a study of
a child sitting by a calf bound for market, struck
the keynote for much of her subsequent work.

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It was a frankly realistic study. That it was deeply
imbued with sentiment, with a story-telling
quality, is true, but at no time has she approached
her subject from the literary side. Always painter-
like in her methods, with a largeness of grasp,
and a feeling for balanced masses, indispensable to
a painter of decorations, Mrs. Stokes devoted
herself, at this time, to the problems of
light and shade, tone, quality and variety in
texture, flexibility, and dexterity in handling.
Line and pure colour played little part in
her methods, yet the drawing already indicated
a psychological quality, if I may so call it, used

(By permission of Leonard Stokes, Esq.)