DOI Heft:
No. 86 (May, 1900)
DOI Artikel:Sparrow, Walter Shaw: The art of Mrs. William de Morgan
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19784#0235
The Art of Evelyn De Morgan
School, when Miss Pickering was sixteen ; and very rarely understood, so at variance is it with the
it ended there eighteen months later, when she habits of mind engendered by the grim warfare
won the Slade Scholarship, a valuable prize given of life in huge commercial districts and cities,
for a term of three years. Though valuable, This helps to explain why our English Pre-
this scholarship had attached to it certain con- Raphaelites have always had many opponents,
ditions which Miss Pickering found irksome, so even among artists and those who profess to be art
she boldly threw it up at the end of the first lovers. And one remembers, also, that their
year, and started to paint pictures on her own German forerunners—Overbeck, Cornelius, and
account. This happened in 1877, a few months their disciples—were not more fortunate ; in youth
before Ariadne in Naxos was exhibited at the they had nothing in common with that public-
Grosvenor Gallery. spirited enthusiasm which appeared in Germany
About the same time Mr. Stanhope went to live after the fall of Napoleon ; and it is worth noting
in Italy, and year by year his niece passed several that even Goethe, usually a most generous-minded
months with him, so that she was able to study critic, had no patience with them and their sincere
her favourite Italian masters in their own home, reverence for the devotional art of the early
amid surroundings friendly both to them and to Italians. Indeed, he told Eckermann that a
a right appreciation of their naive and serene merits, revival of old-fashioned styles in art ought to be
In England, the sentiment of a primitive painter is looked upon as "a sort of masquerade, which
can, in the long run, do no
good, but must, on the
contrary, have a bad effect
on the man who adopts it.
Such a thing," said he, " is
in contradiction to the age
in which we live, and will
confirm the empty and
shallow way of thinking
and feeling in which it
originated. It is well
enough, on a merry win-
ter's evening, to go to a
masquerade as a Turk ; but
what should we think of a
man who wore such a mask
all the year round ? We
should think that he was
crazy, or in a fair way to
become so before long."
This is one manner of
viewing a revival of old
styles in art; but is it really
a comprehensive manner ?
One may venture to think
not, and for the following
reason. No great primitive
phase of art seems archaic
to those who are never
tired of living with it in con-
genial surroundings, such
as may be found in some
old flemish and Italian
cities; cities where the
present seems actually to
'study of drapery" by evelyn de morgan sleep in the past, so soon
m
School, when Miss Pickering was sixteen ; and very rarely understood, so at variance is it with the
it ended there eighteen months later, when she habits of mind engendered by the grim warfare
won the Slade Scholarship, a valuable prize given of life in huge commercial districts and cities,
for a term of three years. Though valuable, This helps to explain why our English Pre-
this scholarship had attached to it certain con- Raphaelites have always had many opponents,
ditions which Miss Pickering found irksome, so even among artists and those who profess to be art
she boldly threw it up at the end of the first lovers. And one remembers, also, that their
year, and started to paint pictures on her own German forerunners—Overbeck, Cornelius, and
account. This happened in 1877, a few months their disciples—were not more fortunate ; in youth
before Ariadne in Naxos was exhibited at the they had nothing in common with that public-
Grosvenor Gallery. spirited enthusiasm which appeared in Germany
About the same time Mr. Stanhope went to live after the fall of Napoleon ; and it is worth noting
in Italy, and year by year his niece passed several that even Goethe, usually a most generous-minded
months with him, so that she was able to study critic, had no patience with them and their sincere
her favourite Italian masters in their own home, reverence for the devotional art of the early
amid surroundings friendly both to them and to Italians. Indeed, he told Eckermann that a
a right appreciation of their naive and serene merits, revival of old-fashioned styles in art ought to be
In England, the sentiment of a primitive painter is looked upon as "a sort of masquerade, which
can, in the long run, do no
good, but must, on the
contrary, have a bad effect
on the man who adopts it.
Such a thing," said he, " is
in contradiction to the age
in which we live, and will
confirm the empty and
shallow way of thinking
and feeling in which it
originated. It is well
enough, on a merry win-
ter's evening, to go to a
masquerade as a Turk ; but
what should we think of a
man who wore such a mask
all the year round ? We
should think that he was
crazy, or in a fair way to
become so before long."
This is one manner of
viewing a revival of old
styles in art; but is it really
a comprehensive manner ?
One may venture to think
not, and for the following
reason. No great primitive
phase of art seems archaic
to those who are never
tired of living with it in con-
genial surroundings, such
as may be found in some
old flemish and Italian
cities; cities where the
present seems actually to
'study of drapery" by evelyn de morgan sleep in the past, so soon
m