DOI Heft:
No. 90 (September, 1900)
DOI Artikel:The work of Arnesby Brown
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19785#0246
The Work of A rnesby Brown
credit and reputation of pictorial art, they were the
only sincere students of Nature; while he, with his
ideas of composition and adaptation and his horror
of everything that was ugly or commonplace, was
a heretic and an unbeliever, whose work deserved
ridicule on account of its affectations, and blame
because of its unorthodox)-.
Now we are witnessing a movement that marks
a safe compromise between these representatives
of two extremes of aesthetic opinion. The romantic
spirit has not died out in art, and realism has not
imposed its hard and uncompromising formality
upon the practice of the better men. Instead, the
two creeds have inter-married, and their offspring
shows itself possessed of the finer qualities of
both parents. The combination is in some respects
peculiar, for it gives results that have not been
arrived at before, and promises to lead to artistic
achievements that will be quite unlike those upon
which modern traditions have been based. The
men of to-day have learned to make their art an
intellectual exercise, and to use their powers of dis-
crimination to help them in the selection of
material that is properly adaptable. They do not
refuse to study the world about them or to occupy,
themselves with motives that are at first sight
commonplace enough; but they do decline to
make the exact realisation of these motives the
beginning and end of their practice.
It is by virtue of its possession of true poetic
qualities that the work of Mr. Arnesby Brown
takes its place among the best illustrations of the
new romantic movement. He is one of the artists
who can be most safely instanced as an exponent
of the present-day creed with regard to the adapta-
tion of natural details to the exigencies of pictorial
design; and he is typically a leader of the move-
ment that is enlarging the scope of our native
school and adding appreciably to its aesthetic
authority. His romanticism is essentially sound
and well balanced, without extravagance or excess
of fancy, and yet distinguished by a full measure
of imaginative charm. It has just the right touch
of pastoral simplicity that is necessary to keep it
in harmony with that note of country life which so
many artists are at this moment wisely striving to
"THE DRINKING POOL :' BY ARNESBY BROWN
(Iii possession of the City oj Manchester Permanent Collection)
214
credit and reputation of pictorial art, they were the
only sincere students of Nature; while he, with his
ideas of composition and adaptation and his horror
of everything that was ugly or commonplace, was
a heretic and an unbeliever, whose work deserved
ridicule on account of its affectations, and blame
because of its unorthodox)-.
Now we are witnessing a movement that marks
a safe compromise between these representatives
of two extremes of aesthetic opinion. The romantic
spirit has not died out in art, and realism has not
imposed its hard and uncompromising formality
upon the practice of the better men. Instead, the
two creeds have inter-married, and their offspring
shows itself possessed of the finer qualities of
both parents. The combination is in some respects
peculiar, for it gives results that have not been
arrived at before, and promises to lead to artistic
achievements that will be quite unlike those upon
which modern traditions have been based. The
men of to-day have learned to make their art an
intellectual exercise, and to use their powers of dis-
crimination to help them in the selection of
material that is properly adaptable. They do not
refuse to study the world about them or to occupy,
themselves with motives that are at first sight
commonplace enough; but they do decline to
make the exact realisation of these motives the
beginning and end of their practice.
It is by virtue of its possession of true poetic
qualities that the work of Mr. Arnesby Brown
takes its place among the best illustrations of the
new romantic movement. He is one of the artists
who can be most safely instanced as an exponent
of the present-day creed with regard to the adapta-
tion of natural details to the exigencies of pictorial
design; and he is typically a leader of the move-
ment that is enlarging the scope of our native
school and adding appreciably to its aesthetic
authority. His romanticism is essentially sound
and well balanced, without extravagance or excess
of fancy, and yet distinguished by a full measure
of imaginative charm. It has just the right touch
of pastoral simplicity that is necessary to keep it
in harmony with that note of country life which so
many artists are at this moment wisely striving to
"THE DRINKING POOL :' BY ARNESBY BROWN
(Iii possession of the City oj Manchester Permanent Collection)
214