DOI Heft:
No. 90 (September, 1900)
DOI Artikel:The work of Arnesby Brown
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19785#0247
The Work of A rnesby Brown
make clearly heard in their pictorial production,
but this simplicity is gained by no sacrifice of
important technical qualities. Mr. Brown has
taught himself well what to leave out, and what to
refine and modify, without losing the essentials of
his subject. By his mode of treatment he makes
the rural motives that he selects fully worthy of
supporting a romantic intention, and carries them
through to successful accomplishment without
departing from the agsthetic principles that he
regards as best fitted to guide his practice.
Possibly he owes part of his poetic instinct to
heredity. Poetry is certainly in his family, for
among his relatives he includes the veteran writer
Philip James Bailey, whose " Festus" has taken
an honourable place among English classics. He
had, too, the advantage in his boyhood of being
encouraged in his artistic aspirations, so that,
instead of having to fight his way painfully against
misunderstanding and opposition, he was able to
develop his personality in a congenial atmosphere,
and to find his right direction at a time when most
young artists are only just beginning to feel a vague
consciousness of the powers to which they wish to
give expression. Decidedly he has matured earlier
than most of the men who are professionally his
contemporaries, for he is now, at the age of only
thirty-four years, a man with an established reputa-
tion, and is recognised as a painter who has passed
well beyond the stage of probation.
In his training, at all events, there was nothing
abnormal to account for his development in an un-
usual way, and there were no special influences
that might be held to have shaped his opinions
unexpectedly. His first education in the practice
of art was obtained at the School of Art at Notting-
ham, his native place ; and though for a short time,
after this introduction to the painter's profes-
sion, he diverged into office work, he soon decided
that the way there pointed out to him was the one
that he intended to follow. At nineteen he became
for eighteen months a pupil of Andrew MacCallum
the landscape painter, studying with him in the
country; and then, in 1889, he began a three-
years' stay at Bushey as a student of the Herkomer
School. There he was able to gain that close
knowledge of the human figure which gives now to
his productions their certainty of drawing and their
215
make clearly heard in their pictorial production,
but this simplicity is gained by no sacrifice of
important technical qualities. Mr. Brown has
taught himself well what to leave out, and what to
refine and modify, without losing the essentials of
his subject. By his mode of treatment he makes
the rural motives that he selects fully worthy of
supporting a romantic intention, and carries them
through to successful accomplishment without
departing from the agsthetic principles that he
regards as best fitted to guide his practice.
Possibly he owes part of his poetic instinct to
heredity. Poetry is certainly in his family, for
among his relatives he includes the veteran writer
Philip James Bailey, whose " Festus" has taken
an honourable place among English classics. He
had, too, the advantage in his boyhood of being
encouraged in his artistic aspirations, so that,
instead of having to fight his way painfully against
misunderstanding and opposition, he was able to
develop his personality in a congenial atmosphere,
and to find his right direction at a time when most
young artists are only just beginning to feel a vague
consciousness of the powers to which they wish to
give expression. Decidedly he has matured earlier
than most of the men who are professionally his
contemporaries, for he is now, at the age of only
thirty-four years, a man with an established reputa-
tion, and is recognised as a painter who has passed
well beyond the stage of probation.
In his training, at all events, there was nothing
abnormal to account for his development in an un-
usual way, and there were no special influences
that might be held to have shaped his opinions
unexpectedly. His first education in the practice
of art was obtained at the School of Art at Notting-
ham, his native place ; and though for a short time,
after this introduction to the painter's profes-
sion, he diverged into office work, he soon decided
that the way there pointed out to him was the one
that he intended to follow. At nineteen he became
for eighteen months a pupil of Andrew MacCallum
the landscape painter, studying with him in the
country; and then, in 1889, he began a three-
years' stay at Bushey as a student of the Herkomer
School. There he was able to gain that close
knowledge of the human figure which gives now to
his productions their certainty of drawing and their
215