DOI Heft:
No. 92 (November, 1900)
DOI Artikel:Stevenson, Robert Alan Mowbray: A. D. Peppercorn
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19786#0095
A. D. Peppercorn
and permanent qualities of his artistic vision. He
has taken his place undeniably amongst the indis-
pensable seers of his century. He belongs to the
great small sect who have made a new art of land-
scape. When in future times they say Constable,
Corot, Millet and Monet, they will certainly add
Peppercorn. He is narrower, he is more faulty,
but he is undoubtedly of the breed. A little more
of Corot's urbanity and exquisiteness, of Millet's
intellectual sense and human fervour, of their
easy naturalness, of their restraint, fine humour
and all roundedness would have made Peppercorn
greater. As it is he only seems a little lopsided—
a giant on one side, an ordinary man on the
other.
Before explaining these two sides of the man I
must return to a word I have used, " convince." It
is only by slow degrees that Mr. Peppercorn has
convinced us of the virtue and truth of his style. I
speak for myself; I have known him since 1874,
but I have not always entertained the opinion I
now hold of his work. There is no need to apolo-
gise ; one does not put a man amongst the really
great on doubtful evidence. It is only ten years
ago that one began to see much of Mr. Peppercorn's
work. Before that only a picture or two in stray
places, at Messrs. Buck & Reid's, or in a private
collection where he was to be compared with his
masters, Corot, Daubigny and the like. It was
some time before one regarded him as more than
their mere follower, practiser of a game made out
of their feelings and not out of his own. There
was, of course, another reason, purely personal
and not to the point, viz., the nature of my own
work, tastes and pursuits.
His appearance and effect in the Academy fairly
finished my conversion.
Even now I do not like all his pictures, more
especially some of the earlier kind, often heavy
and gloomy, decorative panels with a free translation
not so much of nature as of a mood of nature.
Mr. Peppercorn so weeds his composition of
matter unessential or contradictory to his feeling
that the picture expresses his feeling, whatever it
may be, with almost unexampled clarity. You
must feel the emotion whether you like it or not,
and sometimes you do not like it. Fresh from the
high-coloured dazzle of real light, I have resented
his power of depressing all and forcing on one a
mood sometimes savage, sometimes dreary, often
and permanent qualities of his artistic vision. He
has taken his place undeniably amongst the indis-
pensable seers of his century. He belongs to the
great small sect who have made a new art of land-
scape. When in future times they say Constable,
Corot, Millet and Monet, they will certainly add
Peppercorn. He is narrower, he is more faulty,
but he is undoubtedly of the breed. A little more
of Corot's urbanity and exquisiteness, of Millet's
intellectual sense and human fervour, of their
easy naturalness, of their restraint, fine humour
and all roundedness would have made Peppercorn
greater. As it is he only seems a little lopsided—
a giant on one side, an ordinary man on the
other.
Before explaining these two sides of the man I
must return to a word I have used, " convince." It
is only by slow degrees that Mr. Peppercorn has
convinced us of the virtue and truth of his style. I
speak for myself; I have known him since 1874,
but I have not always entertained the opinion I
now hold of his work. There is no need to apolo-
gise ; one does not put a man amongst the really
great on doubtful evidence. It is only ten years
ago that one began to see much of Mr. Peppercorn's
work. Before that only a picture or two in stray
places, at Messrs. Buck & Reid's, or in a private
collection where he was to be compared with his
masters, Corot, Daubigny and the like. It was
some time before one regarded him as more than
their mere follower, practiser of a game made out
of their feelings and not out of his own. There
was, of course, another reason, purely personal
and not to the point, viz., the nature of my own
work, tastes and pursuits.
His appearance and effect in the Academy fairly
finished my conversion.
Even now I do not like all his pictures, more
especially some of the earlier kind, often heavy
and gloomy, decorative panels with a free translation
not so much of nature as of a mood of nature.
Mr. Peppercorn so weeds his composition of
matter unessential or contradictory to his feeling
that the picture expresses his feeling, whatever it
may be, with almost unexampled clarity. You
must feel the emotion whether you like it or not,
and sometimes you do not like it. Fresh from the
high-coloured dazzle of real light, I have resented
his power of depressing all and forcing on one a
mood sometimes savage, sometimes dreary, often