Studio: international art (22.1901)

/. M. Swan, A.R.A.

of models was always posing for his special benefit,
and in this studio he was to be found day by day
studying earnestly every twist and turn of his
favourite sitters. Even to the present day he
keeps up his intimacy with the great beasts that
are caged there for the amusement of the crowd,
and uses them as subjects for many of his most
happily imagined works.

The first beginning of his practice as an exhibit-
ing artist was made in 1878, when he showed at
the Academy a picture of Dante and the Leopard.
To this succeeded in 1879 A Fugitive; and in
1882 and 1884 he was represented by A Shepherd
Boy and Poached Eggs. But in 1889 came a
canvas, IVie Prodigal Son, that stamped him
definitely as a painter with a commanding person-
ality. It created no little stir among his fellow
painters and the general public ; and it was sealed
with the official approval by being purchased by
the Trustees of the Chantrey Fund. From that
date onwards he has been a constant exhibitor,
sometimes of pictures, sometimes of sculpture;
and he has frequently shown in the same exhibi-
tion examples of both these classes of his work. In
the technical character of his productions there
has been more than ordinary variety, for he has
appeared as a painter in oils, and water-colours,
as a pastellist, and as a black-and-white draughts-
man ; and as a sculptor he has carried out things,
large and small, in various metals and materials.
In his subjects he has ranged about, treating at
one time the human figure, male and female, at
another animals, and even, occasionally, pure land-
scape. But whatever he has shown, and whatever
the method of execution he has adopted, he has
never failed to prove himself an artist of superlative
power and supreme intelligence. Although to the
majority of art-lovers he is a new man with a
reputation that has grown up within not more than
a dozen years, he is accepted without question as a
master, and his extraordinary control over many
crafts is recognised without any trace ot hesitation.
He has risen almost as a matter of course to the
place in the front rank that he selected for himself
more than twenty years ago, and he has amply
fulfilled the intentions that guided him through all
the complicated labours of his student days.

His reputation, moreover, is as solid and well-
founded abroad as in this country. Indeed, at one
time, the French artists were disposed to claim him
as one of themselves, and to assign him a place as
a member of their school. In Holland, too, he
made a name even before he became famous in
England. He was elected a member of the Dutch
86

Water Colour Society in 1885, and was hailed as a
master almost on the first appearance of his work
in that country. This appreciation is in no way
surprising, for his art is so broad in scope, and so
free from the mannerism of any particular creed,
that it has power to arrest and hold the attention
of every thinker on aesthetic questions. He has
the fascination of unusual intention, and no hint of
commonplace mars his statements. A survey of
the work he has done is impressive because it
shows how his hand is guided by a mind that can
form vital conclusions without outside aid. Even
in his most unexpected accomplishments he is
always himself.

A. L. Baldry.

(To be continued.)

The exhibition of the drawings and studies of
John Ruskin, which has been open during the
past month in the gallery of the Royal Society of
Painters in Water Colours, must have been in the
nature of a revelation to many people who did
not know how varied and remarkable were the
capacities of our greatest writer on art. That he
was a draughtsman of exceptional ability no one
who has studied his books could fail to perceive,
but the present generation can scarcely be said
to know the extent of his accomplishment as an
artistic craftsman. In this collection, however, his
extraordinary insight into Nature's facts, and his
marvellous delicacy and sureness of hand, were
completely demonstrated. Whether he could
have taken high rank as a creative artist remains,
perhaps, questionable, as he seems to have been
wanting in the faculty for pictorial construction.
But as a recorder of minute and detailed observa-
tions he was almost unrivalled. His studies of
plant forms, rocks, architectural details, and still-
life subjects are among the most exquisite things
of their kind that anyone has ever attempted;
and in this gathering of more than four hun-
dred works instances of perfunctory or careless
production are hardly to be discovered. In his
methods he was undoubtedly influenced by
many men, by j. D. Harding, Prout, and
Turner, and others from whom he learned
certain tricks of execution, yet he very rarely
failed to sound a strongly personal note in all
his use of the various devices of other artists.
The exhibition showed clearly what were his
limitations, but in addition it gave indisputable
evidence of his remarkable powers of research
and adaptation.