Studio: international art (23.1901)

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

then been trained in a school of art, and, like all girl Brickdale, about two years ago, started to work
students, had suffered in two ways ; for the rule-of- in water-colours, a medium of which she had
thumb precepts had made her self-timorous and no school knowledge. It was entirely new to her;
self-conscious, while the hourly influence of clever hence she had to find out her own way of making
studies by young men had also a disturbing effect, it serve as a means of expressing ideas. This was
as it appealed strongly and constantly to her the self-discipline that Miss Fortescue-Brickdale
feminine aptitude for simulating various styles, needed, and its effects are admirably various and
For these reasons, during the time she spent in very attractive. The medium itself is never
the Royal Academy Schools, Miss Fortescue- paraded, as in most modern water-colours; it is
Brickdale was not really herself, and some friend always a quiet, unobtrusive servant to the artist's
ought to have said to her, what Ruskin said to play of thought, fancy, and sentiment; and this
Lady Waterford, that her best guides in art were result is entirely in accordance with instinctive
Nature and her own intuitive delight in the ways of work most suitable to women of genius,
best work. Nor did she begin to come by her But it has a few drawbacks as well as many ines-
own until circumstances forced her to abandon timable advantages. Again and again, in the art
all the tricks and methods which she had acquired practice of true women, technical defects must be
so laboriously in the schools. Those circum- pardoned, not reluctantly, but with as much readi-
stances came into play when Miss Fortescue- ness as we excuse the errors of archaeology in the

plays of Shakespeare. As
an example of this in the
work by Miss Fortescue-
Brickdale, let me remind
you of the colour-print
representing a picture en-
titled Chance, a page of
sunlight that appeared in
The Studio for April.
The oversight to be for-
given in this water-colour
is the face that peers out
from the background, just
behind the raised hand of
the principal figure. The
composition would be
much improved if that
face were hidden by the
leafed, tapestry-like back-
ground ; and yet one is
willing to be annoyed by
it for the sake of the
notable good qualities,
like the exquisite handling
of the flowing red robe,
the subtle and beautiful
colour, the gentle serious-
ness and sincerity of the
general treatment, and the
delicate spirit of high
comedy, so fresh and yet
so scenic in lightness, that
gives so much charm to the
pretty girl in the act of ques-
tioning Chance, as voung-

"THE CUP OF HArPINESS BY ELEANOR FORTESCUE-BRICKDALE ° ' ' 13

(By permission of Messrs. Dowdeswell) Sters do it in the fields.

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