Studio: international art (23.1901)

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

should not stoop to excite interest by making their self plus someone else. There are pictures
own efforts more or less dependent on the emotion wherein she is Miss Fortescue-Brickdale and a
called into being by quoted lines or words. It is follower of Mr. Byam Shaw; in others, as in The
never unavoidable, as Miss Fortescue-Brickdale Duenna, Van Eyck is recognised incognito, and
reminds us in a few fortunate titles, like The Duenna, it is only a wide sympathy both with these trans-
Chance, The Guests, To-morrow, and Riches, formations and with several others that gives one
These labels are simple and expressive, and others the full scope and the varied feminine charm of
not less so could be found for those pictures which, the artist's genius.

in the catalogue of the Dowdeswell Galleries, bear 4. A close and wise observation of things seen.
quotations. There is one, for example, in which an Everything is well observed in her pictures, from
Italian murderer, as he passes hurriedly at midnight the manner in which a tree's roots grip the earth
over a bridge, beholds, all at once, in a wooden to the most delicate tones of grey in a piece of
shrine, a figure of Christ upon the Cross, lit up by rich drapery touched with sunlight,
the moon's light and a taper's glimmer. The title 5. An exceedingly good eye for colour. No amount
of this drama is taken from the Prayer Book version of writing could give a really clear notion of this
of Psalm cxxxix, verse 10:—If J say, Peradventure invaluable gift, but such a notion of it may be
the darkness shall cover me. Yet the story told obtained by studying the two reproductions in
would be none the less impressive if it were labelled facsimile, Chance and The Duenna.
Conscience, for it shows how the conscience of one 6. A genuine delight i7t the human nature that
man is all at once startled by the
crucified image of the Saviour, whose
teaching has entered into the con-
science of all the most progressive
nations. Nevertheless, if Miss For-
tescue-Brickdale thought more in her
own words and less in quotations, her
art might not be as intuitive as it is in
these water-colour pictures.

2. A scenic manner of dealing with
character and with situation. This
trait has been noted in Chance, and
it is more or less evident in most of
her pictures. There is a flavour of
Goldsmith's comedy in the illustra-
tion of the coquette near the bridge;
while in The Travesties of Life, illus-
trated on page 41, there is a touch
of that burlesqued satire and humour
which seem to have been common
in early Elizabethan masques.

3. A surprising aptitude for work-
ing in known styles that please her.
Nearly all women-artists have an
aptitude akin to this, but Miss
Fortescue - Brickdale is now so
unself-conscious that she assimi-
lates her borrowed means of expres-
sion, making them her own. They
are not superfetations upon her
own personal manner; they become
for the time being an essential part
of its Protean womanliness and
gracious waywardness. Like a
good actress, she can be her true "uncounted hours" by e. fortescue-brickdalr

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