DOI issue:
No. 104 (November, 1901)
DOI article:Sickert, Oswald: The International Society
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19874#0136
The International Society
she chosen to stop? The sky, as everyone has ex- mind. The epithets, indeed, are not properly
perienced who has drawn the outline of a branch of to be applied to his painting, but they would
a tree with the background instead of upon it, is both have a sense if they were used in praise of
apt to project in front of the leaves. Miss his character as an artist.
MacNicol's sky has not come out in spite of her Mr. J. W. Morrice is interesting as well as
efforts, she likes it so; she has pulled it out between pleasant, because his Pont-Royal, and even more
the leaves in cakes. What matters, however, clearly his picture of the beach at St. Malo, give
about it, is not that the sky precedes the leaves— the impression that the painter is at the point of
that is a matter of taste—but that the way of hesitating between two roads—the road that leads
pushing the sky in and out among the leaves to sophistication, and therewith also to the certainty
makes for ugly quality. Subtlety is not possible of being able to turn out any number of present-
with such painting, and without an effort to reach able pictures, and the road that certainly does not
a greater subtlety it is not likely that the quality of exclude the probability of many failures and con-
paint will grow finer. Miss MacNicol is still a fessions of weakness, but meanwhile permits the
realist, and if she remains one, it seems hardly possibility of that cultivation which brings greater
necessary that just the fear of confessing anywhere skill to the hand. He has begun to say, " It
to a little weakness, or lack of capacity, should is well ; it is what I meant," with his brush ; he
keep her technique where
it now stands. It is
different with Mr. Hornel.
He has thro wn over realistic
pre-occupations, and raised
the patchwork painting to
the pitch of an art by itself.
It says much for the power
of the decorative move-
ment in painting that Mr.
Hornel's canvases do not
astonish us, do not seem
particularly extravagant.
One argues that, after all,
a patchwork quilt, such as
one used to find on country
beds, was often quite a
pretty and amusing thing,
and Mr. Hornel has kindly
added to the prettiness and
amusement by cleverly fit-
ting figures into his pieces,
figures of children that may
be made out quite easily.
Mr. Lavery does the art
which he professes the
honour of refusing to claim,
°y the cultivation of any
trick, decorative or other-
wise, that clumsiness is a
merit, or can be petted into
a merit. There are those
who find Mr. Lavery's paint-
mg "strong" and "honest,"
and they are not so wrong
as they might appear at first
sight to the more critical portrait of mrs. brown potter by john lavery
123
she chosen to stop? The sky, as everyone has ex- mind. The epithets, indeed, are not properly
perienced who has drawn the outline of a branch of to be applied to his painting, but they would
a tree with the background instead of upon it, is both have a sense if they were used in praise of
apt to project in front of the leaves. Miss his character as an artist.
MacNicol's sky has not come out in spite of her Mr. J. W. Morrice is interesting as well as
efforts, she likes it so; she has pulled it out between pleasant, because his Pont-Royal, and even more
the leaves in cakes. What matters, however, clearly his picture of the beach at St. Malo, give
about it, is not that the sky precedes the leaves— the impression that the painter is at the point of
that is a matter of taste—but that the way of hesitating between two roads—the road that leads
pushing the sky in and out among the leaves to sophistication, and therewith also to the certainty
makes for ugly quality. Subtlety is not possible of being able to turn out any number of present-
with such painting, and without an effort to reach able pictures, and the road that certainly does not
a greater subtlety it is not likely that the quality of exclude the probability of many failures and con-
paint will grow finer. Miss MacNicol is still a fessions of weakness, but meanwhile permits the
realist, and if she remains one, it seems hardly possibility of that cultivation which brings greater
necessary that just the fear of confessing anywhere skill to the hand. He has begun to say, " It
to a little weakness, or lack of capacity, should is well ; it is what I meant," with his brush ; he
keep her technique where
it now stands. It is
different with Mr. Hornel.
He has thro wn over realistic
pre-occupations, and raised
the patchwork painting to
the pitch of an art by itself.
It says much for the power
of the decorative move-
ment in painting that Mr.
Hornel's canvases do not
astonish us, do not seem
particularly extravagant.
One argues that, after all,
a patchwork quilt, such as
one used to find on country
beds, was often quite a
pretty and amusing thing,
and Mr. Hornel has kindly
added to the prettiness and
amusement by cleverly fit-
ting figures into his pieces,
figures of children that may
be made out quite easily.
Mr. Lavery does the art
which he professes the
honour of refusing to claim,
°y the cultivation of any
trick, decorative or other-
wise, that clumsiness is a
merit, or can be petted into
a merit. There are those
who find Mr. Lavery's paint-
mg "strong" and "honest,"
and they are not so wrong
as they might appear at first
sight to the more critical portrait of mrs. brown potter by john lavery
123