Studio: international art (27.1903)

John Lavery

' THE BRIDGE AT GRES" BY JOHN LAVERY

{in possession of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg)

valuable as evidence of the artistic emancipation of
its painter—and let it be added that what was
satisfying to John Lavery in 1884 was satisfying to
that small band of critics who were working
in the cause of the emancipation of art—hang
two little pictures, which may be taken as
representative of the painter's transition period
and of his mature style respectively. The little
picture representing a yacht race on the Clyde
was painted some twelve years since. Grey it is ;
but the vessels move ; we feel the wind driving

" A LADY IN BLACK, NO. II " BY JOHN LAVERY

(In the National Gallery, Brussels)

IO

their sails, and the greyness has a certain sparkle
about it; it is in fact a living, in contradistinction
to a dead-greyness, and is entirely in the sentiment
of the subject. It is of course wholly a mistake to
imagine that when a painter or critic speaks of
colour, he necessarily has in mind bright or vivid
colouring; there is as much beauty and distinction
in a subdued and neutral harmony as there is in
a canvas aglow with vivid and brilliant pigment.
As a pendant to this comparatively early study
hangs a joyous bit of colour: a rapid impression
of a scene in Hyde Park, painted with great
breadth of treatment—the horses move and
the trees are alive, and the whole thing
is an alluring chromatic effect. The 1884
picture of a bridge shows how far Lavery has
travelled from those early days, when he was
under the influence of a painter, great and
noble as he was, for above all Bastien Lepage
expressed his own temperament, until the time
when he found himself; and in finding himself
was not afraid to recognise and give full play
to his own strength and individuality. It is
distinctly as a colourist Lavery establishes his
claim to a high place among the artists of his
day and generation. Perhaps to say this is
merely an indirect way of saying that John
Lavery is a great artist, since, assuredly, the
practitioner, whose principal stock-in-trade is
paint, cannot be considered to have established
any sound claim to pre-eminence, unless he
can use that medium attractively.

It was not for long, however, that the young
Glasgow painter permitted himself to be domi-
nated by any particular master, ancient or modern