Studio: international art (28.1903)

Frank Brangwyn s Landscapes and Still-Life

tain impertinence in assert-
ing how he feels or judges
in viewing his model and
translating it into the ex-
pression of art. Even he
himself perhaps is hardly
competent to describe this
intricate and subtle process
with accuracy. But in the
case of landscapes so in-
dividual and so uniformly
instinct with style as those
we are considering, perhaps
one may be allowed to say
that in any prospect of
nature that which appeals
to Mr. Brangwyn most is
the disposition of its simple,
significant masses — or, at
,, any rate, that it is this

melons by frank brangwyn . . . .

massive disposition which
he cares most to record

That the emphasis laid by the English pre- in his presentation of it. One notes also that it is
Raphaelites on detail and the intensity of local in such masses as are characterised by a certain
colour was in some ways healthy and valuable is rotundity of contour, expressive at once of weight
not to be denied. Equally, that the emphasis laid and motion, that he seems to take peculiar delight
by the later Impressionists on atmospheric effects —the contour, for example, of a cumulus cloud, or
of colour, pure and vivid, was in some ways healthy of a full-branched tree bending under the wind,
and valuable is not to be denied. But in the art or of an undulating hill, which, though actually
of landscape-painting the doctrines of the pre- immovable, yet suggests to us the sense of move-
Raphaelites and of the Impressionists did not ment. And these large contours, once caught
make for largeness, impressiveness, and dignity, and imaginatively disposed in their decorative
did not make for what one
means by Design; and in
landscape, as in every other
form of art, it, is Design
that counts permanently
for more than anything
else.

Now, whatever other
qualities Mr. Brangwyn's
landscapes, large or small,
elaborated or slight, may
possess or lack, this quality
of Design they have pre-
eminently. It is obvious
that with details of form
and of colour the artist
here does not concern him-
self—and this, it may well
be, partly instinctively and
partly of set purpose. In
speaking of a living man
there always seems a cer- "mushrooms" from the study by frank brangwyn

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