Studio: international art (30.1904)

The London Sketch Club

"when hatte came
home from germany "

by tom browne

and exhibitions, so there is
small likelihood of there being
any touch of the commonplace
in a collective display of the
work done at the club meet-
ings. The exhibitions, how-
ever, are not necessarily
composed only of "time-
sketches," but, on the contrary,
there is little emphasis placed
on the two-hour work, except
as a mere matter of practice
for the time being, and if a
member chooses to work up
his study to a more elaborate
and detailed picture, he is quite
at liberty to do so, and to
send it to the exhibition as

such. This is only as it should be, and in justice to each member
of the society, for to some artists it is absolutely beyond the
range of possibility to rush off a picture by the tick of a clock.
Time sketching is a gift, just as everything else, and although it
may be appreciably developed by practice it cannot be acquired
without the natural inclination lor this particular kind of work, and
a very great percentage of talented artists find it beyond their
scope to execute a finished sketch of even the most simple subject
in two hours. Nevertheless, there are technical advantages in this
form of practice which bring out the best that is in a man; for,
working as he does, on the spur of the moment, one gets the dis-
tinguishing point between what is really talent and what is merely
mechanical dexterity, qualities obviously opposed in the abstract
but often grievously confusing in generalities. Such work proves
that art expression of quite a notable type may be given without
long-drawn out and laboured execution, and that the attention to
details is not a necessary factor in the most pleasing and
successful form of pictorial art. Pictures which depend on the