DOI Heft:
No. 128 (November, 1903)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19880#0171
Studio- Talk
however, runs the same delightful vein of genial
humour, .broad without coarseness and telling
without being exaggerated. This exhibition, in-
deed, emphasises the regret which all art-lovers
feel at his death; for it proves that, if he had lived,
he would have given us things even greater than
those he had already achieved.
By a happy inspiration the proprietors of the
gallery have filled the room adjoining that occupied
by Phil May's works with a series of drawings by
Rowlandson. Such an opportunity of comparing
the methods of two of the greatest English masters
of humorous design is really invaluable ; they have
something in common, and yet in modes of stating
their observations they are widely apart. Both
sought to interpret character, but Phil May looked
specially at details of personality and dealt with
them as realistically as possible, while Rowlandson
made his points by travestying personality and by
building up a regular system of exaggeration on the
characteristics of his subject. He reflected the
point of view of a period when wit was more or
less coarse and obvious; and no one suggested
better the swaggering habits of a very full-blooded
community. But this exhibition shows that he
was more than a simple caricaturist. It includes
several dainty water-colour landscapes and some
fanciful compositions full of grace and charm.
The Charles Keene drawings at the Dutch
Gallery illustrate yet another phase of humour and
quite a different type of technical practice. They
are the work of a man who saw life within definite
limits, but saw it all the same with surprising
shrewdness and depth of insight. Not even Leech
interpreted more happily the oddities of middle-
class people, and the stolid unconsciousness of the
THE WORKMEN S HOME, VIENNA HUBERT GESSNER, ARCHITECT
(See article " The Arbeiterheim" or Woi'kmeri's Ifo/ue, Vienna)
154
however, runs the same delightful vein of genial
humour, .broad without coarseness and telling
without being exaggerated. This exhibition, in-
deed, emphasises the regret which all art-lovers
feel at his death; for it proves that, if he had lived,
he would have given us things even greater than
those he had already achieved.
By a happy inspiration the proprietors of the
gallery have filled the room adjoining that occupied
by Phil May's works with a series of drawings by
Rowlandson. Such an opportunity of comparing
the methods of two of the greatest English masters
of humorous design is really invaluable ; they have
something in common, and yet in modes of stating
their observations they are widely apart. Both
sought to interpret character, but Phil May looked
specially at details of personality and dealt with
them as realistically as possible, while Rowlandson
made his points by travestying personality and by
building up a regular system of exaggeration on the
characteristics of his subject. He reflected the
point of view of a period when wit was more or
less coarse and obvious; and no one suggested
better the swaggering habits of a very full-blooded
community. But this exhibition shows that he
was more than a simple caricaturist. It includes
several dainty water-colour landscapes and some
fanciful compositions full of grace and charm.
The Charles Keene drawings at the Dutch
Gallery illustrate yet another phase of humour and
quite a different type of technical practice. They
are the work of a man who saw life within definite
limits, but saw it all the same with surprising
shrewdness and depth of insight. Not even Leech
interpreted more happily the oddities of middle-
class people, and the stolid unconsciousness of the
THE WORKMEN S HOME, VIENNA HUBERT GESSNER, ARCHITECT
(See article " The Arbeiterheim" or Woi'kmeri's Ifo/ue, Vienna)
154