Studio: international art (31.1904)

The Work of George Henry, R.S.A.

an expressive phrase of the painter's, " tore the eyes that has affected Henry's art, that of Japan, a few-
out of him"), alternated with the production of early pictures that call for at least a passing
posters and the designing of domestic stained- notice must be spoken of. Early in his career he
glass. The sense of the value of pattern, the turned his attention to decorative work, and exe-
eharm of colour used in masses, and the beauty of cuted some panels in that style; an attempt re-
simplicity of treatment taught by this 'prentice peated with much success when he was one of four
work, have never left him, but have rather grown Glasgow painters commissioned to decorate the
stronger with every phase of his development. walls of the Banqueting-room in the City Cham-
Any influence that he felt in these early days was hers. In the easel pictures of his youthful days
that of French art, in its sane but unconventional he was always striving to use full, solid colour, even
phases. This influence, of course, reached him at going the length of omitting all admixture of white
secondhand, from painters who had been abroad ; in his pigments, and by this employment of deep
but it was confirmed by his first visit to Paris, a and sumptuous colour he endeavoured to render,
visit which (though ostensibly not that of a student, at once by symbol and by interpretation, the pro-
but of a tourist) resulted in the crystallisation of found richness of nature and her abounding
theories that had been, until then, more or less fecundity. A Galloway Landscape, a very remark-
loosely held. able work in which he certainly achieved much
Before alluding to the most potent influence that he wished for, is to a certain extent the

culmination of this en-
deavour.

This Galloway La?id-
scape was a new note in
landscape art, and was
highly appreciated by the
discerning; and having
accomplished so much,
Henry devoted himself
to an attempt to render
nature in another fashion,
as seen in Noon and
The Hedge Cutter. In
these, by means of strong
contrasts, he sought, as
so many painters have
sought in different ways,
to render direct sunlight.
He employed dark, purply
shadows in the fore-
ground, to accentuate the
value of the clear yellow
sunlight that flooded the
rest of the picture ; and
while he sought to give
truth to the landscape, he
was not unmindful (he is
too keen an observer for
that) of the claims and
artistic value of rustic
character. It was in Kirk
cudbrightshire, which is
the scene of the Galloivay
. Landscape, and a favourite
painting ground, that
the mirror" by george henry, r.s.a. Henry and Hornel first met: