DOI issue:
No. 133 (April, 1904)
DOI article:Hind, Charles Lewis: Ethical art and Mr. F. Cayley Robinson
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19881#0258
F. Cayley Robinson
"DAWN FROM THE TEMPERA PAINTING BY F. CAYLEY ROBINSON
to his making are hardly apparent. The list might loving and steeping himself in classic art, yet never
be extended to the present moment, to those escaping from the fetters of medievalism"; to
symbolistic, inward-brooding artists, young and Claude, " whose ruins of an ancient civilisation are
old, behind whose line, form, design and colour is seen melting insensibly away from human use and
an ethical or literary intention, sometimes so subtle purpose"; to Rodin, "who may be said to have
that it can hardly be called didactic. In this bridged the gulf between Michael Angelo and
category would be placed Matthew Maris, Max Donatello"; and to Watts, "whose achievement
Klinger, possibly Von Uhde, Miss Brickdale, in the present age fills me with astonishment and
Mr. Byam Shaw, Mrs. Hunter, and Mr. Cayley gratitude."
Robinson. The arts of painting and literature, broadly
From some notes written by Mr. Cayley Robinson speaking, run their courses through different chan-
that are before me it is made plain that Michael nels. Velasquez, most of the French romanticists,
Angelo is the god of his idolatry. That, indeed, the French impressionists, many modern men of
might have been inferred from his achievement, rare talent, owe nothing to literature. But the
Michael Angelo to him " seems almost to have exceptions are numerous, and several great painters
surpassed the limitations of the human mind. His have been poets and writers of prose and verse
works may be compared to the opening lines of the as well as artists—Michael Angelo, Mantegna,
book of Genesis in their immensity." Mr. Robinson Leonardo, and in modern times Blake, Turner
also expresses his great indebtedness to Giotto, and Rossetti, to name but three. Artists who
" the Chaucer of painting, broad-minded, generous, have derived inspiration from poetry and fine
human"; to Mantegna, "saturnine, austere, and literature abound. Of course, the inspiration has
grave, fretting under many limitations, passionately been abused, and to follow the tributaries of that
239
"DAWN FROM THE TEMPERA PAINTING BY F. CAYLEY ROBINSON
to his making are hardly apparent. The list might loving and steeping himself in classic art, yet never
be extended to the present moment, to those escaping from the fetters of medievalism"; to
symbolistic, inward-brooding artists, young and Claude, " whose ruins of an ancient civilisation are
old, behind whose line, form, design and colour is seen melting insensibly away from human use and
an ethical or literary intention, sometimes so subtle purpose"; to Rodin, "who may be said to have
that it can hardly be called didactic. In this bridged the gulf between Michael Angelo and
category would be placed Matthew Maris, Max Donatello"; and to Watts, "whose achievement
Klinger, possibly Von Uhde, Miss Brickdale, in the present age fills me with astonishment and
Mr. Byam Shaw, Mrs. Hunter, and Mr. Cayley gratitude."
Robinson. The arts of painting and literature, broadly
From some notes written by Mr. Cayley Robinson speaking, run their courses through different chan-
that are before me it is made plain that Michael nels. Velasquez, most of the French romanticists,
Angelo is the god of his idolatry. That, indeed, the French impressionists, many modern men of
might have been inferred from his achievement, rare talent, owe nothing to literature. But the
Michael Angelo to him " seems almost to have exceptions are numerous, and several great painters
surpassed the limitations of the human mind. His have been poets and writers of prose and verse
works may be compared to the opening lines of the as well as artists—Michael Angelo, Mantegna,
book of Genesis in their immensity." Mr. Robinson Leonardo, and in modern times Blake, Turner
also expresses his great indebtedness to Giotto, and Rossetti, to name but three. Artists who
" the Chaucer of painting, broad-minded, generous, have derived inspiration from poetry and fine
human"; to Mantegna, "saturnine, austere, and literature abound. Of course, the inspiration has
grave, fretting under many limitations, passionately been abused, and to follow the tributaries of that
239