DOI Artikel:
Bate, Percy H.: The late Frederick Sandys: a retrospect
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0032
Frederick Sandys
whole range of art. To all great artists children Indians; this chiefship being a unique honour con-
have been strangely inspiring, and for Sandys they ferred on the sculptor by the Indians themselves in
would seem to have had many attractions. Not recognition of the skill with which he recorded
for him are the little airs and graces that point to their traits and their outward seeming in imperish-
an artificial and premature development, not for able bronze, and in appreciation too, one suspects,
him the eyes of adult coquetry in a baby's face, the of his sympathetic outlook and genial attitude to all
false charm of Greuze; to him they are sincere and men. A wonderful series are these drawings of
natural creatures, now dainty, now full of the un- Sandys, and if they could be displayed together in
conscious joy of life, and he drew them wide-eyed some gallery there is little doubt as to the chorus of
in a world of wonder, happy and unspoiled. applause that would greet them. They are searching,
These drawings of his must not be confounded almost unrelenting, in their drawing, exquisitely
with pastels. There is no similarity between them seen and handled, and as far removed from the
and the work of Russell, for instance; but if we trivial as from the fantastic; though thoroughly de-
seek in the art of older days for something analogous finite and detailed, they are not in the least
we shall find it in the drawings of Holbein, of "niggled" or tight—in short, they are beautiful
Clouet of Dumoustrier. They are drawings in examples of the draughtsman's art, learned,
chalk, and the method employed was described by accomplished, and effortless.
the artist himself. He said : " In making a chalk In the same category as these portraits must be
portrait I first faintly outline
the features, and then, very
lightly, with cotton wool, I put
on a fiat, even tint over the
whole face. It is something
like a flat wash in water-
colours, only there is a little
more colour. Then only do
I begin to work up the
features, with black and an
ordinary red chalk only." It
will be evident that the result
is not a flesh-and-blood simili-
tude of the sitter. What
Sandys aimed at, and what he
attained, was a true likeness
conveyed by means of a con-
vention at once beautiful in
itself and charming in its re-
sults. For a number of years
he produced these portraits,
and his subjects ranged from
Mattheiv Arnold to John
Richard Green, from Marie
Meredith to Jean Palmer,
from Henry Graves to Alfred
Tennyson; one of the most
interesting of those executed
in later years being a charac-
teristically veracious present-
ment of the well-known sculp-
tor Percy Wood, which shows
him adorned with the eagle's
feather and other accessories
incidental to his rank as a
WONDER TIME BY FREDERICK SANDYS
chief of North American (By permission of Messrs. Laurie & Co.)
I5
whole range of art. To all great artists children Indians; this chiefship being a unique honour con-
have been strangely inspiring, and for Sandys they ferred on the sculptor by the Indians themselves in
would seem to have had many attractions. Not recognition of the skill with which he recorded
for him are the little airs and graces that point to their traits and their outward seeming in imperish-
an artificial and premature development, not for able bronze, and in appreciation too, one suspects,
him the eyes of adult coquetry in a baby's face, the of his sympathetic outlook and genial attitude to all
false charm of Greuze; to him they are sincere and men. A wonderful series are these drawings of
natural creatures, now dainty, now full of the un- Sandys, and if they could be displayed together in
conscious joy of life, and he drew them wide-eyed some gallery there is little doubt as to the chorus of
in a world of wonder, happy and unspoiled. applause that would greet them. They are searching,
These drawings of his must not be confounded almost unrelenting, in their drawing, exquisitely
with pastels. There is no similarity between them seen and handled, and as far removed from the
and the work of Russell, for instance; but if we trivial as from the fantastic; though thoroughly de-
seek in the art of older days for something analogous finite and detailed, they are not in the least
we shall find it in the drawings of Holbein, of "niggled" or tight—in short, they are beautiful
Clouet of Dumoustrier. They are drawings in examples of the draughtsman's art, learned,
chalk, and the method employed was described by accomplished, and effortless.
the artist himself. He said : " In making a chalk In the same category as these portraits must be
portrait I first faintly outline
the features, and then, very
lightly, with cotton wool, I put
on a fiat, even tint over the
whole face. It is something
like a flat wash in water-
colours, only there is a little
more colour. Then only do
I begin to work up the
features, with black and an
ordinary red chalk only." It
will be evident that the result
is not a flesh-and-blood simili-
tude of the sitter. What
Sandys aimed at, and what he
attained, was a true likeness
conveyed by means of a con-
vention at once beautiful in
itself and charming in its re-
sults. For a number of years
he produced these portraits,
and his subjects ranged from
Mattheiv Arnold to John
Richard Green, from Marie
Meredith to Jean Palmer,
from Henry Graves to Alfred
Tennyson; one of the most
interesting of those executed
in later years being a charac-
teristically veracious present-
ment of the well-known sculp-
tor Percy Wood, which shows
him adorned with the eagle's
feather and other accessories
incidental to his rank as a
WONDER TIME BY FREDERICK SANDYS
chief of North American (By permission of Messrs. Laurie & Co.)
I5