DOI article:
Wood, T. Martin: The lithographs of C. H. Shannon
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0045
C. H. Shannons Lithographs
photographic restrictions, though often arriving for the artist's delight, and they are corrected
at the truest definition through its more elastic by the straight lines of the perpendicular mirror,
and sensitive observation. One feels that that mirror was placed there
As a sonnet, just a few lines grouped to a spell of for that reason, the best of artistic reasons,
music or to realise in expression a momentary mood, and one hopes that Mr. Shannon put so many
so are these lithographs ; they are here for their own screws on the smaller instrument and so few
sake, not insisting on any shape too much, not on the large viol, not out of any knowledge of such
asserting anything—simply flowers, having their things, and he may have much, but because they
root in the obedience of hand to form and a came thus under his hand, part of the picture as he
memory for form, and in an indefinite and beautiful mentally foreshadowed it. It is obvious from this
imagination. There is revealed to us by this art, if drawing that the study of such things sometimes
only for a moment, how freighted are the hours with tells, but for the moment it is to be believed that
beauty—and how indifferently we let them pass, their placing was instinctive, and as much a matter of
We are aware of figures coming and going, glowing inspiration as the design of the drapery and the
and fading under the artist's hand; their thoughts balance given by the shadows thrown faintly on the
are turned inward to their own pleasures, and they wall. Amendment and detail may follow his first
are on their way from a dream to a dream. Their impulse, in rapid afterthoughts, but his drawings
half decided gestures are
arrested, their conversa-
tions are interrupted, and
their business ends for our
desire. Moving towards a
strange doorway, by the
light of an unfamiliar
lamp, they whispered of
strange things, or they
were going down to the
sea; they were playing with
little babies, bathing them
in cool stone baths when
the artist surprised them,
or they were listening
where the echoes of their
music died within the still-
ness of the room. In the
drawing called The Cellist
where the girls rest, with
instruments in their hands,
in white dresses folded
against the white wall, all
that the artist has delicately
hinted to our imagination
by a gift of which he is the
possessor, is carried un-
consciously to completion
by ourselves. We colour the
hair of the languid girls, the
gold of their hair and the
brown violins' in the suave
lines ol the robes we
are aware of texture as
though we touched the
folds with our hands.
Those lines came there no. i. the stone bath series from the lithograph by c. h. shannon
28
photographic restrictions, though often arriving for the artist's delight, and they are corrected
at the truest definition through its more elastic by the straight lines of the perpendicular mirror,
and sensitive observation. One feels that that mirror was placed there
As a sonnet, just a few lines grouped to a spell of for that reason, the best of artistic reasons,
music or to realise in expression a momentary mood, and one hopes that Mr. Shannon put so many
so are these lithographs ; they are here for their own screws on the smaller instrument and so few
sake, not insisting on any shape too much, not on the large viol, not out of any knowledge of such
asserting anything—simply flowers, having their things, and he may have much, but because they
root in the obedience of hand to form and a came thus under his hand, part of the picture as he
memory for form, and in an indefinite and beautiful mentally foreshadowed it. It is obvious from this
imagination. There is revealed to us by this art, if drawing that the study of such things sometimes
only for a moment, how freighted are the hours with tells, but for the moment it is to be believed that
beauty—and how indifferently we let them pass, their placing was instinctive, and as much a matter of
We are aware of figures coming and going, glowing inspiration as the design of the drapery and the
and fading under the artist's hand; their thoughts balance given by the shadows thrown faintly on the
are turned inward to their own pleasures, and they wall. Amendment and detail may follow his first
are on their way from a dream to a dream. Their impulse, in rapid afterthoughts, but his drawings
half decided gestures are
arrested, their conversa-
tions are interrupted, and
their business ends for our
desire. Moving towards a
strange doorway, by the
light of an unfamiliar
lamp, they whispered of
strange things, or they
were going down to the
sea; they were playing with
little babies, bathing them
in cool stone baths when
the artist surprised them,
or they were listening
where the echoes of their
music died within the still-
ness of the room. In the
drawing called The Cellist
where the girls rest, with
instruments in their hands,
in white dresses folded
against the white wall, all
that the artist has delicately
hinted to our imagination
by a gift of which he is the
possessor, is carried un-
consciously to completion
by ourselves. We colour the
hair of the languid girls, the
gold of their hair and the
brown violins' in the suave
lines ol the robes we
are aware of texture as
though we touched the
folds with our hands.
Those lines came there no. i. the stone bath series from the lithograph by c. h. shannon
28