Studio: international art (35.1905)

Studio-Talk

“windmill hill”

BY W. T. HORTON

whilst there, impressions of sunlight and atmo-
sphere, and drawings also, with the partly decora-
tive treatment that characterises our reproductions.
He explored the country quite away from the
beaten tracks, and it was the wayside incidents
and the old houses that chiefly interested him.
Some of the scenery has a
close similarity, in his pic-
tures, to English landscape,
for he has been chiefly con-
cerned with those parts
where agricultural life and
its familiar incidents form
a basis of similarity in the
art of several countries
in Europe. These Polish
sketches realise altogether
another atmosphere to that
which the English land-
scape conjures up. The
picture Ploughing, is an
example of this, not only
in the great difference of
costume depicted, but in
the colour and the atmos-

phere. It is very desirable to have
an Englishman’s artistic record of
a stay in a country, the landscape
of which the majority of people are
so little familiar with, and apparently
the new country has stimulated the
artist to some very interesting wrork ;
his sketches realise in a very effec-
tive manner the quality of light that
envelops the scenery at different
hours of the day. The artist is
evidently possessed of an acute
sensitiveness to the peculiar kind
of effects to be seen in the country,
and he has imparted to many of his
sketches a fascinating quality of
colour. Criticising his sketches closely, we find
he is perhaps in some cases a little too keenly
in pursuit of the evasive moods of nature.
He certainly found his best effects in the early
morning or at evening. Sometimes in his sketches
of the full day, the deep colour of the strong

“THE POPLARS” BY W. T. HORTON

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