DOI article:
Holmes, Charles: The History of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27085#0020
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
in their adjustment of tone relations as carefully studied as the
canvases of the oil painters. He abandoned the previous system of
setting down an arbitrary scheme of light and shade, which was
afterwards amplified in an apologetic fashion by thin washes of
colour. Instead he stated his subjects in all their varieties of local
hue, and recorded properly the changes in these hues caused by
shadows and half-tones. In fact, he substituted vigorous naturalism
for half-hearted conventionality, and looked at nature not as an
arrangement in black and white which might be tinted according to
certain set rules, but rather as a mass of colour which should be made
vivacious and sparkling by properly related light and shade.
This undoubtedly justifies the claim on his behalf that he was the
first of all the earlier water-colourists to prove that this particular
form of art was capable of independent and active existence. After
he had shown the way forward there was no turning back ; and,
until quite within recent years, when a few pedants have foolishly
tried to imitate the imperfections of the primitive tinted drawings,
the mannerisms of the old school have been properly disregarded.
Girtin set a fashion which, unlike most fashions, was based upon
reason and good taste, and he did it so brilliantly and with such
masterly confidence that he converted the whole of the rising
generation of artists to his views. His success is the more memor-
able because the bulk of his work was executed for purposes of
reproduction by engraving, and was therefore in all probability
subject to some limitations. But these limitations did not prevent
him from giving even to his illustrative drawings the fullest measure
of spontaneity and naturalistic charm, and did not hamper the
assertion of his delightful individuality ; they only narrowed his
choice of subject and caused him to occupy himself a little too
frequently with architectural motives. In qualities of handling his
drawings for reproduction suffer hardly at all by comparison with
his pure landscapes, with those studies of wide distances and stretches
of moorland which he treated with a largeness of style and a delicacy
of atmospheric quality such as no English painter before him had
attained.
It is possible that the influence of Girtin upon the men about him
might have been less immediate if there had been no opportunities
afforded to the younger painters to meet and exchange ideas about
their intentions and achievements. Facilities for the systematic
study of water-colour painting as an art were comparatively scarce.
It is true that many of the better-known painters took pupils, as
Sandby did, and so were able to train with some degree ot efficiency
h viii
in their adjustment of tone relations as carefully studied as the
canvases of the oil painters. He abandoned the previous system of
setting down an arbitrary scheme of light and shade, which was
afterwards amplified in an apologetic fashion by thin washes of
colour. Instead he stated his subjects in all their varieties of local
hue, and recorded properly the changes in these hues caused by
shadows and half-tones. In fact, he substituted vigorous naturalism
for half-hearted conventionality, and looked at nature not as an
arrangement in black and white which might be tinted according to
certain set rules, but rather as a mass of colour which should be made
vivacious and sparkling by properly related light and shade.
This undoubtedly justifies the claim on his behalf that he was the
first of all the earlier water-colourists to prove that this particular
form of art was capable of independent and active existence. After
he had shown the way forward there was no turning back ; and,
until quite within recent years, when a few pedants have foolishly
tried to imitate the imperfections of the primitive tinted drawings,
the mannerisms of the old school have been properly disregarded.
Girtin set a fashion which, unlike most fashions, was based upon
reason and good taste, and he did it so brilliantly and with such
masterly confidence that he converted the whole of the rising
generation of artists to his views. His success is the more memor-
able because the bulk of his work was executed for purposes of
reproduction by engraving, and was therefore in all probability
subject to some limitations. But these limitations did not prevent
him from giving even to his illustrative drawings the fullest measure
of spontaneity and naturalistic charm, and did not hamper the
assertion of his delightful individuality ; they only narrowed his
choice of subject and caused him to occupy himself a little too
frequently with architectural motives. In qualities of handling his
drawings for reproduction suffer hardly at all by comparison with
his pure landscapes, with those studies of wide distances and stretches
of moorland which he treated with a largeness of style and a delicacy
of atmospheric quality such as no English painter before him had
attained.
It is possible that the influence of Girtin upon the men about him
might have been less immediate if there had been no opportunities
afforded to the younger painters to meet and exchange ideas about
their intentions and achievements. Facilities for the systematic
study of water-colour painting as an art were comparatively scarce.
It is true that many of the better-known painters took pupils, as
Sandby did, and so were able to train with some degree ot efficiency
h viii