Studio: international art (36.1906)

Studio- 'Talk

In this lies the virtue of their work, and also its
manifold shortcomings.

For a theory like theirs brings with it an utter
negation of form, the annihilation of everything
else that was deemed essential in the practice of
pictorial art. If it is merely necessary to make us
feel the beauty of two colours and the effect they
have upon each other, then we have arrived at the
end of painting. The Dabos know their colour.
They excel in sensitive juxtaposition. They apply
the technique of the impressionists to flat tints.
Each of their values is premeditated, weighed,
examined until it meets their favour. There is
no room for improvisation in their technique : it
is one of thought, reflection, combination, will.
There is a serious danger, however, in going to
an extreme. Whistler, in his nocturnes, went as
far as any painter can safely go in the immolation

of fame; he put special stress in the broadest
colour-impressions possible, but at the same time
reached new power in poignancy of line and rare
constructive schemes.

To neglect form, to treat it at times as if it were
non-existent, as the Dabo Brothers persistently and
obstinately do, is open to the severest criticism.
They may claim, of course, that they have made
colour a vehicle of music-like vibrations. “ We are
the painters of atmospheric conditions,” they say;
“everything in nature moves, we therefore endeavour
to paint movement.” Thus in one of their pictures,
if we can trust our eyes, the red disc of the sun
actually seems to disappear and reappear in a
stratum of mist; and in another, entitled Mist in the
Hackenrick River, we seem to see the nebulous
clouds in the valley shift hither and thither, displaying
a bit of emerald shore that is continually varying

PAINTING

BY LEON DABO