DOI Heft:
No. 158 (May, 1906)
DOI Artikel:Wood, Martin T.: The art of the late Arthur Melville, R.W.S. A.R.S.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20714#0306
I
Arthur Melville, R.PV.S., A.R.S.A.
sees it in its highest form in musical interpreta-
tion, explaining the historical triumphs of great
virtuosos.
Progressing from the stained drawing, water-
colour gradually raised itself to be an art no longer
existing upon a scaffolding of pencil work, but
became a medium containing within its boundaries
an open field for any experiment. In Melville's
hands it had the amenableness to alteration, to
changed desire, which the sculptor finds in wax
and clay, and the musician in his own art, the art
in which is found the explanation and the key to
the meaning of every other art, for within the
range of musical notes there can be expressed
alteration of feeling and every change of mood.
Thought may be watched changing itself upon
the surface of sound as the interchanging reflec-
tions of waving trees and moving clouds in
water. Such power Melville had in his art, which
was always lyrical, musical, naturally praising the
movement of life. Its delight was in sunshine; the
shadows are sorrowful that fall on the sunny walls,
and they were painted wistfully, with a sense that
they hid mysteries, and that in darkened doorways
life steps aside for tragedy. He liked the clamour
of the streets, the shouting at bull-fights; and for
a mood of silence, the restful life of water flowing
by a quiet quay.
Not a touch was added in Melville's pictures
that was not sensitively inspired, and his art not
only captures changing colour, but, as in the
picture The Cock Fight, seizes the gestures of the
excited Arabs, the excitement of their strained and
eager faces bending to watch the fight; the whole
scene is explained, though the birds are but scarcely
suggested. Melville had the supreme painter's gift
of conveying not atmosphere only of air and sun-
light, but also the psychic atmosphere, shall we say,
of a scene—its effect upon his own mind, the
glamour, the romance, for instance, of the East
as affecting a Western stranger. It is difficult to
know how to explain in words this quality which
is so integral a part of his art. Beyond his imita-
tion of the scene, he succeeded in conveying a
sense of its reality as happening. We hear the
plaudits at the bull-fights, and in his Eastern scenes
the sadness, the courage of the Arabs is as apparent
as their picturesqueness. He went deeper with his
art than those who say that painting praises only
the appearance of things. His instincts made him
aware that every phase in the appearance of things,
every small change on the outward surface of life,
" BEHIND THE SCENES AFTER A BULL-FIGHT "
286
BY ARTHUR MELVILLE
Arthur Melville, R.PV.S., A.R.S.A.
sees it in its highest form in musical interpreta-
tion, explaining the historical triumphs of great
virtuosos.
Progressing from the stained drawing, water-
colour gradually raised itself to be an art no longer
existing upon a scaffolding of pencil work, but
became a medium containing within its boundaries
an open field for any experiment. In Melville's
hands it had the amenableness to alteration, to
changed desire, which the sculptor finds in wax
and clay, and the musician in his own art, the art
in which is found the explanation and the key to
the meaning of every other art, for within the
range of musical notes there can be expressed
alteration of feeling and every change of mood.
Thought may be watched changing itself upon
the surface of sound as the interchanging reflec-
tions of waving trees and moving clouds in
water. Such power Melville had in his art, which
was always lyrical, musical, naturally praising the
movement of life. Its delight was in sunshine; the
shadows are sorrowful that fall on the sunny walls,
and they were painted wistfully, with a sense that
they hid mysteries, and that in darkened doorways
life steps aside for tragedy. He liked the clamour
of the streets, the shouting at bull-fights; and for
a mood of silence, the restful life of water flowing
by a quiet quay.
Not a touch was added in Melville's pictures
that was not sensitively inspired, and his art not
only captures changing colour, but, as in the
picture The Cock Fight, seizes the gestures of the
excited Arabs, the excitement of their strained and
eager faces bending to watch the fight; the whole
scene is explained, though the birds are but scarcely
suggested. Melville had the supreme painter's gift
of conveying not atmosphere only of air and sun-
light, but also the psychic atmosphere, shall we say,
of a scene—its effect upon his own mind, the
glamour, the romance, for instance, of the East
as affecting a Western stranger. It is difficult to
know how to explain in words this quality which
is so integral a part of his art. Beyond his imita-
tion of the scene, he succeeded in conveying a
sense of its reality as happening. We hear the
plaudits at the bull-fights, and in his Eastern scenes
the sadness, the courage of the Arabs is as apparent
as their picturesqueness. He went deeper with his
art than those who say that painting praises only
the appearance of things. His instincts made him
aware that every phase in the appearance of things,
every small change on the outward surface of life,
" BEHIND THE SCENES AFTER A BULL-FIGHT "
286
BY ARTHUR MELVILLE