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#0311
Arthur Melville, R.W.S., A.R.S.A.
PORTRAIT BY ARTHUR MELVILLE
devices of imitation. No work of his seems more
inspired by the truths of nature. It has colour, it
has atmosphere and movement, it actually makes
the legend live ; the subject exists not only in
tradition but in the very facts of life as part of the
natural phenomena which his art was at such
pains to embrace. It is painted^ith something of
the easy, swift method, the great knowledge, which
is characteristic of his water-colours, and it antici-
pates the formation of a style entirely personal as
he freed himself from various influences and
approached less tentatively his oil painting.
Melville's pictures show so complete a mastery
as to mislead his critics into thinking that they
were brought to a conclusion very rapidly. Like
almost every master, he worked swiftly, out of
the certainty of his skill and knowledge of what
he intended to do. His craftsmanship was swift
because instinctive, the hand being completely at
the service of the brain. He saw beauty so readily
everywhere that nothing but fastidious selection
stood between him and the rapid realisation of his
ideas—a fastidiousness that is the birthright of
all those to whom it is easy to do things. He was
fortunately possessed of powers of criticism as
regards his own work not less than his powers of
creation, and this inevitably brought his work to the
perfection it attained, as he rejected first this idea
and then that, in his instinctive though almost
painful search for composition which expressed the
quintessence of the beauty he felt around him.
Upon the plane of mediocrity is the mere struggle
for expression; the pains of genius lie in the diffi-
cult choice from many instinctive ways. A little
study of contemporary water-colours reveals Melville
the master who never called himself the master;
who, whilst teaching perfection in one art with
humility, was learning from his own experience
of its difficulties an extraordinary perfection of
achievement in another. In mid-career Melville
put away his water-colours. It would be
difficult to find a parallel to this; it is as
though some great player like Sarasate in mid-
I'ORTRAIT : "OPAL BY ARTHUR MELVILLE
AND GREY "
29I
PORTRAIT BY ARTHUR MELVILLE
devices of imitation. No work of his seems more
inspired by the truths of nature. It has colour, it
has atmosphere and movement, it actually makes
the legend live ; the subject exists not only in
tradition but in the very facts of life as part of the
natural phenomena which his art was at such
pains to embrace. It is painted^ith something of
the easy, swift method, the great knowledge, which
is characteristic of his water-colours, and it antici-
pates the formation of a style entirely personal as
he freed himself from various influences and
approached less tentatively his oil painting.
Melville's pictures show so complete a mastery
as to mislead his critics into thinking that they
were brought to a conclusion very rapidly. Like
almost every master, he worked swiftly, out of
the certainty of his skill and knowledge of what
he intended to do. His craftsmanship was swift
because instinctive, the hand being completely at
the service of the brain. He saw beauty so readily
everywhere that nothing but fastidious selection
stood between him and the rapid realisation of his
ideas—a fastidiousness that is the birthright of
all those to whom it is easy to do things. He was
fortunately possessed of powers of criticism as
regards his own work not less than his powers of
creation, and this inevitably brought his work to the
perfection it attained, as he rejected first this idea
and then that, in his instinctive though almost
painful search for composition which expressed the
quintessence of the beauty he felt around him.
Upon the plane of mediocrity is the mere struggle
for expression; the pains of genius lie in the diffi-
cult choice from many instinctive ways. A little
study of contemporary water-colours reveals Melville
the master who never called himself the master;
who, whilst teaching perfection in one art with
humility, was learning from his own experience
of its difficulties an extraordinary perfection of
achievement in another. In mid-career Melville
put away his water-colours. It would be
difficult to find a parallel to this; it is as
though some great player like Sarasate in mid-
I'ORTRAIT : "OPAL BY ARTHUR MELVILLE
AND GREY "
29I